---
title: "Intellectual freedom"
chunk: 5/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_freedom"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:16:50.358602+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The Fear of the Word: Censorship and Sex. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1974.
Ideas and the University Library: Essays of an Unorthodox Academic Librarian. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.
Defending Intellectual Freedom: The Library and the Censor. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980.
To Free the Mind: Libraries, Technology, and Intellectual Freedom. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1983."
Awarded to acknowledge authorship in the area of intellectual freedom, the IFRT considers "single articles (including review pieces), a series of thematically connected articles, books, or manuals published on the local, state or national level in English or English translation" for receipt of the Eli M. Oboler Award.

=== John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award ===
Since 1976, the ALA's Intellectual Freedom Round Table annually sponsors the John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award. Consisting of a $500 prize and a citation, the award "honors the courage, dedication, and contribution of a living individual, group, or organization who has set the finest kind of example for the defense and furtherance of the principles of intellectual freedom." Upon his death in 1979, the award was renamed for John Phillip Immroth, the founder and first Chair of the Intellectual Freedom Round Table. The Immroth award differs from other intellectual freedom awards in that it recognizes "extraordinary personal courage in the defense of intellectual freedom."

=== Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Relations Award ===
Since 1984, the ALA's Intellectual Freedom Round Table annually sponsors a regional intellectual freedom award, currently named the Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Relations Award. Consisting of a $1000 prize and citation, the award "recognizes an intellectual freedom focused organization that has developed a strong multi-year, ongoing program or a single, one-year project that exemplifies support for intellectual freedom, patron confidentiality, and anti-censorship efforts." The IFRT posthumously named this award for Gerald Hodges, a longtime ALA officer who devoted his library career to his passion for both intellectual freedom and chapter relations until his death in 2006. In 2010 the Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Award replaced the IFRT State and Regional Intellectual Freedom Achievement Award which had been annually awarded "to the most innovative and effective intellectual freedom project covering a state or region."

=== AASL Intellectual Freedom Award ===
Since 1982, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of the ALA, annually awards the Intellectual Freedom Award. Consisting of a $2000 prize to the recipient and a $1000 prize to the school library program of the recipient's choice, the award honors a school librarian "for upholding the principles of intellectual freedom as set forth by the American Association of School Librarians and the American Library Association."

=== Gordon M. Conable Award ===
Since 2007, the Public Library Association (PLA), a division of the ALA, annually awards the Gordon M. Conable Award. Consisting of a $1500 prize and commemorative plaque, the award "honors a public library staff member, a library trustee, or a public library that has demonstrated a commitment to intellectual freedom and the Library Bill of Rights."

== Intellectual freedom under authoritarian rule ==
Intellectual freedom is often suppressed under authoritarian rule and such governments often claim to have nominal intellectual freedom, although the degree of freedom is a matter of dispute. The former USSR, for example, claimed to provide intellectual freedom, but some analysts in the West have stated that the degree of intellectual freedom was nominal at best.

== Intellectual freedom in democratic countries during times of crises ==
During times of crises there is often debate within democratic countries as to the balance between national security, a successful conclusion to the crises and the maintenance of democratic civil liberties. This debate often takes the form of to what extent a democratic government can curtail civil liberties in the interest of successfully ending the crises.

=== Canada ===
Such a debate existed in Canada during the Second World War. Since the First World War the War Measures Act had existed as legislation in Canada to allow the government to operate with greater powers during times of national crises, such as in wartime. During the Second World War the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King enacted the measure by Order-in-Council. The War Measures Act and with it the Defence of Canada Regulations were passed by the federal government in early September 1939. With their implementation civil liberties, especially the intellectual freedom of political dissenters, were curtailed.   As well, in Quebec the Union Nationale government of Premier Maurice Duplessis enacted “An Act Respecting Communist Propaganda”, which came to be known as the Padlock Act. It gave Premier Duplesis, as Attorney General of Quebec, the power to close (hence padlock) any premises used for the purposes of “propagating Communism or Bolshevism.” The Act was criticized by Eugene Forsey, for example, as being far too broad in definition and that it gave the Premier the power to suppress any opinions that he wished to. Forsey cited examples of such abuse in the Canadian Forum.
All of these measures were criticized by writers in the Canadian Forum such as Eugene Forsey  and Frank R. Scott and by the League for Social Reconstruction in general; a group to which both Forsey and Scott belonged. Indeed, during the Second World War the Canadian Forum printed an anonymous monthly column outlining civil liberties abuses by Canadian authorities.