The Fight against Book Bans: Perspectives from the School Library
Jamie M. Gregory, MLIS, is the Upper School librarian and journalism/newspaper teacher at Christ Church Episcopal School in Greenville, SC. She earned Bachelor’s degrees in English and French from Wofford College and went on to earn a master’s in teaching from Converse College and the master’s in library and information science from the University of South Carolina. She has written for publications such as Teacher Librarian and School Library Journal, blogged for ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom for almost 4 years, and presented webinars on intellectual freedom and information, media, and news literacy topics through Infobase. She is the 2022 South Carolina School Librarian of the Year, the 2022 recipient of the Intellectual Freedom Round Table’s Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award, a 2022 Library Journal Mover & Shaker, a 2023 ALA I Love My Librarian Award recipient, and the 2023 South Carolina Association of School Librarians’ Intellectual Freedom Award recipient. Follow her on Twitter @gregorjm.
Kelly Mayfield, MA, works in Collection Services at Columbus Metropolitan Library in Columbus, OH. She earned her master’s in theology from St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad, IN. Following her three years of working as a paraprofessional school librarian at a private elementary school, she began to pursue an MLIS from the University of Kentucky and anticipates completing this degree in 2024. She is the author of Mine in China, a guidebook to adoption from China.
Kristin Pekoll, MLIS, is a former YA librarian from Wisconsin. For eight years she provided professional and emotional support to library workers experiencing bans and challenges as the assistant director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. She is the author of Beyond Banned Books: Defending Intellectual Freedom throughout Your Library published by ALA Editions in 2019. Currently she works with the Illinois Library Association team as their Conference and Continuing Education Manager.
Shannon M. Oltmann is associate professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. She earned her doctorate from Indiana University. Oltmann is author of Libraries Unlimited’s Practicing Intellectual Freedom in Libraries and has been published in numerous academic journals. Her research interests include information ethics, censorship, intellectual freedom, information policy, public libraries, privacy, and qualitative research methods. Oltmann is the past editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy and associate editor of Library Quarterly. Her work has been funded by the American Library Association and the Institute of Museum & Library Studies.
