Quote of the Day: Jensen on Library Neutrality

"Take a simple example involving the common assumption in the United States that the capitalist economic system is the only rational and morally defensible way to organize an economy. There can be, and often is, much debate about how to structure and administer a capitalist economy, but the system itself is rarely contested, despite centuries of resistance to capitalism around the world and considerable intellectual work underlying that resistance. Now, imagine that a librarian wants to produce a display of the libraryʼs resources on economics to encourage patrons to think about the subject. In many libraries such a display would include no critiques of capitalism, but simply literature that takes capitalism as a given. Such a display that ignores critical material likely would produce no controversy (except perhaps a few complaints from anti-capitalists about the absence of critique, who could easily be dismissed as cranks). It is unlikely that school boards or city councils would take up the issue of the obvious bias against socialism and other non-capitalist economic systems. Consider what might happen if a librarian charged with this task actually produced a display that carefully balanced the amount of material from as many different perspectives as s/he could identify. In many places, that display would be denounced for its 'obvious' socialist politics. Now, imagine that a librarian, observing the way in which Americans are systematically kept from being exposed to anti-capitalist ideas in the schools and mass media, decides to organize materials that compensate for that societal failure by emphasizing critiques of capitalism. That librarian could be guaranteed not only criticism and charges of political bias, but likely disciplinary action.

My point is simply that all of those decisions have a political dimension, which is unavoidable. My concern here is not which one is the right decision, but that the librarian whose display is in line with the conventional wisdom likely will escape criticism while any other choices will raise questions about 'politicizing' what should be a professional decision. Unfortunately, this neutrality game will derail rather than foster serious discussion of the issues."

- from "The Myth of the Neutral Professional" by Robert Jensen in Progressive Librarian Issue #24.

Quote of the Day: Neil Gaiman on the Power of Fiction

"I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.

Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different."

— Neil Gaiman, as quoted by The Guardian on October 15, 2013.

When Librarians Go To War: The ALA War Service 1917-18

"[T]o make better men of the soldiers as well as to make better soldiers of the men."¹

World War I lasted from 1914 to 1918, with the United States finally entering the war in 1917. In April of 1917, the American Library Association—a small organization at the time with a $24,000 yearly budget²—offered to provide professional library services to U.S. military camps and to raise the funds to do so! By the end of the war, the ALA had collected millions of dollars and book donations, built over thirty camp libraries, and employed hundreds of librarians. More importantly, the idea of—and appreciation for—free library services was spread to every corner of the nation, even to communities far from early library strongholds like Boston and New York.

Today's libraries are well-established, but there are worries about public commitment to free library services. One lesson contemporary librarians can take away from the ALA's War Service is that tapping into public interests can enable services beyond what seems possible with the existing budget. Such initiatives can then boost community appreciation for free library services.

A Bold Proposal

Herbert Putnam, the Librarian of Congress, first proposed the idea of the ALA providing books to military men in a private meeting with an assistant to the Secretary of War.³ Between this meeting in April 1917 and the ALA's annual conference in June 1917, Putnam strategically promoted the idea and formed a committee.⁴ With this backing in place, he distributed the committee's report at the conference. The report (unsurprisingly) concluded that what the Association had before it was "an extraordinary opportunity."⁵ This sentiment was widely accepted and echoed. Soon afterward, Raymond Fosdick, the chairman of the War Department's Committee on Training Camp Activities, extended an official invitation. The American Library Association assumed responsibility for providing service to the nation's thirty-two domestic training camps.⁶

Bring Your Own Library

Each camp was populated by thirty-thousand to fifty-thousand soldiers, for a total of over 1.3 million potential readers.⁷ Government grants were not sought. Instead, the War Finance Committee of the ALA made plans to raise the money and collect supplies from private donors! The first step was to raise funds needed to run the main fundraising campaign. $50,000 was temporarily donated mainly from ALA's own resources, Baker & Taylor publishers, and the Rockefeller Foundation.⁸ These seed funds would be paid back from the main campaign, which had a goal of raising a million dollars. The Carnegie Corporation approved a $320,000 grant in September 1917 ($10,000 per camp). By April 1918, the million dollar overall goal had been reached, with an additional $750,000 beyond that!⁹

For a second fundraising drive, the ALA joined the YMCA and five other private organizations involved in training camp services for a United War Work Campaign. The ALA didn't sit back content with general advertising for the combined effort; library-themed posters and bookmarks were created and sent out in huge numbers.¹⁰ By a quirk of history, the first day of the United War Work Campaign turned out to be Armistice Day: November 11, 1918. The campaign raised $205 million anyway! The ALA's portion was 3.8 million, which allowed library services to continue until the ALA could hand off management to the various military branches in an orderly fashion from 1919 to 1921.¹¹

The ALA ran a book collection drive over the same period as the first money drive. By June 1918, over two million donated books had been collected and sent to domestic training camps.¹² Almost 300,000 had been shipped overseas, a riskier affair as several of the ships were sunk on the way by enemy submarines.¹³ Troops also received about five million magazines,¹⁴ not through ALA drives, but through a postal service program. Journals and magazines carried the following notice from the Postmaster General:

"When you finish reading this magazine place a 1-cent stamp on this notice, hand same to any postal employee and it will be placed in the hands of our soldiers or sailors at the front."¹⁵

Why bother with fundraising when books and magazines were being donated in such abundance? There was also a need to supply library buildings, pay librarians in key leadership roles, and purchase non-fiction (mostly technical) books not covered by donations.¹⁶ The ALA asked publishers to offer steep discounts on multiple copy purchases, and all major publishers agreed!¹⁷ After the Armistice, purchasing focus shifted from technical books to vocational literature. Camp librarians put together recommended reading lists on a variety of career areas and placed "Back to the Job" advertisements around the camp to market these services.¹⁸ In total, Carnegie and ALA funds were used to build forty camp libraries,¹⁹ typically including small living quarters for a librarian, which allowed long operating hours of 7 am to 10 pm every day of the week in most locations.²⁰ The bulk of the fundraising and technical services work was, however, carried out by public librarian volunteers.²¹

The Subordinated Majority

Sex discrimination was strong at the beginning of the War, but became increasingly challenged as the draft pulled men out of their hoarded leadership positions. The library profession's composition as a whole was about four women to every man,²² but the ALA itself enforced an unwritten rule against women being paid for work in camp libraries. As protests to the ALA leadership and directly to the War Department grew, Herbert Putnam first falsely claimed that the ALA was only following military rules (as anyone could see by the women employed in private YWCA hostess houses). He then promised a greater role for women, but this was a transparent attempt to defuse complaints without actually doing anything. Finally, Putnam acted as if the protestors were disparaging the work done by the women who had been working in camp libraries (often running them in practice) without pay or status. He relented at last, gracelessly implying that he was only swayed by the voices of male librarians.²³

By the summer of 1918, women were officially in charge of eight of the thirty-two camp libraries.²⁴ Blanche Galloway of the Pelham Bay Naval Station was the first woman to be paid for directing an ALA camp library. In September of 1918, Ms. Galloway spoke at the New York State Library Association's annual meeting:

"The wonderful opportunities which the library has to help these young men from all stations and walks of life, the one great thing that makes it worth while is the fact that the library influence is a leveling up and never down. Every man who seeks help here is going to be able to do something better than he has done it before. This is the kind of democracy we are all proud to have a part in establishing."²⁵

It's crazy to think the ALA had held back Galloway and other passionate librarians; it's inspiring to know she persevered for the sake of her "young men."

