A Word from CBLDF’s Advisory Chair For Education & Outreach

Hello!

I’m Betsy Rosenblatt, the new CBLDF Advisory Chair for Outreach and Education. What does that mean? It means that I’ll be volunteering for the CBLDF—and, I hope, working with some of you—to get the word about the CBLDF out to new communities: lawyers, librarians, donors,
readers, and everyone else.

Here’s a little about me: I’m a law professor and reader of comics. After graduating from Harvard Law School, I worked for nearly a decade at a large Los Angeles law firm before making the jump to academia. Now, I teach and direct the Center for Intellectual Property
Law at Whittier Law School (in Costa Mesa, California). On my comics shelves are a wide range of titles: indies, major imprints, manga…

I’m volunteering for the CBLDF because I care about comics and I care about free speech—the freedom of creators to create, the freedom of retailers to sell, and the freedom of readers to read. These freedoms should just happen naturally, but we know from experience that sometimes they don’t—they need help from organizations like the CBLDF, and I want to help. I know that there are a lot of people out there who, like me, care about the mission of the CBLDF—not just comics creators, publishers, and retailers, but everyone who reads comics and even those who don’t read comics but still understand the importance of living in a society with the freedom to express oneself, to create, and to read. Many of these people know about the CBLDF, what it does, and why it’s important, but many of them don’t—and that’s what the CBLDF’s outreach and education program aims to fix.

Over the coming weeks and months, we will be rolling out our own ideas for how you and others can get involved—not only by donating money, but also by being part of the CBLDF community: making the CBLDF a beneficiary of an eBay auction; boosting the CBLDF’s signal on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking outlets; hosting events; and helping to create educational materials. But our ideas are just part of the picture: If you have ideas for how people can get involved, let us know at outreach@CBLDF.org.

Thanks!

– Betsy Rosenblatt