Kathleen writes “Public Library of Johnson County, Kansas: the library board voted to remove from its collections policy adherence to the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights
At a rancorous meeting, the board voted 4-3 to strip the bill-of-rights language from the library’s guidelines regarding acquisition of books and other materials.
Possible source of answers:
What’s the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank.”
There’s some interesting point/counter-point in the article. One board member contends that deleting the bill-of-rights references in the collection policy is insignificant because the library’s overarching policies also call for adherence to the library association bill of rights. Critics say the deletion could open the door to censorship of the library’s collection.
A word about censorship
I happen to be doing a paper about the ethics of censorship in the information profession, so I hope that I have an inkling of what I’m talking about. Basically, before going into a long, boring explanation, I’m going to say that revoking the ALA Bill of Rights does not give a library the ability to start censoring things without reason.
Now comes the boring explanation. I take this stand for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the library as an institution is supposed to fill the role of providing useful and enlightening information to the public. The ALA Bill of Rights says as much. This means that each library must calibrate itself based off its patrons, not a national association that stands a much higher chance of falling into the “Let’s be political, since our community happens to be extremely vague in terms of historical background and context.” That is what makes individual libaries so nice! They can provide for the people they actually serve!
Secondly, the ALA (of which I’m not a big philosophical fan of) suggests a code of ethics that seems to imply that librarians and all other information professionals must remain completely robotic in terms of the material that they select. There are several things going on here. 2a) An information professional is a person who is capable of attitudes and behavior. This is rather important, because this means that the professional should be able to sift through the information that is posed as possible library material and determine whether it adds to the enlightenment of the library or not. 2b) Notice I used the word “select”. If you select something, then you must have had a choice, right? I can’t select kidney beans if kidney beans was the only thing there. I can use kidney beans, but select doesn’t properly fit. If I can only afford to purchase three books from a selection of ten, then that means I need to use my cognitive ability to determine which books will best fit my library. That means censorship. Just because a book is being included/excluded from a library does not automatically mean the librarian has a prejudiced bias (unless you consider fending off bankrupcy as prejudiced behavior).
All this to say, stripping away the ALA Bill of Rights does not automatically bring about censorship. Yes, the ALA’s Bill of Rights can guide professionals on such matters as selection of materials, and thus, may prevent accidental censorship. But if someone is already wanting to censor material, what’s gonna keep him from doing so? Humans are rather stubborn in that regard. So instead of battling the fires that stem from the public opinion that censorship is always a bad thing, why don’t we explain the process of selection with the public. Perhaps then, everyone can really say they learned something enlightening.
My problem with this story
I hope Mr. Berger doesn’t think that a change in collection development policy is going to make his library a safe place for parents to drop off their kids at no risk. I would hope that all parents know that dropping off their kids anywhereinvolves some sort of risk–libraries, churches, malls. I loathe the porn-surfing toads as much as anyone, but even if we didn’t have internet access, a lot of those people would still be coming in and getting their jollies otherwise–Cosmo covers, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, or whatever. Libraries have always attracted those from the margins of society, including pedophiles. The library where I work has had a really unfortunate incident happening, in which a developmentally disabled girl was molested. This happened long before anyone had even heard the term “public internet access.”
I can’t begin to imagine what sorts of policies would need to be dropped or implemented to make the library a completely safe environment for anyone, kids, adults, and employees, who set foot inside.
Re:My problem with this story
How uncool is it to respond to your own comment?
Anyway. Let’s throw out the argument about sexual content. Libraries are filled with dangerous ideas, or ideas contrary to what your parents hope you’ll hold dear. I grew up in a neighborhood and household where racial and sexual equality were seen as nonsense and where book-learnin’ was looked on with great suspicion. Letting me loose in the public library was the most irresponsible thing my parents ever did. And they thought I was just checking out Bruce Springsteen LPs and reading Victoria Holt. (mwah ha ha)