The text of the interpretation is published in the Intellectual Freedom Manual, ninth edition (2015), part II, chapter 1, and on the ALA website.
The Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL’s) Intellectual Freedom Committee began work on “Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries” during the fall of 1998. By the 1999 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, the document had gone through two drafts. At the Midwinter Meeting, the committee endorsed a third draft, which was published in the June issue of College & Research Libraries News. Accompanying the draft was notice of an open hearing scheduled at the 1999 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans. At the same time, responses were solicited from readers of the third draft. Deliberations by the ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee before and after the 1999 Annual Conference hearing provided the basis for the fourth draft, which was submitted to the ACRL Board of Directors for approval. The ACRL Board unanimously approved the document on June 29, 1999. Subsequently, on January 16, 2000, the statement was endorsed by ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee. The ALA Council adopted the document as an interpretation on July 12, 2000.
On November 11, 2000, the American Association of University Professors endorsed the document, stating their concern that college and university librarians be designated the same rights afforded to other faculty in regard to intellectual freedom and requesting that their endorsement be prefaced with the following language from the “Joint Statement on Faculty Status of College and University Librarians,” as contained in AAUP: Policy Documents and Reports, 1995 edition:
College and university librarians share the professional concerns of faculty members. Academic freedom, for example, is indispensable to librarians, because they are trustees of knowledge with responsibility of ensuring the availability of information and ideas, no matter how controversial, so that teachers may freely teach and students may freely learn. Moreover, as members of the academic community, librarians should have latitude in the exercise of their professional judgment within the library, a share in shaping policy within the institution, and adequate opportunities for professional development and appropriate reward.
During its 2013–14 review of ALA intellectual freedom policy statements, the Intellectual Freedom Committee, after consulting with the Professional Values Committee of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), proposed two revisions to the interpretation. It changed the first sentence to include “instruction,” and it changed item 10 to include “age” in the list of characteristics that should not form the basis for discrimination in affording access to information. These proposed changes were presented to the ALA Council for approval on July 1, 2014. At the meeting, the council proposed, discussed, and approved by consent an amendment adding “gender identity” and “sensory” and “cognitive” disabilities to the list in item 10, and then approved all the changes.