Value

The increasing role of technology in early twentieth-century warfare made greater than ever intellectual demands on fighters. It was now "a war of mechanism and of exact science."²⁶

"At one typical camp a single day's circulation included books on the following: French history, mechanics, topography and strategy in war, self propelled vehicles, hand grenades, field entrenchments, bridges, chemistry, physics, astronomy, hydraulics, electricity, medieval history, calculus, civil engineering, geography, American history, surveying, materials of construction, general history, masonry, concrete. About three-fourths of the books taken out were non-fiction."²⁷

This should make it clear that relying on second-hand, outdated gift books from civilians would not have been adequate to the task of making better soldiers of the men. Camp libraries—and especially overseas book distribution—also addressed psychological needs. Major General Glenn of Camp Sherman gave library materials credit for "producing contentment" in men drafted into the new environment of military life.²⁸ Mystery and adventure novels were especially popular. The more elitist librarians liked to tell each other stories of patrons asking for high-brow literature, confident they were making better men of the soldiers.²⁹ As mentioned above, camp librarians took on the role of occupational counselors toward the end.

Beyond reading material itself, libraries provided a quiet place to get away from the usual routine. According to one soldier at Camp Devens:

"Your alcoves are godsends. The barrack's social room in which 75 to 125 are talking and playing cards, where a piano and phonograph are rivaling one another, and where at any moment a basketball may knock your head sideways, is certainly no decent place to read, let alone trying to do any studying."³⁰

Spreading an Idea

Support for the war effort was high, as shown by the generosity of the donors and volunteers who made the ALA's War Service such a fantastic success. Soldiers' need for reading materials would have been a good enough motivation by itself; but even from the beginning, the ALA had an eye on promoting the value of professionally staffed free libraries. In a paper handed out at the Association's 1917 conference, Frank Hill and George Utley said, "if we succeed in this emergency in rendering national service, libraries are going to be a national and community force as never before." Otherwise, libraries would be "looked on as weak, dreary, go-sit-in-the-corner affairs that are not worth public support."³¹

Public library services were familiar to soldiers from the more progressive, urban areas. This wasn't true for many soldiers from poor or remote regions. Camp librarians often had to explain that borrowing was free.³² The war brought everyone together, then sent them back with raised expectations. The War Service was, in a sense, a public library advocacy campaign in disguise.

Still, it's important to understand that the War Service's most clear-cut accomplishment was its direct effect on domestic military camps. Overseas support was relatively weak. The ALA's post-war "Enlarged Program" campaign was a failed, overconfident attempt to grow the Association's wealth and influence in the new style, but without the unifying effect of patriotic fever.³³ Two federal bills which would have brought national support to library services fell flat in 1919, with more of the same in the 1920s.³⁴ The ALA had caught a wave during the war and found that it couldn't do the same in peacetime. It would take more time and steady political alliances to bring about substantial nation-wide support for public libraries.³⁵ The War Service years were an exciting time in U.S. library history that showed what can be accomplished by paying attention to current events and jumping at new opportunities. It was significant part—but only a part—of a much longer process of transforming public library service from a luxury found in liberal cities to an assumed part of American life.

1. Theodore W. Koch. War Service of the American Library Association (Washington, D.C: A.L.A. War Service, 1918), viii. 
2. Arthur P. Young. Books For Sammies: The American Library Association And World War I (Place of  publication: Publisher, Year of publication), 10.
3. Young, Books for Sammies, 10.
4. ibid., 11.
5. ibid., 12. 
6. ibid., 13.
7. ibid., 38.
8. ibid., 20.
9. ibid., 21.
10. ibid., 23.
11. ibid., 87.
12. Koch, War Service, 18.
13. Young, Books for Sammies, 63.
14. Koch, War Service, 18.
15. Committee on Public Information, "Regulation for Forwarding Magazines To Men At Front," The Official Bulletin (Washington, DC), July 18, 1917. 
16. Young, Books for Sammies, 20.
17. ibid., 27.
18. ibid., 55-56.
19. ibid., 25.
20. ibid., 46.
21. ibid., 94.
22. ibid., 126.
23. ibid., 34-35.
24. ibid.
25. N. Louise Ruckteshler. "Library Week at Lake Placid Club, September 23-28, 1918." New York Libraries.6, no. 5. (Nov. 1918): 134.
26. Koch, War Service, vi.
27. ibid.
28. ibid., 16.
29. ibid., 26.
30. ibid., 27.
31. Young, Books for Sammies, 19.
32. Koch, War Service, 22.
33. Young, Books for Sammies, 90.
34. ibid., 97.
35. ibid., 98.

Bibliography

Committee on Public Information, "Regulation for Forwarding Magazines To Men At Front," The Official Bulletin (Washington, DC), July 18, 1917.

Koch, Theodore W. War Service of the American Library Association. Washington, DC: A.L.A. War Service, 1918.

Ruckteshler, N. Louise. "Library Week at Lake Placid Club, September 23-28, 1918." New York Libraries.6, no. 5. (Nov. 1918).

Young, Arthur P. Books For Sammies: The American Library Association And World War I. Pittsburgh, PA: Beta Phi Mu, 1981.

The Terrible and Terribly Important Notion of Fiction Genres

Genres are a marketing ploy. Genres are a barrier to discovery. Genres are a curse we can't do without.

Let me back up a minute and give you some context. I'm interning at the county jail library this summer and fall. Well, "library" would be more accurate because it's a room of over ten-thousand books thrown together without organization. Staff members have kept some very popular authors and series set aside, but any inmate requests outside of those are unlikely to be filled. There's no way to locate or even confirm the existence of those items. My job is to do a lot of the grunt work in turning this pile into a collection.

