Freedom to Read Conversation: What Does Intellectual Freedom Mean to You?

An informative conversation on intellectual freedom with Summer Lopez, Chief Program Officer, Free Expression at PEN America, and John Chrastka, Executive Director, EveryLibrary. The conversation will be moderated by Alice Knapp, CEO of the Ferguson Library.

Registration required.

Also available via Zoom; register here to receive Zoom link.

Summer Lopez joined PEN America in 2017 and now serves as the chief program officer of Free Expression Programs. She previously worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for eight years, and was most recently posted to Zimbabwe, where she served as the deputy director of the Office of Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance at the USAID Mission in Harare. 

EveryLibrary’s founder is John Chrastka, a long-time library trustee, supporter and advocate. He is a former partner in AssociaDirect, a Chicago-based consultancy focused on supporting associations in membership recruitment, conference and governance activities. He is a former president and member of the Board of Trustees for the Berwyn (IL) Public Library (2006 – 2015) and is a former president of the Reaching Across Illinois Libraries System multi-type library system.

Chrastka is co-author of Before the Ballot; Building Support for Library Funding and Winning Elections and Influencing Politicians for Library Funding. Prior to his work at AssociaDirect, he was Director for Membership Development at the American Library Association and a co-founder of the Ed Tech startup ClassMap. He was named a 2014 Mover & Shaker by Library Journal.