Nominations Open for 2024 IFRT Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Relations Award

CHICAGO — The Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) Coalition Building Committee is accepting nominations for the 2024 Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Relations Award.

The Gerald Hodges 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. This award consists of a citation and $1,000.

The deadline for nominations is February 1, 2024. An online nomination form and printable PDF nomination form are available.

The award is named after Gerald Hodges, who joined the ALA staff in 1989 as director of membership services and the Chapter Relations Office. Hodges was the associate director of communications and marketing at his death in 2006, but intellectual freedom and chapter relations were still his passions. A charter member of the ALA Legacy Society, he willed a portion of his estate to support ALA's intellectual freedom efforts. Memorial contributions in recognition of Hodges came from many friends, colleagues and ALA chapters following the establishment of the Gerald Hodges Fund.

Past recipients include the Michigan Library Association (2023) and the Tennessee Library Association & the Tennessee Association of School Librarians (2022). Learn more about past recipients, programs, and projects on the IFRT website.

Members of the IFRT Coalition Building Committee are Chair Matthew Sylvain, Leanne Cheek, Cynthia Dudenhoffer, and Cyndi Robinson.

About the Intellectual Freedom Round Table

The Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) provides a forum for the discussion of activities, programs, and problems in intellectual freedom of libraries and librarians; serves as a channel of communications on intellectual freedom matters; promotes a greater opportunity for involvement among the members of the ALA in defense of intellectual freedom; promotes a greater feeling of responsibility in the implementation of ALA policies on intellectual freedom. For more information, visit www.ala.org/rt/ifrt

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