The Massachusetts Library System is working with the American Library Association to provide a 5-webinar series designed to help you navigate issues concerning intellectual freedom.  

Managing First Amendment Audits and Social Media are an ongoing challenge for public and school libraries. The webinar will share legal basics and the policies and procedures that can help libraries respond to these challenges. Staff will know how to navigate a First Amendment audit and how to manage the libraries’ social media platform, as well as how to handle social media posts that other groups share. 

Presenters:

Deborah Caldwell-Stone is Director of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom and Executive Director of the Freedom to Read Foundation. For over twenty years she has worked closely with library professionals and library trustees on a wide range of intellectual freedom issues related to library service in the United States. She has served on the faculty of the ALA-sponsored Lawyers for Libraries and Law for Librarians workshops and is a contributor to the 10th edition of the Intellectual Freedom Manual,the third edition of Information Services Today, and other publications.

Betsy Gomez is a program officer for ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, coordinator for Unite Against Book Bans and the Banned Books Week Coalition, and former coalition and editorial director for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, an advocacy organization dedicated to the First Amendment rights of the comics community. Gomez edited and designed the award-winning publication CBLDF Presents: She Changed Comics, which profiles more than 60 groundbreaking women who expanded the expressive possibilities of the comics medium. With more than a decade of professional experience defending intellectual freedom, Gomez also has an extensive background in educational publishing as a content developer and editor for several companies, including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Pearson Education. 

Registrants will receive an email with login information 24 hours before the session. If you do not receive the login information, please check your spam folder (sometimes these automated emails can get caught by filters) or contact Sarah Donnelly.