Inmates can request a particular title, author, or genre. They won't be able to browse the shelves directly. I knew that if I had a big "General Fiction" category, not many people are going to write: "Please find me some General Fiction novels!" How utterly boring! Might as well throw out every less popular author in that entire section.

I needed to come up with enough genres to put an interesting genre label on everything, even titles not traditionally considered "genre fiction." After much agonizing, I came up with the following scheme:

A cheating category. Classics are, roughly, pre-20th century books that are still reprinted or re-translated. Sherlock Holmes and Dracula would fit, but they are so strongly expected in other genres that they don't count.

Traditional "Genre Fiction"

Sure, these can be separate, but readership and the works themselves very frequently cross over. Plus, that's a rockin' dragon sticker. What goes here? Advanced technology, strange worlds, and supernatural things that most people agree aren't real.

Anything explicitly labeled "romance" or from a romance imprint goes here, even if it has strong SF/Fantasy elements. Also included are books with descriptions that exclusively describe a romantic relationship, i.e. not just as a major element in a story focused on another kind of struggle. It's no accident that I picked a non-gendered sticker.

Like romance, westerns are predominately identified by their marketing. Although there are many titles that mix romance and western themes, it's usually easy to tell romantic westerns from western romances. Unfortunately, this distinction tends to line up with marketing to men vs. marketing to women. This is one way that genre labels stifle discovery by exaggerating the separation between quite similar works.

Some mysteries are labeled as such, but it makes sense to be more inclusive than that. Whenever the plot centers on discovering the identity of a criminal, it's a mystery. SF/Fantasy mysteries still get dragon stickers.

General Fiction and Literature

With "genre fiction" out of the way, what can be done about the great big Miscellaneous category found in most bookstores and libraries? I broke it down into three parts...

An arbitrary but popular line to draw is that fiction set during or before the World Wars counts as historical fiction. Unless it fits western conventions, or those for SF/Fantasy, or mysteries. Even with all of these exclusions, these shelves are bursting.

Thrillers is the section for spies, soldiers, and serial killers. Film versions of thriller books go under Action/Adventure. Crime fiction can go here if the reader finds out the antagonist's identity early on and the big question is whether the protagonist can do something about it.

Technically, thrillers tend to be realistic in the sense that they are contemporary stories without fantasy or science fiction elements. Realistic fiction concerns relatively regular people in relatively common life situations, though not necessarily from the reader's own culture. Film versions of these books tend to go under Drama. Elements of romance, thriller, and mystery genres can be present, so long as they don't overwhelm the focus on complex contemporary characters.

What About...

It might be OK for Barnes & Noble to have a Christian Fiction section, but it doesn't sit so well with librarians because it can imply that the other fiction either is less suitable for Christians to read or is insufficiently orthodox. State librarians are not in the position to issue or promote religious imprimaturs. Plus, it pulls books away from from all of the other genre shelves where they might find a broader readership. The Chronicles of Narnia, Left Behind, and Seasons of Grace are much more at home in SF/Fantasy, Thrillers, and Realistic Fiction respectively.

That said, some readers are publishers and readers who favor books with strong religious themes. Other readers feel strongly about avoiding books from such publishers, either from religious disagreement or for the same reason a person who likes romantic fiction might distrust the quality standards of "romance mill" publishers. So, in addition to a primary genre sticker, books from such publishers or imprints (e.g. Harlequin's Heartsong) will have an "Inspirational" label:

Not the most apt term, but it's a widely-understood convention that further distances librarians from the legal and ethical issues of judging some works to be "Christian Fiction."

Easy and Limiting

The single best article I've read on fiction genres is Ursula K. LeGuin's "Genre: A Word Only a Frenchman Could Love" (Public Libraries, Vol. 44, Is. 1, p. 21 [PDF]). I recommend reading the whole thing. LeGuin would prefer a world where all fiction is interfiled by author's last name, removing the prejudice of genre systems. But she knows her vision would be opposed:

"Consumerism also rules. If the books aren’t labeled, if they aren’t shelved by genre, if they don’t have a little bitty label saying SF or M or YA, a whole lot of customers and library users will come storming the counter or the desk, shouting, 'Where is my fiction fix? I want a fantasy, I can’t read all that realistic stuff! I want a mystery, I can’t read all that plotless stuff! I want a masterpiece of grim realism, I can’t read all that imaginary stuff! I want mindless fluff, I can’t read all that literary stuff! Etc., etc.'

To give each reader an annotated author-title list of whatever their fiction addiction is, so they can go find the books on the shelves, is a perfectly fair solution, offered by many libraries. But addicts don’t like it. They want books to be easy the way fast food is easy. They want to go to the shelf and stick out their hand and get a fix."

For my particular situation of no-browsing-allowed, sticking out a hand (so to speak) is the best supported scenario for discovering new books. Can public and school libraries do better? I'm having trouble finding references right now, but I've heard of libraries interfiling all fiction and using small, colored genre dots on the spines. The nice thing is that there's no need to pick a "primary" genre, so those readers of western romances and romantic westerns are more likely to notice similarly-themed works and go exploring outside of their traditional haunts. Heck, I've seen things like inspirational-historical fiction-romance and SF-mystery-thriller. These books could easily be picking up new readers through providing more genre information than traditional genre shelving supports.

Library catalogs could also help, but usable catalogs are still the stuff of science fiction. For now, physical genre markers are still the best way of directing many people to titles they'll feel comfortable trying out.

Big Data and the Future of Collections Management

[A presentation I gave for Collections Management class. You can follow the clicks in this embedded Prezi to simulate the experience.]



"Big data" is a big buzzword in business and technology circles. If some had asked me a year ago to define big data, I would have talked about credit card and credit score companies. I would have talked about Google harvesting email content. I would have talked about social networking graphs.

[click]

But this sharp increase in data collection is just the first step. The soul of big data is in its use. [click] And the magic of big data is that its use is [click] not predetermined.

To see what I mean, let's take a minute to think about scientific method. [click] Remember this from grade school?

• Form a hypothesis.
• Design an experiment.
• Then: Collect data.
• Analyze data.
• Draw a conclusion.

Big data allows a different approach. [click] Data collection happens first. And here's the key: this data is more or less complete. There's no need to design an experiment to generate some data that's relevant to a specific hypothesis; we just work from all the data! This is a data driven approach to finding patterns, including patterns we never would have hypothesized.

