Blake saw fit to share this lovely essay from Michael McGrorty about how San Francisco Public Library turned vandalism, censorship and destruction into a powerful art exhibit.
“The library is many things, but in the aggregate a resource offered free for the pleasure and enlightenment of all. The best measure of freedom is access to information, the raw material that gives meaning to the choices of democracy.
In America we reflexively resist censorship. This is not so much from the spirit of toleration as from the fact that we resent being told what we can do. We don’t reject the censor because of the Constitution but because he dares to do our thinking for us. This is true even if we have no desire to read about Lady Chatterley’s adventures. The American likes latitude and possibilities. He wants to feel that he can read anything he has a mind to pick up, especially when it is offered for free at the library.”
There rest here at the California Library Association website.
Grey literature. Our North American cities PLs
Yet, out North American cities’ public libraries continue censoring their very own grey literature produced by our cities’ public libraries. Our cities’ public libraries long range planning documents and related documents are censored, delayed, denied to our cities’ public libraries’ staffs, libraries’ labor unions advocates and interested users/clientele .
Hypocritical self proclaimed intellectual freedom advocates have joined in circling the wagons with supervisory, managerial and executive library officials. The fear of retribution overwhelms. The ingratiating of library workers is overwhelming the principles of so called freedom to read in our cities’ public libraries.
For example, our Boston Public Library president Bernie Margolis failed to provide the grey literature of our BPL intranet. Emphasis on intra.
See alsoq =%22grey+literature%22
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&
Grey literature is….
For those of you (like me) who have never heard the term “grey literature,” here ’tis:
What is grey literature.”. Now I know.