We've lost a good one, folks.

I was sad to hear about Judith Krug's death, mostly because I had no idea who Judith King was. You are probably more easily forgiven for not knowing, since you are not a rebel librarian. For me, not knowing who Judith Krug is probably means the library police are on their way to my house to strip me of my overpriced credentials. Read the Jezebel article if you want to be caught up. Once you're done, you can bank on the fact that your masters degree is in the mail.

I took an Intellectual Freedom course when I was in library school (how much do I still love that I went to something called library school?). It was taught by a passionate, if slightly insane, professor, who had once been called an evil witch for dressing up and delivering a Halloween puppet show. This is only the tip of the iceberg. A lot of people I know scoff at the idea that libraries, and publishers, and writers, and magazines, actually have to defend the books they write, the programs they offer, the basic tenets of what they do. I used to do the same thing. It seems completely crazy that anyone would disagree with offering all books to all people. Sad to say, it is not so crazy after all. And even sadder, the most challenged books are often the ones written for the people who need them most. A challenge to LGBTQ-positive books for teens in West Bend, Indiana, is going on as we speak. A friend of mine heard Barry Lyga speak at a teen writers' conference last fall about the fact that his incredible, moving book, Boy Toy, which explores a delicate, heartbreaking relationship between a teenage boy and his teacher, hasn't been challenged in libraries, because so many libraries haven't bought it, because so many major booksellers aren't even carrying it. That's just the tip of the iceberg. That's one tiny piece of the censorship fight, and it's a battle librarians engage in every day, just by showing up to work.

Judith Krug was a librarian who cared passionately about that fight. She founded Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of challenged titles that draws attention to the importance of intellectual freedom and gives librarians an awesome excuse to pull together potentially offensive displays. Her death has brought me back to my angry, revolutionary, grad student state of mind. It's easy to enter the workforce and forget that we're battling a larger beast, that we're combating ignorance and promoting access at every turn. I'm so sad to know that Judith Krug is gone, but I'm so glad that her death is reminding us all that we need to keep on with this fight for all books to be read by all people.

(For more on the terrifying need for intellectual freedom, read all the articles listed here.)