For example [click], when Walmart's analysts searched their sales history for interesting patterns, they found a connection between [click] looming hurricanes and the sale of [click] flashlights! Ok, that's not too surprising. They also found a strong correlation between hurricanes and [click] pop tarts! Who knew? Even individual pop tart purchasers may not have perceived they're part of a pattern; a wider perspective was required. So Walmart did the obvious thing, they waited for a hurricane and shipped truckloads of extra pop tarts to select stores. They sold like hotcakes! Or should I say, like pop tarts before a hurricane? [click]

The authors of the book on which this talk is based wrote:

"Big data refers to things one can do at a large scale that cannot be done at a smaller one." p. 6

Let's see what another retail giant has accomplished with large scale data. [click]

Target sometimes advertises by sending 'targeted' coupons to individual customers. It's like Amazon.com's personalized recommendations. Of course, the better the match between coupons and customer needs, the higher the chance that people will get in their cars, drive to Target, and buy things!

Here's the creepy part. Target's analysts wanted to know if they could identify pregnant customers. So they started with customers who had registered for baby showers and searched for patterns in their purchase histories. It turns out that customers who purchase cotton balls and unscented lotion are more likely to be pregnant, especially if this is followed up by certain vitamins and minerals or over twenty other pregnancy-correlated items. In fact, this progression of purchases can even produce a projected due date! There's even a story about a father who came in to Target upset because his teenage daughter had received coupons for baby cribs. Target knew before he did!

If big data is sounding powerful and a little scary, you've got the right idea. [click]

Now we're ready to talk about big data in the context of public library collections management. [click]

What's the difference between a library and a book store? One difference is that book stores are ultimately about making money, while libraries are ultimately about serving their patrons. As we saw with Target, big data can be used to trade away privacy for profit. It seems inevitable that retail stores will use big data in more and more invasive ways [click]. If this happens, all libraries need to do is maintain their reputation for privacy and their value will grow. It would even make sense for collection development policies to mention a preference for materials of confidential interest.[click]

On the other hand, libraries are very well situated to take advantage of big data techniques. Unlike Walmart or Kmart transactions, every checkout is tied to a loyalty card...I mean a library card. I can't tell you what patterns a team of big data analysts would reveal in library data. But when we find our equivalent to pop-tarts or unscented lotion, we might order more or fewer of certain materials, rearrange items, or set up displays at more effective times.[click] [click]

Obviously, there's some tension between maintaining privacy and using library data to its fullest. We could add a line to due date phone calls: "This is Lincoln Public Libraries. We are calling to inform you that you have an item due on Thursday... and you might also enjoy Surprise Child: Finding Hope in Unexpected Pregnancy!" Yes, that might scare people away. Thankfully, libraries don't need to rely on their own data to take a big data approach. [click]

We can use public data. Even without big data analysis, individual collection managers can (and should!) follow best seller lists, social networking trends, and top news stories. Big data analysis goes deeper. It might be possible to predict the next big things before they make their way to the top. Libraries could be ready to meet demands for the next 50 Shades, not lag weeks behind retail stores. If a historically-themed movie is coming out, it would make sense to review materials on that subject, but only if public interest really is picking up; big data might be able to tell the difference. [click]

In summary, big data is powerful and a little scary. It's not something for the average librarian to use directly, but I believe it is everyone's responsibility to steer the profession between the extremes of neglecting and overusing this technology. We need to adapt to big data, but we also need to adapt big data to our professional ethics.

Thank you. [click]

On "Filtering and the First Amendment"

Since Deborah Caldwell-Stone's American Libraries article "Filtering and the First Amendment" covers similar ground to my earlier essay "Public Forum Doctrine in U.S. v. American Library Association," I'd like to do some friendly nit-picking.

Quick Background

In the United States, public and school libraries are bribed (rather than coerced) into filtering Internet access for minors. This is done through CIPA, the Children's Internet Protection Act. In 2003, the constitutionality of CIPA was challenged but upheld in U.S. v. American Library Association.

Clarity

Caldwell-Stone's article is helpful because misconceptions about the requirements of CIPA are indeed widespread:

"Often, it is because the institutions and individuals responsible for implementing these policies misunderstand or misinterpret CIPA and the Supreme Court decision upholding the law. Among these misunderstandings is a belief that an institution will lose all federal funding if it does not block all potentially inappropriate sites to the fullest extent practicable, or that the Supreme Court decision authorized mandatory filtering for adults and youths alike. Another mistaken belief is that it does not violate the First Amendment to impose restrictive filtering policies that deny adults full access to constitutionally protected materials online." (Caldwell-Stone, 2013)

I appreciate the way she raises awareness that CIPA policies aren't legal requirements and that no library's filtering has been judged too lax to qualify. If a library doesn't want to filter, they don't have to filter! If a library wants to filter lightly, they can still collect CIPA funds.

Not So Clear

My nit-picking concerns the last sentence of the quote above. Caldwell-Stone is correct that US v. ALA did not authorize mandatory filtering for adults, but the Supreme Court didn't forbid it either. Legally, it's an open question. Caldwell-Stone evidently feels strongly that such filtering violates the First Amendment (a very respectable position to have!), but it's easy for readers to be misled when legal facts and legal hopes are presented in parallel phrases.

This bit is also problematic:

"Does CIPA itself, or the 2003 Supreme Court opinion, actually authorize a library to limit an adult’s access to constitutionally protected speech? A close reading of the district court’s opinion reveals that it fails to address the Supreme Court’s directive: Libraries subject to CIPA should disable filters for adult users to assure their First Amendment rights." (Caldwell-Stone, 2013)

The Supreme Court gave no such "directive." There was no majority opinion (at all), and no such directive can be found in the plurality opinion. In fact, none of the six judges concurring in judgment said so. The Court's language is along these lines:

"Assuming that such erroneous blocking presents constitutional difficulties, any such concerns are dispelled by the ease with which patrons may have the filtering software disabled." (US v. ALA, Opinion of the Court)

Note the qualifier "assuming." The Court isn't taking a position on whether or not "such erroneous blocking presents constitutional difficulties." Suppose it were a problem for libraries to block constitutionally protected speech: easy disabling would be an antidote. Suppose it weren't a problem to block such speech: now it's an unnecessary antidote. Since this specific case didn't hinge on the constitutionality of "such erroneous blocking," the judges didn't—and couldn't—rule on the issue.

Another concurring judge wrote:

"If some libraries do not have the capacity to unblock specific Web sites or to disable the filter or if it is shown that an adult user’s election to view constitutionally protected Internet material is burdened in some other substantial way, that would be the subject for an as-applied challenge, not the facial challenge made in this case." (US v. ALA, Kennedy's concurrence)

It's entirely reasonable to conclude that a library with mandatory filtering for adults might be judged as violating First Amendment rights, just as a state denying same-sex marriage licenses might be judged (very soon, one hopes) to be violating equal protection rights. Then again, either of these situations might be judged to be constitutional.

