In order to best serve young people, we need consciously to consider both the basic underpinnings of intellectual freedom in our society and the requirements of the professionals roles we play. My personal interpretation of professional assumptions and our role in this drama follows, and I invite others to read, question, think, criticize, and share their own interpretations to help keep this drama alive. Without this ongoing dialogue and challenge to ideas and beliefs, there is no intellectual freedom. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the embodiment of personal rights for all citizens in the United States. We must acknowledge, however, that other nations may not ascribe to all the values represented in these documents.
Conflicts surrounding intellectual freedom are conflicts of values.
We live in a society in which many national or local legal systems impose particular, often very narrow, restrictions on access to information. Often our concerns with these legal restrictions detract attention from larger social, economic, and political restrictions. A position as a teacher or librarian is not necessarily a license to lobby for issues or ideas-perhaps not even for intellectual freedom. Therefore, such professionals should think very carefully about accepting positions in communities which obviously hold values in conflict with their own. Thus, a distinction must be drawn between literal and literary reality.