In the last two installments of this short series we have pretty much exhausted the store of major recent reference tools for intellectual freedom. “Quotations and Anthologies,” this latest entry in the series stretches even the most liberal definition of "reference;" just consider it poetic license.

QUOTATIONS

While most general purpose dictionaries of quotations will include several entries under "censorship" or its synonyms, it can be quite difficult to locate just the right intellectual freedom-related quotation. For instance, it might be hiding under "libraries," "liberty," or "freedom." There is really only one readily available tool which pulls together a significant number of intellectual freedom quotes (eighty-one by actual count) in one convenient location, our old friend, Bob Doyle's Banned Books Week (Chicago: American Library Association). If you haven’t gotten the message before, this is a highly practical and therefore invaluable tool for libraries and librarians to possess. If buying the Banned Books Week kit is beyond your means, at least get a copy of the book every few years and hold on to it!

ANTHOLOGIES

If you want a very quick overview of the issues aimed at the beginner (actually, aimed at high school students), you might want to examine the Greenhaven Press title, Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints, below. It's one of the few collections readily available with an article actually defending censorship in general. At the other extreme is Downs' classic, The First Freedom, which contains essays foundational to the library profession's understanding of free speech and the freedom to read. Speaking Out is a very recent and much more modest compendium of contemporary statements on intellectual freedom.

• Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego Greenhaven Press, 1997).
  
  
  • This title contains a collection of twenty-eight short essays grouped under the following four questions. 1) "Should there be limits to free speech?" 2) "Is censorship occurring in schools and libraries?" 3) "Are stronger antipornography laws needed?" and 4) "Should the entertainment media be censored?" Each of the four sections in turn contains a pair of pro and con treatments of specific topics. For instance the first chapter addresses flag burning, sexually harassing speech and government funding for the arts. Each chapter closes with a bibliography of recent articles from periodicals. The book concludes with a brief annotated list of contacts, a bibliography of monographs (all published in the 1990s) and an index. Although this 1997 title is not labeled as a revised edition, Greenhaven Press has produced earlier, similar titles in its Opposing Viewpoints Series. In addition according to its catalog, Greenhaven now lists Censorship as a new title, first edition, 2002. Go figure. In any case, it is easily accessible in price, format, style and content.
  
  
• Downs, Robert Bingham. The First Freedom (Chicago, American Library Association, 1960).
  
  
  • Downs’ book is a classic collection of more that eighty writings in defense of intellectual freedom produced during the first half of the twentieth century. Authors include literary giants, lesser lights, historians, jurists, journalists and librarians. While some of the specific issues addressed are mostly of historical interest, the vast majority of the essays retain their relevance for twenty-first century defenders of intellectual freedom. As has been said about advancement in the sciences "We stand on the shoulders of giants." Though out of print, it should be readily available via interlibrary loan as it is held by over 1500 libraries.
  
  
• Symons, Ann K. and Reed, Sally Gardner. Speaking Out! Voices in Celebration of Intellectual Freedom. (Chicago, American Library Association, 1999).
  
  
  • While much more modest in size than Down’s title, this collection more than makes up for its diminutive size by the immediacy and relevance of its essays. Each article was authored by someone engaged in the late twentieth century’s censorship wars and written especially for this collection. As an added bonus, each essay is preceded by a relevant quotation from biblical to modern sources upon which the essay was based. This title is in print and available from ALA.
  
  
• Garvey, John H. and Schauer, Frederick. The First Amendment: a Reader. 2nd Edition. (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1996).
  
  
• Lively, Donald E., Roberts, Dorothy E. and Weaver Russell L. First Amendment Anthology. ([Cincinnati, Ohio]: Anderson Publishing Co., 1994).
  
  
  • These two titles were selected to represent a whole class of works (collections of legal essays) which are beyond my competence to evaluate but which might at times prove helpful to interested librarians. The First Amendment: a Reader is a title in West’s American Casebook Series while First Amendment Anthology is an "Anderson’s Law School Publications." While most of the essays in these works assume a certain degree of familiarity with legal principles and that the reader is involved in the process of developing a "legal mind," many of them can be read and appreciated by a legal layperson such as myself. Let’s just say, for want of a better euphemism, that they are "challenging" but helpful.