One last concurring judge:

"Perhaps local library rules or practices could further restrict the ability of patrons to obtain 'overblocked' Internet material. [...] But we are not now considering any such local practices. We here consider only a facial challenge to the Act itself." (US v. ALA, Breyer's concurrence)

Hopefully it's clear at this point that mandatory Internet filtering for adults is not clearly unconstitutional or constitutional. I applaud Caldwell-Stone for her explanations and her advocacy; I just wish she would separate the two a little more explicitly.

References

Caldwell-Stone, D. (April 2, 2013). Filtering and the first amendment. American Libraries. Retrieved from http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/04022013/filtering-and-first-amendment

United States v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194 (2003).

Quote of the Day: Moon on Parental Despotism

"We need to take a hard look at the rights of the young to access information. It is an issue we have avoided for far too long. And what seems to have become our traditional stance—that it is up to parents to control the reading and viewing of their offspring—may be politically expedient but it isn't particularly principled.

The arrival of compulsory education provided one escape route for those children whose parents seemed determined to establish a dynasty of ignorance. Some parents still struggle to protect their children from education but, by and large, society has come to accept education as among the rights of the young. Society usually does things for selfish reasons, however, and this may be no more than acceptance that the need for an educated next generation to continue or improve upon what we have wrought is so important that it must even supersede the rather despotic rights we have customarily accorded to parents.

The question for us, though, is do we then accept that the child's or young adult's right of access to knowledge stops when the school doors close? Do we believe that education happens only in school, that libraries are not educational, that they are less important, less relevant than schools? If we do not believe these things, then how come we do not protest as strongly when an individual parent bars the door of the library (or the adult section) to his or her child as when the governor of a state stands in the schoolhouse door and bars entry to children who seek nothing more dangerous than an equal crack at a decent education?"

— from Eric Moon's inaugural address as president for the American Library Association at the conference in Detroit in 1977, as quoted in Lillian Gerhardt's critical editorial on page 9 of the Sept. 1977 issue of School Library Journal.

Quote of the Day: Public Libraries as Literary Culture Incubators

"The third and last class of objections to public libraries to which I shall direct your attention relates to the kind and quality of the books circulated. These objections, which are usually made by educated and scholarly persons, are based on an entire misconception of the facts in the case. The objectors do not divest themselves of the old ideas that libraries are established for the exclusive benefit of scholars; whereas the purpose of these [i.e. public libraries] is to furnish reading for all classes in the community. On no other principle would a general tax for their support be justifiable.

The masses of a community have very little of literary and scholarly culture. They need more of this culture, and the purpose of the library is to develop and increase it. This is done by placing in their hands such books as they can read with pleasure and appreciate, and by stimulating them to acquire the habit of reading. We must first interest the reader before we can educate him; and, to this end, must commence at his own standard of intelligence.

The scholar, in his pride of intellect, forgets the progressive steps he took in his own mental development—the stories read to him in the nursery, the boy's book of adventure in which he revelled with delight, and the sentimental novel over which he shed tears in his youth. Our objector supposes that the masses will read books of his standard if they were not supplied with the books to which he objects; but he is mistaken. Shut up to this choice, they will read no books. When the habit of reading is once acquired, the reader's taste, and hence the quality of his reading, progressively improves."

Poole, WM. F. (1876). Some popular objections to public libraries. The American Library Journal 1(2), p. 48-49. [Paragraph breaks added for readability.]

Lingo: Authority Control

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kamikazestoat/425526222

Some Delicious tags:

• legendofzelda
• legend_of_zelda
• [legend.of.zelda]
• loz
• thelegendofzelda
• the_legend_of_zelda
• tloz
• tlozelda


• zelda
• zeldagames


• zeruda
• ゼルダ

These are user-submitted tags to help other users find webpages on a given topic.

Suppose I just found some interesting Legend of Zelda alt art and want to link it on Delicious. Which tag do I use? legendofzelda is popular, but so is zelda. If I want everyone to see my link, I had better use both! Maybe this is good enough, but since there will still be people browsing through the other tags listed above, should I use all of them? How do I know I've even found them all? What if someone starts using the tag zeldaseries next week?

Hey, maybe someone should clean up this mess by designating an official tag for the Legend of Zelda video game series. Or we call this the authorized tag. Here is a great three-part plan:

1. Decide on authorized tags for every distinct topic on Delicious.
2. Make sure that all current and future Delicious links use the authorized tags.
3. Enjoy finding all links related to a topic under one tag (and nothing unrelated)!

In Library Science lingo, steps one and two are called authority work: the behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done to have neatly organized access points to resources. Access points can be titles, names, or topics.

• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Video Game)  -- a title
• Miyamoto, Shigeru, 1952-  -- a name
• Sailing  -- a topic

or a little older:

• Dracula (Novel)  -- a title
• Stoker, Bram, 1847-1912  -- a name
• Vampires  -- a topic

A close synonym to authority work is authority control. I prefer to think of authority control as the goal of authority work. In other words, we do authority work to achieve a state of authority control (as in step three above). But it's more common to combine the concepts:

"Authority control is the process of bringing together all of the forms of name that apply to a single name; all the variant titles that apply to a single work; and relating all the synonyms, related terms, broader terms, and narrower terms that apply to a single subject heading." — Arlene Taylor, The Organization of Information (3rd edition), p. 44

It's not the most intuitive terminology. "Access point control" or "name deduplication" or "not having a pile of inconsistent labels" would all be better.

A Professionals Only Club?

Delicious is not likely to change its tagging system. Authority control has great benefits, but it takes a lot of extra time and effort. Delicious is fantastic for what it offers: quick-and-easy bookmark tagging and decent (if flawed) bookmark discovery.

Does this mean authority control is only in reach for professional librarians? Nope! I can think of a major Web 2.0 site that lets users participate in a kind of authority work: Wikipedia.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pommes-1.jpg

Quick! What are these called:

...pommes, chips, French fries? ...pommes frites, slap chips, Belgian fries?

Imagine separate Wikipedia articles for these variations and many more. Not desirable, to say the least. Wikipedia handles this situation by letting users decide on a single article title (e.g. French Fries) and creating redirects for alternate titles.

Why does this work for Wikipedia but not for Delicious? Primarily because of the number of volunteer editors willing to do this kind of behind-the-scenes work for articles. Trying to keep Delicious links organized would be much more maddening with much less payoff.

Controlled Vocabulary Resources

Not every library or website needs to come up with its own authorized titles, names, or subjects. Here are some (more or less) publicly available lists that can at least serve as a starting point:

Library of Congress Subject Headings. A very broad and inclusive set of subject terms. Academic libraries tend to re-use these for their collections. Example: Ships. Smaller libraries often use the Sears List of Subject Headings instead.

