AASL Member Forum

Dr. Jenna Spiering is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the school library concentration at the University of South Carolina's School of Information, where she teaches within the school librarian preparation program and engages in research related to youth materials and issues of censorship and selection. In this talk, she will discuss her recent work on several projects related to challenges to LGBTQIA+ titles as well as the impact of state regulations on the role of school librarians in collection development. Each project has been developed to gain a better understanding of the shifting landscape of school librarianship among the unprecedented wave of book challenges, district, state, federal mandates and legislation, and heightened scrutiny. With this increased scrutiny it's more important than ever for school librarians to be equipped with research that explores the complex layers of the effort to ban and censor materials in K-12 schools, illuminating the threats and highlighting the opportunities for resistance and advocacy within the profession.