West Bend Community

West Bend Library Board Affirms Value of Intellectual Freedom

This past Tuesday, June 2, the Board of Trustees of the West Bend Community Library created space for community engagement around the issue of materials for the public library collection. It was one of the most affirming events I have ever witnessed, on several levels:

• It affirmed the value of community dialogue
• It affirmed the value of open access in the public library
• It affirmed the value of the librarian in a community
  
• It affirmed the value of the youth of the community, and the role of their parents
• It affirmed the value of plurality in a community.

And, as one participant said to me, "Kind of makes you proud to be a librarian, hunh?"

Indeed.

I truly felt honored to be there.

The challenge to the library initially arose around the issue of a gay youth reading list in the young adult section of the public library website. The initial challenge came from a West Bend christian couple who suggested the gay friendly material be "balanced" by gay "conversion" material -- prayer as the path of heterosexuality. However, as more right wing interest groups became involved, the agenda expanded and fluctuated, and soon hundreds of people were requesting the relabeling of all "sexually explicit" material and suggesting control of access to those materials. Participants included those who had managed to have gay marriage declared illegal in Wisconsin.

This challenges the basic principles of open access : labeling materials as "hot" and limiting who may use them is not the role of the public librarian. It is the responsibility of the parent to oversee the materials their children select, and that became the foundation for the discussion the evening of June 2. While the christian right generated hundreds of signatures on their petition calling for the limitation of access, the West Bend Citizens for Free Speech garnered over a thousand signatures to protect the library from censorship by special interest groups.

The board of trustees listened for over 2 and one half hours to a parade of interested parties commenting on the question. Deborah Caldwell-Stone, of the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association, led the discussion with an explication of the laws related to public libraries. Wisconsin state law makes clear that public libraries are not subject to the state obscenity laws in order to protect public funds from being tied up in litigation. Sixty participants followed, each speaking for two minutes. While there were a few extreme positions -- one man called for the tar-and-feathering of the library director, Michael Tyree -- and a couple of Bible thumpers -- one of whom regretted the condition of the souls of the board members -- most of the speakers were respectful and thoughtful. The physician concerned about those children who could not handle early exposure to sexual content offset by the therapist who grieved the loss of gay youth who felt persecuted; the gentlemen upset about the split in the community offset by the husband calling for an apology to his wife for the malicious demeaning of board members. These were generally real people looking for a real solution to an honest dispute.

This is, of course, where the defense of intellectual freedom gets hard. It is easy to defend it from the ideologues ..., in this case, the Maziarkas and the Vranas ... but harder when it is an issue of honest people trying to honestly do "the right" thing. They honestly don't understand why principle needs to trump "common sense".

That is, of course, why we argue the intellectual authority of the librarian and the library in a community.After listening to everyone speak the board of trustees entertained a motion to leave the young adult collection alone, and continue to catalog and shelf it as the library staff had been. The board then, finally, had an opportunity to speak. They expressed their concerns about the split in the community, the hostility generated in the media and their legal inability to respond, the loss of their colleagues due to the failure of the city council to reappoint long-standing library board members, the need to resist tyranny, and their right to create policy.

They stood up to moves of the politicians to control them. They rejected it. And, the people of West Bend rejected it. It was democracy in action, and, as I said, I felt honored to see it.

Finally, they also rejected keeping YA youth in the closet. America just may be America again.