American Library Association
The
American Library Association or
ALA is actually an
association of
professional librarians not of
libraries. The
ALA takes an active part in acrediting
library schools and defining what gets taught in their courses, since many senior library positions (i.e. anything but shelving books) require a
degree from a
library school, the
ALA essentially defines
librarianship in
America.
It has traditionally taken very strong stand on freedom of speech issues, extending it to the freedom to read i.e. fighting all kinds of censorship and filtering.
The ALA are your friends, they have been fighting censorship bigots since Alan Turing was in diapers. Their website has many resources for fighting these fights in a professional manner. The most important stuff is run by the Office for Intellectual Freedom and based around the freedom to read statement.
In the past the ALA has endorsed or opposed nominations for the position of Librarians of Congress; it's policy is that the Librarian of Congress needs prior experience as a library administrator, effectively limiting the holders of the post to it's members.
The ALA website is at:
http://www.ala.org/