Library Bill of Rights
In 1938, as concerns regarding censorship mounted, Spaulding wrote a library bill of rights. He presented it before the Des Moines library board and it was passed by the board as a proclamation that they would not give in to pressures to censor items from their collection. In the State Library of Iowa’s biography Forrest Spaulding it is noted that in 1940 he was challenged regarding his library's copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf. "Spaulding responded by saying that, 'if more people had read Mein Kampf, some of Hitler's despotism might have been prevented.' He maintained that the danger to the United States was not in knowing all about Hitler, but in not knowing all about him. He said 'we should fear the tendency of small minds in these days of stress.’” Spaulding's library bill was later adopted by the American Library Association and continues to remain a strong influence to librarianship today. While the Library Bill of Rights was amended several times by the ALA to account for new media and concerns related to age, the original intent remains, which is, to protect people's right to access information and to use the library.
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