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.

The Expose' that is West Bend

Last night the city council of West Bend WI made it very clear who actually controls the public libraries in this country: the politicians. Despite a century spent constructing delicate laws and procedures designed to protect the intellectual independence of libraries, and public libraries in particular, the alderman of West Bend have cut through any delusion we may have maintained about free access to information in the United States.

We can thank them for their honesty, if nothing else.

For those unfamiliar with the West Bend debacle, it is a result of information dissemination, censorship pressures and political positioning. A YA librarian created a YA reading list addressing GLBTQ issues for teens, and a pair of christian protesters are now leading the charge to expunge "sexual content" from the local public library. The challenge has resulted in the failure -- and failure is the correct word -- of the local council to reappoint public library board members on ideological grounds. All but two of the councilmen have aligned themselves with the christian right; one of the those two is a member of the board who was not reappointed, which leaves one councilman with some integrity in the land of electric appliances.

But, West Bend is simply a raw example of what goes on in communities throughout the country when it comes to public libraries: political control of collection content, political control of staffing, political control of who may access the library, political control of what automated system the library can buy -- without even beginning to discuss the political control of funds for the library. If the library director, or the board of trustees fail to follow the political agenda, they are discredited, or released, or hamstrung through the withholding of funds.

None of this is supposed to be possible. There are protections built into federal and state laws designed to ensure that public libraries can function as agents of intellectual freedom in a country the politicians themselves characterize as a democracy. But we all know what politicians think of laws. George Bush was clear about it: do what you want until they make you stop. There is no one to stop the West Bend city council.

Librarians learn early in their education as professionals that the library has been developed as a cornerstone to democracy in this country. They have been historically skewered whenever they failed to advance intellectual freedom in the past; now they are skewered when they stand up for it.

For those who believe it is only West Bend, or places like Topeka, don't forget the mayor of Boston chasing his head librarian out of town for not doing what he thought the library director should do. It is galling to any politician to allow librarians to function as the independent agents they are taught and trained to be. The time for delusion is over. Public librarians are not free to function as intellectual touchstones in their communities, as community leaders or visionaries. No politician wants any kind of controversy, whether it is about "sexy" books, or "rowdy" Latino kids, or ADA access to buildings. They want to deal with the serious stuff, like what kinds of trees to plant along the entrance to the new stadium.

Serious stuff.