Update September 13, 2023:

Listen to Ph.D. alumna Emily Knox's testimony here. 

Read a transcription of her testimony here. 

SC&I Ph.D. alumna Emily Knox, an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will testify to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary during a full committee hearing on “Book Bans: Examining How Censorship Limits Liberty and Literature.” The hearing will take place on September 12, 2023 at 10 a.m. EST and will be live-streamed on the U.S. Judiciary’s website.

One of SC&I Professor of Library Science and Information Marija Dalbello’s former doctoral advisees, Knox earned her Ph.D. in 2012. Knox’s areas of research include Information access, intellectual freedom and censorship, information ethics, information policy, print culture and reading practices.

The hearing will take place on September 12, 2023 at 10 a.m. EST and will be live-streamed on the U.S. Judiciary’s website.

Knox is the author of the books “Book Banning in 21st Century America” (Rowman & Littlefield) and “Foundations of Intellectual Freedom” (ALA Neal-Schuman). Her articles have been published in the Library Quarterly, Library and Information Science Research, and Open Information Science. A full list of Knox’s publications is on her Google Scholar page.

This year Knox received three major awards: the 2023 Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award for the best published work in the area of intellectual freedom for her book “Foundations of Intellectual Freedom”; the 2023 American Library Association/Beta Phi Mu Award of achievement for distinguished service to education for librarianship; and the 2023 Beta Phi Mu Distinguished Member Award. In 2022 she received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the iSchool Alumni Association (ISAA).

Knox is the author of the books “Book Banning in 21st Century America” (Rowman & Littlefield) and “Foundations of Intellectual Freedom” (ALA Neal-Schuman).

She serves on the board of National Coalition Against Censorship and is the editor of the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy and has been interviewed by media outlets such as NPR, the Washington Post, Time, and Slate.

While at SC&I, Knox served as the treasurer for the SC&I Doctoral Students Association
and the Rutgers Graduate Students Association. For more than two years she also served as a teaching assistant for the Information Technology and Informatics course ITI 101.

Prior to earning her doctorate at SC&I, Knox earned a master’s degree in library and information science from the iSchool at Illinois, a bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies from Smith College, and a Master’s degree in religious studies from The University of Chicago Divinity School.

Learn more about the Ph.D. Program at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information on the website.

Photo of Knox: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign