It’s World Press Freedom Day. Take a look at your local paper to see if they’re publishing any editorial materials on the topic. If not, maybe a letter to the editor is in order so that they’ll observe it next year. The World Association of Newspapers has made essays, opinion pieces, interviews, infographics, editorial cartoons, photographs and advertisements available for free and to be widely disseminated with no copyright restrictions here.

Why should librarians care about World Press Freedom Day? Because we have a lot in common with journalists. Both journalists and librarians believe in universal access to information and decry censorship. Plus, we librarians rely on journalists to write the articles that we retrieve online and that we store in our libraries in printed form. In fact, this year’s theme, “Don’t Lock Up Information,” could have been devised by information professionals.