For our presentation for the class my partner and I will be talking about the Patriot Act, focusing on its relation to libraries. The presentation is more timely than I thought it would be as certain portions of the Patriot Act that were due to sunset have just been renewed for another year.
Doing this presentation has been a good reminder of what all is in the Patriot Act and how it changed the legal landscape for law enforcement to pursue and acquire information. One book I've been reading, Refuge of a Scoundrel, places the Patriot Act nicely in the larger context of a shift to greater government power and also greater government secrecy.
These two movements both affect libraries. Government power comes into play in new powers to request library records including circulation information and computer access logs. Simultaneously government secrecy has impacted the ability of people to do research by restricting the information available to the people from the government. In many cases this was apparently innocuous information that was unclassified or had been declassified for a long time.
It appears that these forces are on the wane a bit. At least this time the sunsetting Patriot Act provisions were renewed for only a year, and that after some debate and an emergency two month extension. Here's hoping for a better result next February! Don't forget you can write your representative and senators to make your opinion known!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Neil Gaiman on Intellectual Freedom
Author Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Coraline, many others) had a recent post on his blog that talked about a recent conviction of someone for owning "obscene comics". While this has some relation to our class, I thought a link from that post to a older post was even more appropriate (and I highly recommend reading the whole post). Entitled "Why defend freedom of icky speech?", it is a long response to a fan questioning why it was worth defending the defendant in this case.
And this question reminded me of a similar question that seems to have come often over this term about what materials should be in a library's collection and if there are any materials that are just "out of line." And the answer varies between libraries, given their different focuses and collection policies. And obviously libraries concern only a subset of our First Amendment rights - there may likely be things that ought to be free to publish but that don't belong in your library due to its collection policy and the interests of patrons.
But Gaiman's older blog post had some gems of wisdom in it that are appropriate for us to consider. Why should the library have potentially offensive materials? And what about a book that offends the librarian personally? As Gaiman puts it,
In this case, we're talking about library collections rather than law, but I think the basic point remains the same. We allow things that we find offensive in our collections because the alternative is that we have rules to prevent "offensive" material - and those same rules would be used to remove things we do think are worth defending. "One person's obscenity is another person's art."
And this question reminded me of a similar question that seems to have come often over this term about what materials should be in a library's collection and if there are any materials that are just "out of line." And the answer varies between libraries, given their different focuses and collection policies. And obviously libraries concern only a subset of our First Amendment rights - there may likely be things that ought to be free to publish but that don't belong in your library due to its collection policy and the interests of patrons.
But Gaiman's older blog post had some gems of wisdom in it that are appropriate for us to consider. Why should the library have potentially offensive materials? And what about a book that offends the librarian personally? As Gaiman puts it,
You ask, What makes it worth defending? and the only answer I can give is this: Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you're going to have to stand up for stuff you don't believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don't, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person's obscenity is another person's art.
In this case, we're talking about library collections rather than law, but I think the basic point remains the same. We allow things that we find offensive in our collections because the alternative is that we have rules to prevent "offensive" material - and those same rules would be used to remove things we do think are worth defending. "One person's obscenity is another person's art."
Saturday, February 13, 2010
News coverage of challenges
For our assignment this week, we have to write a paper on an "intellectual freedom challenge" in a library. So, I went looking for challenges to write about. I've ended up writing about the semi-famous "Bunny Suicides" challenge, but that's tangential to the point of this post.
In looking for challenges, I came across a nice, convenient list put together by the ACLU of Oregon (see the right sidebar on this page). In looking through the list a few different challenges caught my eye, but when I went to find information about them it was often hard, if not impossible, to find even a single news article. It seems that often challenges, whether in public libraries or school libraries, just don't make the news.
It's not clear from the ACLU site whether it's challenges list includes only formal written challenge, or whether complaints that are resolved purely verbally are counted too. But in either case, I wouldn't have expected that 18 challenges were made in Oregon public libraries last year - largely because I saw no news about any challenges.
