Judith Krug, the former director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and the founder of the annual Banned Books Week, has died.
Since its 1967 creation, Krug led the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. During her tenure she helped build (and directed) the ALA’s First Amendment legal arm, the Freedom to Read Foundation.
The Association of American Publishers president, Pat Schroeder, offered this tribute: “Judith Krug’s death is a loss for all of us … She strongly believed in the natural alliance between librarians and publishers in defending the right to read. She was a marvelous ambassador for the library community.”