- Free to All: Public Libraries in U.S. Society

Catalog description

An exploration of how societal factors such as class, race, gender, sexuality, and immigration impacted the development of libraries in the 19th and 20th centuries and their continuing influence on public libraries in the United States today. Students will investigate how contemporary libraries address societal inequities through their resources, services, and collections, and how societal forces directly impact how these libraries operate. A primary focus will be censorship including the radical shift from an acceptance and enforcement of censorship in early libraries to the staunch defense of intellectual freedom seen today. Students will conduct primary source research on cases of censorship to design Banned Books Week posters for the campus.