Another oddity in news reporting of challenges that I encountered was that news organizations don't always follow the whole story through to the end. In the case of the Bunny Suicides there were a fairly large number of stories about the initial case, but not as many organizations actually reported about the final decision three months later. (For the record, the book was retained in the library.)
In looking for challenges, I came across a nice, convenient list put together by the ACLU of Oregon (see the right sidebar on this page). In looking through the list a few different challenges caught my eye, but when I went to find information about them it was often hard, if not impossible, to find even a single news article. It seems that often challenges, whether in public libraries or school libraries, just don't make the news.
It's not clear from the ACLU site whether it's challenges list includes only formal written challenge, or whether complaints that are resolved purely verbally are counted too. But in either case, I wouldn't have expected that 18 challenges were made in Oregon public libraries last year - largely because I saw no news about any challenges.
Another oddity in news reporting of challenges that I encountered was that news organizations don't always follow the whole story through to the end. In the case of the Bunny Suicides there were a fairly large number of stories about the initial case, but not as many organizations actually reported about the final decision three months later. (For the record, the book was retained in the library.)
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Ideal vs Actual Meeting Room Policies
I thought this week I'd compare an actual meeting room policy to the idealized version from the ALA. Specifically, I'll be looking at the meeting room policy of the Eugene Public Library (PDF warning), my local library.
The EPL has three meeting rooms open for public rental. It may look like four at first, but the Tykeson and Bascom rooms are adjacent and can be combined into a single room. A fee is charged for the use of the rooms, and it's a bit more if the rooms are to be used outside the library's normal hours.
The ALA Interpretation suggests that the meetings ought to be restricted only by time, place, and manner, not by content. The EPL doesn't stress content in it's handout, but it does say that the rooms are open "to all persons or groups" which implicitly includes indicates they don't discriminate between renters based on the content.
There is a restriction on the frequency of reservations - no more than once per month. There is also a restriction that all meetings must be free and open to the public. But these restrictions are explicitly allowed for in the ALA Interpretation: "Written policies may include limitations on frequency of use, and whether or not meetings held in library meeting rooms must be open to the public."
The ALA Interpretation suggests that libraries include a section on admission fees and the EPL policy does, stating that meetings must be free and open to the public.
The only place I can see some conflict between the two statements is that the Eugene Library charges a fee to the group for use of hte room. The Interpretation encourages libraries to avoid this in order to preserve equitable access to all aspects of the library; this applies to indirectly restricting access based on the ability to pay. However, the fees are pretty low and I think it's clear that the EPL had intellectual freedom in mind when it drafted the policy.
The EPL has three meeting rooms open for public rental. It may look like four at first, but the Tykeson and Bascom rooms are adjacent and can be combined into a single room. A fee is charged for the use of the rooms, and it's a bit more if the rooms are to be used outside the library's normal hours.
The ALA Interpretation suggests that the meetings ought to be restricted only by time, place, and manner, not by content. The EPL doesn't stress content in it's handout, but it does say that the rooms are open "to all persons or groups" which implicitly includes indicates they don't discriminate between renters based on the content.
There is a restriction on the frequency of reservations - no more than once per month. There is also a restriction that all meetings must be free and open to the public. But these restrictions are explicitly allowed for in the ALA Interpretation: "Written policies may include limitations on frequency of use, and whether or not meetings held in library meeting rooms must be open to the public."
The ALA Interpretation suggests that libraries include a section on admission fees and the EPL policy does, stating that meetings must be free and open to the public.
The only place I can see some conflict between the two statements is that the Eugene Library charges a fee to the group for use of hte room. The Interpretation encourages libraries to avoid this in order to preserve equitable access to all aspects of the library; this applies to indirectly restricting access based on the ability to pay. However, the fees are pretty low and I think it's clear that the EPL had intellectual freedom in mind when it drafted the policy.
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