“…The freedom to read, on librarianship's mainstream understanding, is just such an absence of coercion: the freedom from intentional obstacles and influences, wherein I am free qua reader "to the extent that I enjoy unimpeded and uncoerced choice" of reading material (Pettit, 1997, p. 18). In a broader sense, this account is consistent with what Stephen Macdonald (2023) characterizes as the library profession's "narrow 'anti-censorship' conception of intellectual freedom," in which "freedom is impaired when barriers, erected by others, prevent access, or prohibit free expression" (emphasis original). These barriers exist outside the agent in question-that is, they do not include features of a reader's "inner psychological makeup or motivation," nor the nature or source of their beliefs and tastes (Macdonald, 2023).…”