Long Island’s Newsday is not too happy with the state of affairs in about a quarter of the island’s libraries.
These suburban New York libraries are not subject to the Freedom of Information Law or Civil Service Law and are not required to hold public trustee elections because they are “association libraries,” technically not-for-profits that contract with school districts or municipalities.
Robert J. Freeman, who chairs New York’s Committee on Open Government, said the refusals are entirely legal, but go against the very nature of libraries. “The notion of the library involves sharing and disseminating information. For an association library to clamp down on information regarding its operations seems ironic.”
Ask your favorite cities’ public libraries for library archives.
Ask your favorite cities’ public libraries for
a. the annual reports
b. the long range plans
c. minutes of the board meetings
d. curricula vitae of the leadership
e. administrative archives
Learn more about our cities’ public libraries
Encourage our cities’ public libraries’ leadership, our cities public libraries collective bargaining labor relations advocates, our cities’ public libraries librarians to blog. Much needs to be done to improve the environment of our cities’ public libraries that put librarians in fear of writing blogs. Freedom of expression should be encouraged.