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.