The Furious Spinner

As you may or may not have heard, my library board has voted to put filters on all the internet stations. The ACLU came and argued against doing this. The Board did it anyway. It is a sad, sad day. Here's the letter I wrote to the Board:

Dear Board:

I work for FVRL and FVRL is my library. My husband Mario and I moved to the area in 1987 because I accepted a job at FVRL. I wanted to work here because FVRL was renowned across the nation for its stance on Intellectual Freedom issues and its protection of the rights of patrons. I know that many of the librarians chose to work here for exactly the same reasons. I even commended FVRL's board in my novel Coyote Cowgirl that was published in 2003. I wrote, "Thanks to the board and staff of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library and the boards and staffs of public libraries throughout the country who courageously defend the Bill of Rights and protect our intellectual freedoms daily."

Over the eighteen years I’ve worked here, I have disagreed with the Board and the administration before, of course. I don’t believe it is necessary or even productive for an organization to have everyone agree. In fact, if everyone is always in agreement, there might be something wrong with an organization, i.e., people are afraid to speak their minds or diversity of opinion is not honored or relished. But I was shocked and appalled by this latest development, especially when I heard on the radio that we’re doing this because this community is more conservative than Portland so we have to do more filtering. (First, I’d like to know specifically what community? Our district is made up of many communities.)

As I told the director in a letter to him about this, you are sliding down a slippery slope. With CIPA you stepped onto it, now you’re sliding. The people who wanted this are not going to stop with this. They have an agenda. It feels like you wanted new buildings so much that you gave into blackmail. You gave up the values this organization has held dear and worked hard to uphold for all these years. It feels like politics; that nothing is of value; all is open to negotiation. If I was asked to vote for new buildings now, I wouldn’t vote for them. I don’t want to pay taxes to government institutions that want to suppress, repress, and/or infringe on my freedoms. If you get your buildings now, at what price? Because I say again, they won’t stop. Eventually they will go after the books. And if you don’t have your buildings by then, are you going to let them burn the books?

I actually think an intellectual argument can be made for not having internet in libraries. I think this is a discussion nationwide that librarians and boards have not had. But the argument against having internet wouldn’t have anything to do with “pornography.” As professionals, we select material for the library based on our mission statements. When we (those of us in the library profession) brought internet into libraries it was done almost uncritically. Yet library workers all over the country will tell you that the majority of patrons using internet are checking their e-mail. One librarian said to me, “It’s like having a bunch of phone booths in your library.” I thought that was apropos. Since there are many invaluable information tools available on the internet, library professionals should have been working on a way to select internet sites for their patrons the way we select other resources. That argument for either not having the internet or selecting particular sites is a valid argument. Saying we are going to filter because we don’t want patrons looking at pornography doesn’t seem like a valid intellectual argument.

For one thing, this decision seems to come up with a poor solution to a problem we don’t even have. Except for perhaps an isolated incident here or there, we don’t have a “problem” with people on the internet looking at porn. In other words, if they are looking, nobody knows.

Now this decision is made and you’ve decided to filter pornography. How are you going to define pornography? Someone said that meant full frontal nudity. What about art then? What about books about sex that have illustrations? What about art books?

We are supposed to be serving our community, not kowtowing to a verbal minority that has some kind of religious conservative agenda. Those of us who work in libraries are here to serve the patrons, not judge them. We are here to protect their liberties, not constrain them.

The idea that libraries are supposed to be safe places is a ridiculous one. A good library is a place where there is something to offend everyone. In a free society, we are willing to be offended. We don’t censor, riot, threaten, or make laws to make certain we aren’t offended. We accept being offended as part of being a member of a free society.

Have you read the Library Bill of Rights lately? It states that "materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval....Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas."

What about the ALA’s Freedom to Read Statement? It says, among other things, that "what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours."

Asking the staff to monitor what people are reading or looking at in our libraries is against everything we stand for. We have a Code of Ethics which says we will "protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received, and materials consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted." Our interactions with patrons and what they read are considered private transactions, and we protect these transactions by not divulging what the patron is reading—to anyone. (Unless we are handed a search warrant or subpoena.)

I applaud Jerry King, Elena Smith, and Bill Yee for your votes.

You might get your shiny new buildings, but FVRL is no longer the institution it once was. 2 comments

2 Comments:

Thank you very much. And I agree. I agrue any decision that would allow them to move on without capitulating would be honorable. LIKE getting rid of the internet.

The religious right has the stated goals of "Christianizing" all American institutions. This is the first step to a very ugly America.

Shame on any who have voted against the founding principles of this nation.

By  arturo, at 11:36 AM  

Most people don't know that Hitler was a christian. I work at a coffee house in Gresham, outside of Portland. We have a few regular fundie/repubs. One who has caused problems before, expressed his outrage at the amount of flesh we females exposed. My manager great reply. "Maybe your looking too hard". He of course didn't like the sugestion that he had sinful thoughts.(evil females). So now corporate is involved. But he hasn't been back since. And we have documented EVERYTHING that he and the other fundies have been doing. You can't give them an inch or they take a yard.
For myself I ask people what they are reading, when they order their coffee and its gotten to the point where I get a sick feeling when its a bible thing. I see what it does. But I would not take their right to read what they want to. Do on to others, and free will, but only if you think the same?

By  bladerunner, at 3:56 PM  

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