Letters to the Editor (or the library)

Earlier this week as I pondered the freedoms we enjoy, I read a story about budget cuts for the local transit authority and felt my blood pressure rise dangerously. As a person whose disability prevents deriving, I rely on bus services daily. When those services are threatened and then reduced, my freedom to get to work, attend school and support local businesses is diminished accordingly. Lack of access to information poses a parallel threat to freedom, too -- freedom to think, learn, express and share ideas.

Lack of access to vital resources always makes me think because access = advocacy and through consistent effort, change occurs. The same truth can be said of libraries, too.

Let me explain... one of the discussion threads dealt with kids and libraries this week, so you know it caught my eye! As I have grappled with how to respond to the patron who will be receiving a Challenge Response from me, I came to a sad conclusion. Parents will always fight for the best interest of their kids, but the public might not ever be able to do enough to meet every need. NONE of it can stop the reality that bad things exist in a primarily good world. Library policies can seek to provide as structured environment for kids and within that setting, steer them down a road of excited learning. That learning process and sharing of ideas is continual, though. The Library must protect the wonderful power of choice. The cost of rebellion would be higher still. in an authoritarian setting where administration dictates content, the love of discovery becomes lost in political fog. Just today, a friend of mine was asked not to sit on the floor while reading at her local city library branch. (It's assumed that the growing number of homeless people come inside the Library to sit in warmth, causing a policy shift which now restricts a home-owning patron from seating herself on the floor as she prefers.) Who knows?! Rather than banning one group of people or favoring another, sometimes the best we can do is to reach an understood compromise.