I Received An Award From The Illinois Library Association

On July 29, the Illinois Library Association announced that I had received the association’s annual intellectual freedom award for standing up for “the public’s right to access library spaces free from retaliation.”

The work that I do has led to many wonderful moments, like receiving praise or recognition from prominent people or esteemed individuals at reputable organizations. I carry that with me in my career. But this is one of the only awards that I have received for engaging in journalism, which makes it even more gratifying. 

I live in the West Chicago suburb of Elmwood Park. Back in November, I shared that I had been fighting this suburb’s public library as Library Director Michael Consiglio attempted to censor a community newsletter that I co-founded called the Elmwood Park Advocate. (In fact, the Freedom of the Press Foundation's U.S. Press Freedom Tracker logged what happened as an incident in Illinois.)

As part of our newsgathering activities, the newsletter reserved a library meeting room to host monthly “Community Conversations,” where residents could share their experiences in Elmwood Park. The newsletter firmly believed that our coverage of the community would better reflect the neighborhood if we held these gatherings. 

I will let the press release from the ILA’s intellectual freedom committee take over from here. The committee emphasized that the Elmwood Park Advocate had used the public library’s meeting room “without incident to host ‘Community Conversations,’ nonpartisan gatherings on topics like traffic safety and support for senior residents.” But as the newsletter’s reporting became “more pointed,” the library’s posture shifted. 

The library director “began enforcing meeting room rules unevenly” and later proposed “a $100-per-use fee aimed squarely at groups lacking 501(c)(3) status—a policy no other user of the room, including for-profit businesses, had ever faced.”

“A subsequent draft policy would have let the Director deny room access based on speech made outside the library altogether, a provision that drew immediate public objection. The Director also withheld a legal opinion whose existence he had already acknowledged.”

Yet as the committee applauded, “Gosztola met each escalation with documentation, not retreat: filing FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests, appealing to the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor, engaging ILA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Citizens Advocacy Center, and continuing to hold Community Conversations throughout the dispute. His grassroots organizing drew residents to fill [Library] Board meetings in late 2025, opposing what many viewed as viewpoint discrimination against an independent local press outlet.”

My effort was recognized along with another Elmwood Park resident Jack Bower. "Their work has made the Elmwood Park Public Library, and libraries across Illinois, more accountable to the communities they serve.”

I spent a lot of time defending not just my rights as a journalist but also the rights of residents to gather, associate, and engage in freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. 

Along the way, my colleague and co-founder Sara Lindsay played a significant role in challenging the library director and library board trustees. There were also several individuals who helped develop the newsletter, contributed articles, and attended meetings. They repeatedly showed up when the Elmwood Park Advocate needed their support. 

I thank the ILA’s intellectual freedom committee for recognizing my effort. It was incredibly important to stand firm so that the library—and library board trustees—would not be emboldened in the future to support what I believe was an act of censorship.

Fortunately, in January, the library board not only backed down but reformed the meeting room policy. All that is now required to reserve a meeting room is a $50 security deposit, and in July, the library director referred to the newsletter as a “regular community partner" in his monthly report to the library board.

The library board president, who stood by the library director, resigned this month due to “health challenges.” While I have empathy for whatever he is dealing with personally, his resignation speech was incredibly partisan. So the newsletter looks forward to a public library less influenced by his pettiness toward certain residents.

Lastly, during this struggle, I appeared on “The Project Censored Show” co-hosted by Mickey Huff and publicized what this community was dealing with. I returned to the show at the end of July to discuss receiving an award from the Illinois Library Association and the importance of local journalism and fighting viewpoint-based discrimination wherever we may live. (You can listen here.)