LISNews: Librarian News

Someone forwarded this email from Scott L. Shafer
Director of the Lima Ohio Public Library.

\"Let me please place a caveat on my update about the materials removal
issue raised last week: Lima, Ohio is a place of heightened security
concern in light of world events. The largest oil refinery east of the
Mississippi and the only tank manufacturing plant in the US are located
across the same road from each other. NO one in Lima, including every
one at the Library, wants these facilities to be put into harms way.
However.......

The Local Office of Homeland Security appeared at the Lima Public
Library last Thursday afternoon to \"update\" The Allen County Hazardous
Materials Emergency Plan. They were asked for ID and given the loose
leaf binder by the Reference Staff. When the Reference Staff checked
the binder back on the shelf they found that the \"update\" was the
removal of the entire contents of the manual and its replacement with a
page referring all inquiries to their offices. The same scenario was
repeated at our Spencerville branch. -- Read More

American Libraries Online reports that about 60 people in Longmont, CO recently participated in an event to call attention to the dangers of the USA PATRIOT act.

"Longmont Citizens for Justice and Democracy invited patrons to join a march to the library, where they lined up to check out books from a list drawn up by the residents’ group, including titles on counterintelligence, civil liberties, and U.S. history. “If your library record isn’t quite spicy enough,” the list recommended, “or you long for top billing on John Ashcroft’s blacklist,” participants could try such juxtapositions as A Guidebook to Nuclear Reactors with Explosives and Rock Blasting."

At present, 58 fellow members of Congress have joined Rep. Bernie Sanders in introducing federal legislation that would remove a threat created by the USA Patriot Act to the privacy of bookstore and library records. The bill, H.R. 1157, the Freedom to Read Protection Act, would prevent the FBI from seeking \"personally identifiable information concerning a patron of a bookseller or library.\" However, the government could still attempt to subpoena this information if it can make sufficient legal showing.\"

\"Currently, under the Patriot Act, the FBI has vastly expanded authority to search business records, including the records of bookstores and libraries. The FBI may request the records secretly, and it is not required to prove that there is \"probable cause\" to believe that the person whose records are being sought has committed a crime. In addition, the bookseller or librarian who receives an order is prohibited from revealing it to anyone except those whose help is needed to produce the records.\" (from Bookselling This Week)

"Patrons of the Boulder Public Library can log onto the institution's Web site and review the names of books they've checked out. It's a useful service, available only to the holder of the library card."

"That is as it should be. No one else needs to know whether your reading habits tend toward Montesquieu's "Spirit of the Laws" or Madonna's "Sex." And no one should land on a suspected-subversives list because she happens to read books on the synthesis of poisons and the location of waterways."

"As the courts have emphasized, citizens have a First Amendment right to read what they wish without the intimidating oversight of the government. Obviously, that right evaporates during legitimate criminal or terrorist investigations." (from The Daily Camera - Editorials)