Here’s a fun Opinion Journal Piece in which the author, Mark Laswell, covers action figures (Which hkhill reminds us is now available at mcphee.com), the PATRIOT act, CIPA and Cuba.
If you assumed that librarians as a group would feel flattered, or at least amused, by the prospect of being elevated to action-hero status, then your library card must have expired long ago. Their view of the vocation has changed a tad since the days when Laura Bush was reshelving books. News last month of the impending immortalization in molded plastic set off a torrent of complaints from librarians who were irate about being depicted as shushers. As one explained unhappily to the Associated Press: “We’re so not like that anymore.”
Fun?
Noting that “Opinion Journal” is Wall Street Journal in this case, I don’t find the piece as a whole “fun.” It’s yet another right-wing attack on librarians for (a) opposing CIPA, (b) opposing Ashcroft’s attacks on confidentiality, (c) whatever else is handy.
A piece that calls public library borrowing confidentiality “oxymoronic” (despite laws in nearly every state that protect such confidentiality) is WSJ at its, ahem, best.
Re:Fun?
Your ideological lenses have colored your thinking on this, O Walt! The piece never uses the word “confidentiality.” It uses “privacy.” The point is that circulation records in public libraries are not private. Rather they are confidential–held in trust by law and not to be divulged except in response to proper judicial action. I trust that you recognize the difference between confidentiality and privacy. The library profession has recently been smudging the difference.
Re:Fun?
My “ideological lenses”? True enough; I believe in the Constitution, and I believe in California’s version as well (in which privacy is a right).
No, I don’t really see a big distinction between privacy and confidentiality when it comes to records. When confidentiality is lost, privacy disappears as well, and vice versa.
And, as usual, the writer attacked one or more librarians for announcing that they were doing what most good libraries have done for years: Destroying circulation records as soon as materials are returned.
I never thought I’d see the day when civil libertarianism was considered an attackable ideology. These are interesting times.
Re:Fun?
As to ideological, I meant your description of the piece as a “right-wing attack.” You say you believe in the Constitution. John Ashcroft would say the same thing about himself. Yet somehow I doubt the two of you share the same ideology.
As to the difference between confidentiality and privacy: there is a huge difference. Privacy is a wall between an individual and the world. Where there is confidentiality, that wall is breached. There is a transaction that forms the basis of many professions–medical, legal, library, etc. It is important for the sake of the profession to be explicit that it is confidentiality that we are trying to uphold.
As to the librarian destroying records, why was she making such a big deal about doing what we’ve done for years? Isn’t that kind of silly? Did she destroy the records of what was currently checked out so “they can’t get it”? I doubt it. The point here is that those records that aren’t destroyed are still protected, but (and a big but it is) not as much as they used to be.
Re:Fun?
As to the difference between privacy and confidentiality, I submit that it isn’t that significant in this context, but you may be right.
As to calling the WSJ piece a right-wing attack–I think that’s simply an accurate description.
You are, of course, entirely free to disagree.
Damn straight they are not “shushers” anymore
now they are bouncers!