It is relevant to the research process to understand something about censorship in libraries and how the debate has changed in the electronic age. Most recently, ALA has extended its position on censorship to include information accessed over the Internet.
Freedom of expression is an unalienable human right and the foundation of self-government.
Freedom of expression encompasses the freedom of speech and the corollary right to receive information. These rights, as outlined in ALA's guidelines, extend to adults and to children. Libraries and librarians exist to facilitate the exercise of these rights by selecting, providing access to, and preserving information, regardless of the technology. Information retrieved from the Internet has not gone through an evaluation by librarians. When libraries begin to offer broad Internet access, they open the door to access to all sorts of information that would otherwise never appear on a library's shelves.