Nerdfighting and The Bermudez Triangle

A few times in the course of our lectures and content, we have referred to organized attempts by groups to ban books in school and public libraries. Some of you reported on these groups in Assignment 2. These groups will target books on their websites, post the contact information of decision-makers, and ask their members to write.

What if there were an organized attempt to "un-ban" a book, using the same methods?

Case in point, The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson. The book was removed from a high school library in Oklahoma for homosexual situations. ASIF (Authors Supporting Intellectual Freedom) and the video-bloggers Hank and John Green (friends of Johnson) asked their viewers to write and call the decision-makers in the process. It did not take long for the email boxes to fill. Take a look at Hank and John's response to this challenge on their site, http://www.brotherhood2.com/. The date you want to see is May 2.

In the Green's video blog, they call their fellow participants in the campaign to "decrease world suck", "Nerdfighters."

Angelina Benedetti

Taking Heart in the Face of IF Compromises

Here's the situation. We've got a class of--what are we now, 22??--students, who are becoming intellectual freedom experts. It is clear to me that many are absolutely passionate about this subject, and are going to be really strong advocates for patron rights to read and explore freely in their libraries. I feel so proud to have participated in this process, because I really do believe that we need to keep this principle in mind in absolutely every aspect of our work in libraries. And I think we have allowed ourselves, as a profession, to become somewhat complacent on the issue. There are things that I question--for instance, allowing holds to be accessed in very public areas, with enough of a name to be recognizable, in many cases. I question the fact that some libraries have gone beyond CIPA-compliance, and actually prohibit adults from being able to disable filters, even though the Supreme Court made it clear that such access should be a possibility for those 17 and older. I question the notion that filters actually provide meaningful protections for children, particularly given how many very young children I see on a daily basis, coming into the library without any sort of parental supervision. There are so many ways to provide meaningful guidance, and filtering is only a means of censorship--not guidance.

Here's the situation. We have all these students who will be graduating from library school soon, and who are our next IF advocates. How do I break it to them that there are political and economic realities that will trump everything else? Changes in technology and library trends will also affect decisions that will have an impact on intellectual freedom. The confidentiality that patrons once enjoyed by having their holds kept behind the desk was trumped by the reality that the service was so popular that libraries could no longer store all of these materials in back rooms, and as libraries across the nation went to self-checkout, keeping holds in the front area seemed the only solution...and putting them out by name seemed the easiest for patrons. There are political and economic realities around CIPA--some libraries have been threatened with refusals to pass levies or bonds if libraries didn't filter all computers at all times. When libraries are facing public scrutiny, such as during bond or levy elections, we can't help but ask ourselves what is for the greater good--preserving intellectual freedom in its purest form, or bending a little, keeping ourselves out of controversy, so that libraries can receive the funding they need to keep buying patron materials?

What I'm trying to say here is that there is no library (that I have seen) that would pass the IF-purity test. I really doubt that there is a library in the United States that follows the Library Bill of Rights and all of its interpretations to the absolute letter, without ever compromising on an issue here or there. This is what I want to say to the students in the IF class...there will be times that you'll be disappointed in a decision that is made, and you'll be responsible for supporting those decisions once they are made, regardless of your opinions. What I really hope you'll take from this class, besides an understanding of the issue in all its complexity, is the importance of asking the questions, and raising the concerns that need to be raised. Because even when decisions don't go as you would hope, and even when you have to help make decisions that don't pass the 100% IF-purity test, if you keep asking the question and allowing the discussion to take place, then you're keeping the issue alive. And I believe so strongly that keeping intellectual freedom alive in libraries is crucial, not only for the access of our patrons, but to democracy and freedom in this country.

An Interesting Twist on IF Challenges

I've been meaning to share news about a program at our WLA conference a couple of weeks ago, in the Tri-Cities in Washington. It was a program that I coordinated as part of the WLA Intellectual Freedom interest group, about first-hand experiences with challenges, called "Stories from the Frontlines." In that program, one of our speakers, the director of Fort Vancouver Regional Library System, Bruce Ziegman, shared the story of FVRL's long struggle (about 9 years) with the issue of Internet access and filtering. I admired Bruce for coming to this program and sharing the story, because I think he and the library system received flack from both the public and library communities during this period, and it remains a controversial subject. Here's the story in a nutshell, and my own reaction to the situation.

FVRL offered both filtered and unfiltered access for a number of years, having filtered computers available in the childrens' areas, as many libraries do, but no restrictions on the others, including who could use the computers. Then along came CIPA, which affected libraries everywhere. An interesting note here is that Candace Morgan was Associate Director for FVRL at the time that CIPA was first passed by Congress, and as a long-time Intellectual Freedom guru, she testified in the Supreme Court case on CIPA. Initially after CIPA was upheld by the Supreme Court, FVRL became CIPA compliant, offering adults the choice to have filters disabled. But that was not enough for some of the more vocal members of the community. In early 2006, the FVRL Board voted to take measures to limit Internet access beyond CIPA compliance--so that even adults no longer had the choice to have filters disabled in the public library computers.

Bruce raised an interesting point during the program, by asking the question, "who does the library belong to"--to the staff, to the board, or to the public? The obvious answer, we can all agree, is that the library belongs to the members of the community. But I would come to a very different conclusion based on this answer. Bruce seemed to imply that because the library belongs to the people, the library had to respond to the vocal members of the community--and they may have even been a majority, although I don't know whether that's the case. My take on this is different. Because the library belongs to the community, then all members of the community should have a choice of what they get from it. I think it's a very dangerous thing to allow the most vocal people, even if they are a majority, to deny the rights of others.

Sitting in the room were the director and assistant director for North Central Regional Library System, and it was interesting during the Q-and-A period to hear from them. NCRL is currently facing a very different kind of challenge. NCRL takes a similar approach to FVRL, by denying all patrons the ability to disable filters on their public computers. In the case of NCRL, however, several patrons are now challenging the library system with a lawsuit, asserting that the library is engaging in unlawful censorship and denying their right to access lawful material. This will be a fascinating case to watch, and presents an interesting twist on intellectual freedom challenge, since in this case the patrons are challenging the library's role as censor.