Deborah Caldwell-Stone named acting director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom
Contact: Steve Zalusky
Manager of Communications,
ALA Public Information Office
(312) 280-1546
NEWS
For Immediate Release,
April 21, 2009
CHICAGO – The American Library Association (ALA) has announced that Deborah Caldwell-Stone will serve as Acting Director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), effective immediately.
The office’s longtime director, Judith Fingeret Krug, died April 11 after a lengthy illness at the age of 69. A tireless advocate for intellectual freedom who fought censorship on behalf of America’s libraries, Krug had been in charge of the office and the ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation for more than 40 years.
As acting director, Caldwell-Stone will carry on the legacy of Krug, of whom Caldwell-Stone said, "She was a force of nature, fiercely determined to make sure that censorship wouldn't triumph in the library or the larger world.”
Caldwell-Stone, who will also serve as acting director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, joined OIF in October 2000, working on projects dealing with censorship and privacy in libraries. While at ALA, she has written a number of articles on privacy and confidentiality, filtering and other issues.
An attorney by training, she practiced appellate law before the state and federal courts in Chicago before coming to ALA in 2000, as an Associate at Cassiday, Schade & Gloor (1998-2000).  She also worked in the Ameritech Legal Department, as an Attorney (1996-1998) and, before that, as a Law Clerk (1994-1996). She was admitted to practice in the State of Illinois, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois. She is a member of the American Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Association.
Caldwell-Stone is a graduate of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, receiving her Juris Doctor with Honors in May, 1996. She also has a BA in Mass Media Communications from Cleveland State University (1982).Â
“Deborah Caldwell-Stone’s legal expertise has been of enormous benefit to the ALA in its mission to promote free access to information in our nation’s libraries,” said ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels. “In her post of acting director of OIF and the Freedom to Read Foundation, she will assume the duties of someone who was a legend in her field. Deborah Caldwell-Stone’s devotion to the cause of intellectual freedom and her ability to advocate on its behalf make her the ideal choice to carry on the office’s critical work as acting director of the two organizations.”
