Paper

Introduction 
            The current issues of censorship and the freedom to access information are embedded in contemporary public librarianship practices. Information managers today have to deal with internal censorship pressures from organization policy and external censorship pressures from the community they service.  There also exists the occurrence of self-censorship by public service librarians, whether practicing certain selection techniques in collection management and/or resolving challenges to specific titles in the library’s collection. Alvin Schrader’s “A Study of Community Censorship Pressures on Canadian Public Libraries” presents the results of a national survey of censorship practices in public libraries across Canada during the years 1985-1987 (p. 31).  This review of Schrader’s study critically examines his paper with respect to its strengths and weaknesses in the research context, literature review, method of data collection and data presentation, interpretation of results and Schrader’s overall conclusions.  It is also important to note that our team utilizes both the assignment questions as well as Paul Leedy and Jeanne Ormrod’s (2005) suggested questions in the section “Practical Application: Evaluating the Research of Others” (p. 9). 

Research Context 
The overall organization and presentation of Schrader’s research context is clearly identified. His article is published in the Canadian Library Journal (CLJ) which is a peer-reviewed periodical. This journal was published by the Canadian Library Association and was “a refereed bimonthly publication [that] provide[d] a forum for the discussion, analysis and evaluation of issues in librarianship” (Schroeder and Roberson, 1995, 51). In terms of the content of the paper, Schrader’s title accurately describes the paper’s primary focus.  He is specific in that the region studied encompasses “all libraries across Canada” where the “total population consisted of some 1000 autonomous...