The Library Bill of Rights Celebrates 75 Years

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Library Bill of Rights. This is a document created in 1939 by the American Library Association that expresses the rights of library users to intellectual freedom and access to information.

Since 1939, the Library Bill of Rights has gone through 6 major revisions and to this day is the library profession's standard for preserving intellectual freedom.

Below is the text of the Library Bill of Rights. We encourage you to read through this text and celebrate with us your ability to access the many balanced library collections across the United States!

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

 

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

 

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

 

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

 

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

 

V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

 

VI. Libraries that make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

 

Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961; June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996.