One of the hot button issues for librarians is censorship. Libraries are information centers, and the library bill of rights calls for all libraries to uphold freedom of speech, freedom to view and freedom to read.
I'm a hardliner on censorship; I'm completely radical in the notion that I believe everything and anything that might be in the library to inform/educate should be in the library. But I'm not necessarily the standard, because the people working in libraries are a little bit older (it's a demographic fact), and the people in my classes are a little bit older (another fact). I think that all things have their place in a library, and ALL patrons of the library (regardless of age) should be able to partake of every single item in the library. This means sex books (which are not regulated by law), R-rated movies (which contrary to belief, are not regulated by law), and even the internet (barring porn, which is illegal for those under the age of 18). Unfortunately, most people forget that children have rights. Children have rights; those rights can ONLY be infringed upon when the law says we can (as in the case of porn) or by the parents of that child.
Consequently, as a librarian, it will not be my job to stop kids from reading books about witchcraft, sex, drugs, weapons, gangs, etc. It will not be my job to remove these things from the shelf so that your kids can't read them. It is a parent's job, and a parent's job only, to polic their children. I do believe, however, that some women refuse to view their job as librarians, but view it as parents. At my home library, kids under 18 can't use the computers in the adult department without a parent and they can't check out R-rated movies. This, to me, is absolute bullshit. I think the librarians/Board at my library have abdicated their duty of providing all PEOPLE regardless of age with information, in whatever form that may take.
But I know that many of the women in my classes do not feel this way. They think libraries don't go far enough; that books and materials they disagree with should be removed from the library, and they express distaste with many of the freedoms that they take for granted. This is a conservative area of the country, it's true. But how can we condone suppression of ideas that might help, in the end, push us further towards our beliefs? People who wish to suppress ideas, pictures, movies, etc are simply afraid that their children won't toe the line, and will stop believing in the things that their parents do. I'm not saying that no parent should censor what their child reads (though I would never stop any child I had from reading whatever they wanted; I did, and I'm okay), but I am saying that the place to do that is not in the bookstores and libraries. These things will exist whether or not you like them. I'm so sorry for these people, that the world seems so unsafe, so scary; and that they wish to restrict the dynamism of their children, but that's the way of it, I guess.
Still, it bothers me that the very people who should be pushing further for freedom to read and speak are trying to stop people from exercising those rights. We should, as librarians, defend every viewpoint that exists, no matter how distasteful, and no matter how much we disagree with it.
Though we disagree with what you say, we will defend to the death your right to say it. And consequently, the right of other people to read it. These are bedrocks of this society, and without them, we are not the people we can and should be.
Comments