Emerging Best Practices for Responding to Book Challenges
.png)
Explore best practices and policies for dealing with challenges.
Emily Knox and Shannon M. Oltmann share preliminary findings from new research on book challenges, including best practices to implement in your library.
Over the past two years, members of the Mapping Information Access research group, including Emily Knox, Shannon Oltmann, and Andy Zalot, have been interviewing public library directors to find out more about their experiences with book challenges.
Several new best practices for policies and guidelines have emerged from these interviews.
Join Emily Knox and Shannon M. Oltmann as they share preliminary findings from this research, including best practices to implement in your library.
Join us on Wednesday, July 29, 2026
at 2:00 pm US Eastern, 11:00 am US Pacific
Fill out the form to register for the webinar
.png?width=639&height=630&name=2.%2007-29%20Knox%20and%20Oltmann%20Webinar%20Images%20-%20Body%20landing%20image%20(640x630px).png "Library bookshelves criss-crossed with caution tape.")
Register to receive the recording
If you're interested but not able to attend the live webinar, go ahead and register. We'll send a recording to all registrants after the event.
About Emily and Shannon
Emily Knox is interim dean and professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include information access and intellectual freedom and censorship. She is a member of the Mapping Information Access research team. The second edition of her book, Book Banning in 21st Century America (Bloomsbury), was published in January 2026. Her previous book, Foundations of Intellectual Freedom (ALA Neal-Schuman) won the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Prize for best published work in the area of intellectual freedom. She has been interviewed by media outlets such as NPR and the New York Times and also testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on book banning. Emily previously served on the boards of the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Freedom to Read Foundation, and is a former editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. She received her PhD from the Rutgers University School of Communication & Information.
Shannon M. Oltmann is the Associate Dean and Director of the School of Information Sciences at Wayne State University, where she is also a full Professor. Previously, Oltmann was an Associate Professor and Program
Coordinator in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. She obtained her Ph.D. from Indiana University. Oltmann’s research interests include intellectual freedom, censorship, information precarity, and qualitative research methods. She wrote the book Practicing Intellectual Freedom in Libraries and edited The Fight Against Book Bans: Perspectives from the Field; her work has been funded by the American Library Association and the Institute of Museum & Library Services. She studies the implementation of and resistance to censorship in libraries and other spaces. Another stream of work investigates information precarity, a lack of information and resources brought about by systemic marginalization. Oltmann has published widely and led many presentations on banned books and intellectual freedom.
.png?width=686&height=677&name=07-29%20Knox%20Webinar%20Images%20-%20Bio%20Pic%20-%20Knox%20and%20Oltmann%20(686x677px).png "Tiles of Niche Buddy and two smiling women")
Join us
Learn practical strategies for helping patrons find alternatives to using Big Tech.