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Previous decade: 1950s

1960s

1960 - Following fast on the Fiske study, Robert Downs published a collection of essays called __The First Freedom__, which LeRoy Merritt, a huge intellectual freedom champion, advocted librarians read one essay at a time, cover to cover, and then start over, Bible fashion.

1961 - The American Library Association added paragraph five to the Library Bill of Rights, which stated the following: "The rights of an individual to the use of a library should not be denied or abridged because of his race, religion, national origins or legal views." This made official libraries' position against racism.

1962 - The film "The Music Man" is released, featuring Marian the Librarian who becomes an enduring librarian stereotype.

1962 - Public Law 87-579, the Depository Library Act, creates the current structure of the Federal Depository Library Program

1963 - Margaret Monroe joins the faculty of UW-Madison SLIS as director.

1967 - The Outsiders published by S.E. Hinton.

1967 - OCLC Online Computer Library Center is founded.

1967 - A controversial, but forward thinking library in poverty-stricken Maryland county is just beginning to take shape (High John Library).

1968 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated; library world reacts.

1968 - MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) II is released as the United States standard.

1968 - Prior to the annual conference this year, students and other young librarians who were dissatisfied with ALA's "neutrality" and slow motion, met in what they called the Congress for Change. They raised a lot of questions at every membership and council meeting. The agitation they began there yielded the Social Responsibilities Roundtable,with such subsets as the Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the first such group in any professional association, the Government Documents Roundtable, and others.

1969 - The Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association is formed.

Next decade: 1970s