91´«Ã½

The Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) Coalition Building Committee is accepting nominations for the 2025 Gerald Hodges Intellectual Freedom Chapter Relations Award.

This award consists of a citation and $1,000, which will be presented at the 2025 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The award is sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½). An online nomination form and printable PDF nomination form are available. The deadline for nominations is February 1, 2025.

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. Do you know of a state chapter or organization that has:

• bravely defended the freedom to read or access to information;
• successfully promoted intellectual freedom issues;
• or demonstrated exemplary coalition-building efforts?

Past recipients include the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association (2024), the Michigan Library Association (2023), and the Tennessee Library Association & the Tennessee Association of School Librarians (2022). Learn more about past recipients and their programs and projects on the .

The award is named after Gerald Hodges, who joined the 91´«Ã½ 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 91´«Ã½ Legacy Society, he willed a portion of his estate to support 91´«Ã½'s intellectual freedom efforts. Memorial contributions in recognition of Hodges came from many friends, colleagues and 91´«Ã½ chapters following the establishment of the Gerald Hodges Fund.

Members of the Coalition Building Committee are chair Matt Sylvain, Leanne Cheek, Elizabeth Doherty, Cindy Dudenhoffer, Katie Irons Perez, Cyndi Robinson, and Mary Elizabeth Wendt.

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 91´«Ã½ in defense of intellectual freedom; promotes a greater feeling of responsibility in the implementation of 91´«Ã½ policies on intellectual freedom. For more information, visit www.ala.org/rt/ifrt