Library of Congress Name Authority File. Example: Rice, Anne, 1941-. Also see Getty's Union List of Artist Names. Example: Mondrian, Piet (Dutch painter, 1872-1944).

Library of Congress' Thesaurus for Graphic Materials. Check the three "Browse By" links on the left. Example: Nitrate negatives. Getty's Art & Architecture Thesaurus. Example: Googie.

Individuals might prefer to use vocabularies like these rather than come up with their own blog tags, image tags, or music tags. You can look beyond the library and archives scene too. If I had a music review blog, I would probably use AllMusic's genre name hierarchy. Example: Americana. Right now this doesn't do a lot of good on one blog, but the growth of Semantic Web technologies may mean better use of authorized vocabulary on the public web in the future. Or the SEO leeches might just mess that up too. Either way, you can always visit your library and take advantage of the authority control someone worked so hard to set up there!

Impurity and Total Value

I don't remember much about school before high school, but I do remember my seventh grade Reading class and the city-wide furor that came out of it. I think of that class in two parts. In the first, I was surprised that something as fun as reading fiction could be a class in school. My teacher, Ms. L., had a positive attitude and was great at helping individual students find books that interested them. I hope these kind of classes are still popular beyond the standard English Lit curriculum.

Then the crisis. Sticking to the public record, let's just say my mother objected to some of the material that was read out loud in my classroom, then in other Reading classrooms, then in the school library. What followed was a typical book challenge followed by a not-so-typical political movement culminating in her election to the school board. Some challenged books were moved to the high school library and some were reviewed and remained where they were. Emotions were high on both sides, to put it mildly. The whole ordeal changed more in terms of the people involved than the availability of the books in question. I'm intentionally being vague about other people, but I was pulled out of public school.

Fast forward two decades. I'm a card carrying member of the ACLU and about one-third of the way through a Master of Library and Information Science program. One of my personal goals is to reduce the kind of antagonism I witnessed back in junior high. I'm sure there are some irresolvable points of difference, but I'm also sure there is substantial room for improvement. In this post, I want to highlight one way challengers and defenders talk past each other.

Of Cake and Hair

A frequently used metaphor in the Harry Bosch noir detective series is "hair on the cake." This refers to the way one little legal problem with a criminal case can screw the whole thing up. No matter how great 99.99% of the cake may be, the hair ruins it.

Some people take the same approach to books, movies, music, etc. One rude word and the whole work is "trash" so far as they're concerned. One depiction of sex or violence and it's "unsuitable for minors." (Well, in America, it takes violence at the level of Cormic McCarthy rather than John Wayne. Meanwhile, mentioning female sexuality at all is sufficient.)

98% Fat Free!

A very different approach is to focus on the value of a work on the whole. A person who takes this approach might not approve of every element, but still believes the book/movie/album/etc. is worthwhile for its overall message, or its social importance, or a greater proportion of good bits. For example, one of my favorite books is John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, despite some rather disgusting cultural bigotry near the beginning.

The Disconnect

When two people who take these different approaches argue about whether X is a good book, or Y is a good movie, or Z is a good album, they're going to think the other person is totally daft in the very common case where the material has a little objectionable content.

The objector will point at this rude word or that sexual passage as if they're hairs on a cake; since it has these elements at all, the work in question is therefore bad. Meanwhile, the defender will ask, "Did you read the whole thing?" Since the answer is usually "no," the defender is baffled; how could the objector possibly have a valid opinion about the goodness or badness of the work as a whole? And so it goes.

For a relatively recent example, check out this letter to the editor. Scroggins, the objector, writes of the novel Speak:

"As the main character in the book is alone with a boy who is touching her female parts, she makes the statement that this is what high school is supposed to feel like. The boy then rapes her on the next page. Actually, the book and movie both contain two rape scenes."

Scroggins is complaining about the inclusion of any sexual elements in a book about dealing with rape. He doesn't seem to care about the book's impact on helping young people avoid dangerous situations and, especially, helping them deal with life after rape. It mentions sexuality in relation to *gasp* high schoolers, so it has to go. (The author's response is worth a read.)

A Tactic For Reconnecting

Now I do think it's appropriate to respond to objections by listing a work's virtues and weigh them against whatever content people find objectionable, but if it's clear that the objector is of the "hair on the cake" variety, this difference in philosophy needs to be directly addressed. No matter how many virtues a defender lists, the objector can still wave around the "bad bits" as if they settle the matter. By explicitly and repeatedly refocusing the question on whether — in general principle — the presence of bad bits makes a work bad, one of three things might happen:

• The objector refuses to acknowledge the question, which will cause the objector to lose credibility with onlookers who understand the question.
• The objector affirms that the presence of bad bits makes any work bad. The defender can then highlight respected works with bad bits to, again, cause the objector to lose credibility with many onlookers.
• The objector affirms that the presence of bad bits doesn't necessarily make a work bad. Now the objector is publicly committed to weighing the various elements of any given work. Differences in judgment may still occur, but at least a conversation about overall value has become possible.

I hope that greater awareness of these two approaches of "It's impure!" vs. "It has positive total value!" can help everyone in such disputes understand each other better and pin down any essential points of disagreement more quickly. Disagreements happen, but misdiagnosing the disagreement makes resolution unnecessarily difficult.

I'll leave you with a quote from the 1950's that could have been written this year:

"The major characteristic which makes for the all-important difference seems to me to be this: that the selector's approach is positive, while that of the censor is negative. This is more than a verbal quibble; it transforms the entire act and the steps included in it. For to the selector, the important thing is to find reasons to keep the book. Given such a guiding principle, the selector looks for values, for strengths, for virtues which will over shadow minor objections. For the censor, on the other hand, the important thing is to find reasons to reject the book; his guiding principle leads him to seek out the objectionable features, the weaknesses, the possibilities for misinterpretation. The positive selector asks what the reaction of a rational intelligent adult would be to the content of the work; the censor fears for the results on the weak, the warped, and the irrational. The selector says, if there is anything good in this book let us try to keep it; the censor says, if there is anything bad in this book, let us reject it. And since there is seldom a flawless work in any form, the censor's approach can destroy much that is worth saving." — Lester Asheim, Not Censorship But Selection

Public Forum Doctrine in U.S. v. American Library Association

United States v. American Library Association was a 2003 Supreme Court case that examined the constitutionality of CIPA, the Children's Internet Protection Act.

