Artwork by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
We live in an age of dazzling and astoundingly rapid advances in technology. Personal computers emerged only forty years ago, and smart phones only became widely available to consumers in the 2000s and early 2010s, yet these electronics have become indispensable for modern-day life. We depend on them for personal communications, scheduling, playing our media, gaining access to our news sources, interacting on social media, plus creating and disseminating art, literature, and music. Our dependency on this technology has gotten to the point where many who grew up with it have not (or cannot) know their own phone numbers. Memorization seems to be a dying art.
And this is only the most recent example of the rapidity with which technology steamrolls through our culture. The Wright Brothers made the first manned airplane flight on December 17, 1903. A mere sixty-six years later, man had landed on the moon. No one gives a second thought to flying across continents or oceans today. That technology has become part of our consciousness, our sensibility.
Compared to this technological wizardry, the public library could be considered a charming artifact of a bygone era, or an elegant anachronism that probably belongs in a museum. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Libraries are not only repositories of knowledge; they are community centers, town commons, and centers of learning. Book clubs, crafting clubs, author presentations, classes, and other public organizations meet there. They are safe spaces. During cold weather, the homeless will come into public libraries to warm up and perhaps close their eyes for a few minutes, knowing they are in a safe place. As the bestselling author Neil Gaiman wrote–most succinctly, “libraries are one of the few places you are allowed to exist without the expectation of spending money.”
Public libraries are supported by the taxpayers and serve the people. Staffs are hired specifically to acquire and maintain collections. According to (The Michigan Library Association), “librarians will consider whether a work has literary, political, artistic, and/or scientific value.” If any informational type of media like CDs, DVDs, vinyl record albums, or even microfilm is deemed to fit these criteria, they are bought and included in the collection. Not for the advancement of any private entity or person, but for public enlightenment. Newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias, textbooks, novels, poetry and short story collections, and graphic novels are all part of the vast trove of information available to anyone who wants it.
Of course, in its never-ending efforts to serve the public, libraries now have computer terminals and internet access available. Bilingual materials are now also available in community libraries in communities that are home to newcomers to our country. As the needs of the public change, so do the services provided by the public library system.
From the Library Company of Philadelphia, a subscription library established in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin to the Peterborough, New Hampshire, Town libraries, “the first free public library as the first institution funded by a municipality with the explicit purpose of establishing a free library open to all classes of the community” (ALA), libraries were based on the distinctly American idea that self-betterment and the “pursuit of happiness” could be equated with the enhancement of knowledge. The noble idea that these opportunities should be extended to every citizen, no matter how poor, is another example of the democratic ideals that were once the storied pillars of this great country. And, of course, these democratic ideals exist only because of a well-informed electorate—which is a direct result of public libraries.
In the sixties and seventies, when I was coming up, my local library was a wondrous haven of new concepts, new possibilities, and new worlds. I found The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse—a book that still resonates with me, in our local library. I discovered dinosaurs, fossils, and the Komodo dragon. I traveled through exotic lands like Egypt and Australia. I met Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter, Warlord of Mars.
Later, in my teen years, the library was a place to meet with friends. We told our parents we were going to the library to study (which we sometimes actually did) but it was mostly a time to meet, listen to albums, or just hang out. My taste in literature advanced to Dracula by Bram Stoker, The White Mountains trilogy by John Christopher, The October Country by Ray Bradbury, and War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Some of these books were downright scary, but they provided insights into grown people and the ways of the world that were still a mystery to me.
I still go to my local library today. My daughter worked part-time at a local branch during her high school years. She loved it even though the clientele at times seemed to abuse the benefits of a public institution. There were some parents who would simply drop off toddlers and very young children at the branch and leave them there in the care of librarians while they ran errands—much to the chagrin of the staff. Other clients tried to access porn on the internet, but most clients were happy to have a place that would help them do taxes, give advice, and provide a safe place to learn. The library for them, as it was for me, is a sanctuary.
About a month ago, “Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody argued Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody argued in court that public school libraries are a forum for government, not private speech. The attorney general claimed the First Amendment does not bar the government from making viewpoint-based choices about what books should be available in libraries” (WFTV). In other words, Ms. Moody believes that the government should control the content of our public libraries.
This is only the most recent attack by far-right extremist groups like “Moms for Liberty” who have been striving to ban books mostly addressing transgender and other LGBTQ subject matter from school and public libraries. Classics like The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood are among those texts being banned. Pen America tallied school book bans in the 2022-2023 school year. They found 3,362 book bans affecting 1,557 titles (Pen).
Book bans are not a surprise unto themselves; unfortunately, they are a part of this country’s history. From Huckleberry Finn to Catcher in the Rye to To Kill a Mockingbird to Slaughterhouse Five, books deemed immoral, controversial, or unfit for our children have been taken off the shelves. Of course, in sort of an inverse irony, banning these books make them all the more appealing.
What is different about this latest round of intolerance is that the lion’s share of these bans are aimed at books about one specific population—the LGBTQ+ community—and are indicative of a growing movement to marginalize these communities.
These efforts to restrict public access to works of literature and films deemed culturally significant by library boards is more than censorship. It is a violation of the sanctuary of the public library to silence the voices of one segment of our community. To state that libraries are not a forum for private speech, and that the government should have the power to choose which books should be in public libraries is anathema to free thought and democratic ideals.
Libraries are sacred institutions and sanctuaries for free thought. They must be preserved from those who would stealthily chip away at our freedoms while loudly proclaiming they are protecting them.
Buy a banned book. Demand your libraries stock them.
Notes
- https://www.milibraries.org/assets/docs/IFToolkit/Collection%20Development%20Overview.pdf
- https://www.ala.org/aboutala/1833
- https://www.wftv.com/news/local/florida-ag-argues-public-school-libraries-are-forum-government-not-private-speech/DLVEC4KPSFH27EXVFW6G2GKVMA/#
- https://pen.org/banned-book-list-2023/#:~:text=PEN%20America%20counted%20school%20book,the%20bans%20occurring%20in%20Florida.