It’s a new committee year with new challenges. The ALSC Intellectual Committee is up to the task! Meet the 2025-26 committee members:
Deanna Day is passionate about children’s rights to read. Every child deserves access to books they would like to read, especially books that mirror their experiences. All children also deserve window books where they can read about the lives of others. Deanna teaches children’s literature and literacy courses at Washington State University. Besides reading children’s books she loves to garden.
Judy Ehrenstein is a long-time children’s librarian, working in Montgomery County, MD. She has served on ALSC’s Sibert Informational Book Award committee and the Association of Jewish Libraries’ Sydney Taylor Book Award committee. Fun reading interests include historical fiction usually about women in England during WWII, semi cozy mysteries, and cookbooks.
Joanna Goldfarb is a co-chair of the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee. She has held many positions in libraries including youth services librarian, teen librarian, and youth services consultant, and is currently the Sustainability Innovation Consultant for the Ramapo Catskill Library System. Joanna is an active member of ALSC and SustainRT, and served on the 2023 Caldecott Committee. Joanna enjoys reading books with dragons, running marathons, and attempting to keep plants alive.
Allison G. Kaplan retired from the Information School at the University of Wisconsin – Madison where she taught courses in children’s literature, youth services, various school library courses, and cataloging. Encouraging folks to be advocates for their libraries and the youth in their communities is a passion of hers and the reason she is happy to be on the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee.
Julia A. Nephew is a co-chair of the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee. She has been a Youth Services librarian since 2016 and has served on state and national intellectual freedom committees. She served as a member of the Caldecott 2023 Award Committee. Julia is Head of Youth Services at Winfield Public Library in Winfield, Illinois. She is published in Children and Libraries.
Mandy Werrin is a Librarian for the Sacramento Public Library in Sacramento, CA. She is involved with early learning initiatives and believes that kids and caregivers should have access to books and materials that reflect their families and the world around them. She joined the IFC because she believes that intellectual freedom contributes to a well-informed and healthy community.
Today’s blog post was written by Joanna Goldfarb, Sustainability Innovation Consultant at the Ramapo Catskill Library System on behalf of the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee. They can be reached at jgoldfarb@rcls.org
This post addresses the core competencies of I. Commitment to Client Group and IV. Knowledge, Curation, and Management of Materials.