"[CIPA] is a federal law enacted by Congress to address concerns about access to offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers. CIPA imposes certain types of requirements on any school or library that receives funding for Internet access or internal connections from the E-rate program – a program that makes certain communications technology more affordable for eligible schools and libraries." — http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act

Basically: filter your Internet or miss out on federal funding.

The American Library Association led a lawsuit against CIPA on the grounds that filtering intended to block unprotected speech also inevitably blocks constitutionally protected speech, which violates the First Amendment rights of public library patrons. This legal argument had two critical points.

1. Internet access in public libraries constitutes a public forum. Therefore content regulations are subject to strict scrutiny.
2. CIPA fails under strict scrutiny because filtering is not narrowly tailored to the government's compelling interest in blocking unprotected speech ("obscenity, child pornography, or material harmful to minors"). 

Despite an earlier U.S. District Court ruling that CIPA was unconstitutional for these reasons, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in favor of CIPA. Unfortunately the breakdown of opinions was rather complicated:

Opinion of the Court (plurality) — Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, and Thomas
Concurrence — Kennedy
Concurrence — Breyer
Dissent — Stevens
Dissent — Souter, Ginsberg

Since the Opinion of the Court represented a mere plurality rather than a majority, only its judgment — not its rationale on the whole — is authoritative. On the other hand, a plurality of four justices only needs one concurring justice to agree with part of its rationale for that part to count as a majority (authoritative) rationale. One such rationale for finding CIPA constitutional was simply this: Internet access in public libraries does not constitute a public forum.

"Internet access in public libraries is neither a 'traditional' nor a 'designated' public forum." — Opinion of the Court

"The public forum principles on which the District Court relied [...] are out of place in the context of this case. In determining whether the statute's conditions consequently violate the First Amendment, the plurality first finds the "public forum" doctrine inapplicable [...], and then holds that the statutory provisions are constitutional. I agree with both determinations." — Breyer's concurrence

Nothing more really needed to be said before reversing the District Court's ruling. Without classification as a public forum, Internet filtering isn't subject to strict scrutiny and so it doesn't need to be "narrowly tailored." For the sake of argument, however, the plurality went on to comment:

"Assuming that such erroneous blocking presents constitutional difficulties, any such concerns are dispelled by the ease with which patrons may have the filtering software disabled." — Opinion of the Court

This was important guidance for libraries or legislatures interested in avoiding any chance of "constitutional difficulties." Everyone could rest assured that strict scrutiny was off the table, but U.S. v. ALA did not settle the question of which lower standard of judicial review might apply. Breyer and the plurality did not agree on this point:

"Just as forum analysis and heightened judicial scrutiny are incompatible with the role of public television stations and the role of the NEA, they are also incompatible with the discretion that public libraries must have to fulfill their traditional missions. Public library staffs necessarily consider content in making collection decisions and enjoy broad discretion in making them." — Opinion of the Court

"Instead, I would examine the constitutionality of the Act's restrictions here as the Court has examined speech-related restrictions in other contexts where circumstances call for heightened, but not 'strict,' scrutiny--where, for example, complex, competing constitutional interests are potentially at issue or speech-related harm is potentially justified by unusually strong governmental interests. Typically the key question in such instances is one of proper fit." — Breyer's concurrence

So it's unclear whether the selection decisions of library staff are subject to heightened scrutiny or merely rational review. This uncertainty is compounded by the uncertainty of what would happen in any particular instance of applying heightened scrutiny; it's a vague standard.

The Other Four Justices

How did Kennedy's concurrence play into all this? He ignored the question of public forum doctrine and jumped straight into the plurality's hypothetical situation wherein strict scrutiny is applied and CIPA passes anyway because adults can request to have the filter disabled.

Both dissents treated Internet access in public libraries as a public forum then went on to characterize filtering as overly broad — rather than narrowly tailored — for the purpose of shielding children from unprotected speech.

Conflicting Interpretations Today

In the current edition of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual, Theresa Chmara writes:

"In sum, public libraries must remain cautious about using filtering. Ultimately, the CIPA scheme was upheld because it was tied to funding and the government conceded that an adult’s request for disabling of the filter could never be denied and did not have to be justified. The Supreme Court also left no doubt that in a case challenging the application of filtering software, a library would be liable if it did not disable a filter to provide access to constitutionally protected material." (OIF, p. 345)

Despite this, a library system in rural Washington State has chosen to filter all computers without the option to entirely disable filtering on request, even when constitutionally protected material stays blocked as a result. Just this week, a U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the library system's choice of filtering policy. The District Court cites U.S. v. ALA to say that strict scrutiny is inappropriate; it also cites a Ninth Circuit decision in support of rational review when government services are allowed to make content choices. Notice how the plurality's support of rational review in the Supreme Court case was not used, because — as shown above — concurring justices did not elevate the plurality rationale to a majority rationale on this point.

On a careful reading of U.S. v. ALA, the constitutionality of refusing to disable filters for adults was left an open question. The plurality opinion and both concurrences brought up the issue of filter disabling only to say that prompt disabling would satisfy any level of judicial review. It's an unwarranted leap of logic to infer that slow disabling (or refusal to disable) would fail to satisfy some level of review. It might, but none of the six justices concurring in judgment actually said so. Breyer made this clear when he wrote:

"Perhaps local library rules or practices could further restrict the ability of patrons to obtain 'overblocked' Internet material. [...] But we are not now considering any such local practices. We here consider only a facial challenge to the Act itself." — Breyer's concurrence

The case from Washington State is likely to be appealed. Must filters be disabled on request? Can public libraries deliberately block constitutionally protected speech? Neither side has reason to give up just yet.

References

Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF). (2010). Intellectual Freedom Manual (8th ed.). Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

United States v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194 (2003).

American Libraries and Young Patrons

[A paper for my Intellectual Freedom class.]

American Libraries and Young Patrons

According to the American Library Association's (the ALA's) Library Bill of Rights, "A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views [emphasis added]" (1996). This policy of age non-discrimination has several controversial consequences: minors may view any materials adults may access, parents must take full responsibility for restricting their own children, and librarians may not hesitate to select materials they personally consider inappropriate for minors or adults.

Full Access for Minors

"Constitutionally protected speech cannot be suppressed solely to protect children or young adults from ideas or images a legislative body believes to be unsuitable for them. Librarians and library governing bodies should not resort to age restrictions in an effort to avoid actual or anticipated objections, because only a court of law can determine whether material is not constitutionally protected." (ALA, 2008)

Before examining what counts and what doesn't count as "constitutionally protected speech," it's important to notice the uniqueness of the ALA's position: libraries may not restrict materials for minors unless that material is constitutionally unprotected. Movie theaters routinely deny unaccompanied minors admission to R-rated films even though these films are constitutionally protected speech. Same goes for selling M-rated video games to minors. These industries voluntarily restrict direct access by minors to keep the public from demanding that all films and video games be "content appropriate" for minors (Scales, 2009). The American library industry — so to speak — has deliberately decided not to apply such a policy.

