Pat Scales has been a passionate advocate for intellectual freedom long before she launched the Scales on Censorship column with School Library Journal in 2006. Decades of experience as a school librarian informs her ongoing work on these important and often volatile issues, as did her tenure in leadership roles on the American Library Associations Intellectual Freedom Committee and at the Freedom To Read Foundation. It also earned her a place among the inaugural list of Library Journals Movers Shakers in 2002. Since her first column for SLJ she has been in an ongoing conversation of sorts with librarians, teachers, and parents—a much needed conversation. This collection of the wide-ranging questions from readers and Scales informative answers are gathered in broad thematic groups to help readers explore the all-too daily reality of confronting efforts to censor, ban, or otherwise limit open and ready access to materials in our schools and libraries.
