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Libraries: First Amendment Bastions

Libraries serve the public and promote First Amendment freedoms in many ways.
  • They are storehouses of ideas.
  • They provide access to information needed for decision making.
  • They disseminate ideas through books, periodicals, videos, the Internet, and more.
  • They provide meeting space for groups.
  • They sometimes serve as sites of sit-ins and protests.
Accessing information in a publicly funded library is your First Amendment right.
Libraries: First Amendment Bastions
“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

- William Brennan, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
A Marketplace of Ideas:
First Amendment Bastions
First Amendment Battlefields
The First Amendment