What counts as constitutionally protected speech? That's a complicated issue. The First Amendment itself does not mention exceptions, but there is a long history of Supreme Court cases deciding what counts as speech (more than verbal expression!) and what counts as protected speech: most things except obscenity, libel, fighting words, and incitement to immediate crime (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942). Unprotected speech isn't necessarily illegal speech; it's just that the Constitution isn't interpreted as stopping legislatures from passing laws against unprotected speech, so legislatures usually do.

There is one more major complication: the same materials can be classified as protected, non-obscene speech for adults but unprotected, obscene speech for minors. In a late 60's Supreme Court case, it was decided that pornographic magazines could be denied by law to minors while allowed by law to adults (Ginsberg v. New York, 1968). However, as seen in the long quote above, the ALA insists on waiting for a court of law to classify materials as "obscene" — for everyone — before libraries may deny access to minors.

Criticism of Full Access for Minors

Do libraries have a legal obligation to offer minors access to all materials which are constitutionally protected for adults? Despite the ALA's age-agnostic presentation of the issue, the answer appears to be: no, libraries are not legally obligated to provide full access to minors:

"The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree. Given this interest, and the failure to show that adult library users' access to the material is burdened in any significant degree, the statute is not unconstitutional on its face." (United States v. American Library Association, 2003)

This does leave open the question of whether libraries may restrict materials more narrowly than local legislative limits, but the simplistic principle of equal access does not stand up to scrutiny.

All Responsibility on Parents

"Librarians and library governing bodies cannot assume the role of parents or the functions of parental authority in the private relationship between parent and child.  Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that only parents and guardians have the right and the responsibility to determine their children's—and only their children’s—access to library resources." (ALA, 2008)

To use a film example again, it's common for video rental stores to deny R-rated rentals to minors by default, unless a parent adds an authorization to the family account to permit a particular child to rent R movies on his or her own. Librarians following the ALA's code will allow minors to check out any materials from the library by default. Can parents ask the library to not allow their own children to check out R-rated movies? The ALA says "no." Or put more positively, "Visit the library with your children. If that’s not possible, ask to see the materials your children bring home. Set aside a special shelf for library materials. If there are materials on it you don’t approve of, talk with your children about why you would rather they not read or view them" (ALA, 1999).

Criticism of All Responsibility on Parents

Some parents consider the ALA's stance too "retroactive" to give parents informed control over their own children's library access. Relying on children to hand over all materials to their parents for approval is, well, unrealistic. Parents Against Bad Books in Schools (PABBIS) proposes a system of "Upfront-Informed Parental Consent" for assigned readings as well as school library collections. In this system, parents would be given a write-up describing the content and justification for using each book, along with possible alternatives. Parents would need to sign off on the book or pick an alternative for their own children (PABBIS, n.d.).

While this may work for assigned classroom readings, it's unclear how such a system would work for a library as a whole. Perhaps parents could give blanket pre-approval for their children to read materials with certain ratings, but require specific consent on anything beyond those ratings. It would be interesting to know the degree to which librarian opposition to such a scheme is a matter of convenience versus a matter of principle.

Unrestricted Selection

"Libraries should not limit the selection and development of library resources simply because minors will have access to them. Institutional self-censorship diminishes the credibility of the library in the community, and restricts access for all library users." (ALA, 2008)

Given the policy of full access to library resources for minors, it might be tempting to limit minors by limiting the entire library. It would be like allowing minors to rent any movie at a video store without parental permission, while simply not carrying anything rated higher than PG-13. Some parents would no doubt appreciate the existence of such a video store, but our society would be poorer if every video store were of this kind.

Internet access really brings the question of restrictions to the forefront. While it's possible to subtly limit local resources out of a consideration for minors, the full diversity of the Internet comes as a single package unless librarians take the additional step of applying a filter. The ALA opposes such filtering:

"So, just as librarians do not monitor the books or periodicals people bring into or check out of the library, allowing people to decide for themselves what they wish to read and study, the Internet empowers users to choose for themselves the information they wish to view. Librarians can—and do—help guide searches, but they do not advocate limiting access to legal speech, because blocking access to constitutionally protected speech is unconstitutional." (ALA, 2003)

The ALA's position has been that public libraries, as public organizations, are bound by the First Amendment in ways that private organizations — like video stores — are not.

Criticism of Unrestricted Selection

Once again there is an absolutist legal question to clear up before discussing matters of degree. Can libraries self-impose content restrictions on constitutionally protected materials for adults? A judgment by Washington state's Supreme Court touched on this in the context of Internet filtering for adults:

"The principle that a library has no obligation to provide universal coverage of all constitutionally protected speech applies to Internet access just as it does to the printed word in books, periodicals, and other material physically collected and made available to patrons." (Bradburn et al v. North Central Regional Library District, 2010)

It remains to be seen whether a higher court will affirm or overturn this decision. A strong answer either way would be helpful because the ALA insists that restrictions on protected speech are unconstitutional, while the ALA's critics want local communities to have a say in where to draw the line for public libraries.

Conclusion

Extremes are easy. Conservative patrons worry about a policy of "anything goes." The ALA worries about a policy of "anything someone doesn't like goes away." It can seem like the only way to avoid one extreme is to embrace the other. This makes the status quo unstable and contentious. Sacrificing the principle of absolute age equality may be a necessary step toward keeping libraries free for adults and as open for children as their parents want them to be.

References

American Library Association. (1996). Library bill of rights. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill

American Library Association. (1999). Strategies and tips for dealing with challenges to library materials. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/challengeslibrarymaterials/copingwithchallenges/strategiestips

American Library Association. (2003). Libraries and the Internet toolkit. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/iftoolkits/litoolkit/sampleanswers

American Library Association. (2008). Free access to libraries for minors. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/freeaccesslibraries

Bradburn et al v. North Central Regional Library District, No. 82200-0 D. Washington. (2010). Retrieved from http://caselaw.findlaw.com/wa-supreme-court/1523482.html

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942).

Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968).

Parents Against Bad Books in Schools. (n.d.) Upfront-informed parental consent. Retrieved from: http://www.pabbis.com/upfront.html

Scales, P.R. (2009). Protecting intellectual freedom in your school library: Scenarios from the front lines. Chicago, IL: ALA Publishing.

United States v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194 (2003).