Censorship by Librarians
Sun October 12th, 2003 12:22 MSTThe cold war was an incredibly significant period in world history. One would expect major libraries to maintain an extensive collection on this gigantic historical struggle between freedom and communist tyranny. Furthermore, given the shrill statements of librarians, one would hope that censorship would not be one of their favorite activities.
One would be wrong!
My family frequently uses the services of a public library which serves a city of over 1,000,000 people, in an area of over 3,000,000. I won’t name it here because I would hate for the librarians to vengefully start denying us service! Such is the power that these government employees hold.
We have noticed an enormous bias in their selections. For example, consider the wildly popular, if controversial book by Ann Coulter: “Treason”,. They had only 2 copies (since then they have bought more) while they had about 50 copies of Hillary Clinton’s boring screed. Both were best sellers. Coulter gives a vast number of facts (amidst the very witty polemics) about the behavior of the left in the US during the cold war (and terror war) period. Coulter’s wit and writing style makes facts accessible and the reading pleasurable for casual readers. Hillary provides little original information and has generally been viewed as boring and hagiographic.
But most disturbingly, the library has NO copies of “In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage” by John Haynes and Harvey Klehr, distinguished writers and experts on their subject, a book widely reviewed, and, of course, controversial. Furthermore, they claim that “few libraries own” it.
Most librarians, especially in large cities, adhere to the leftist American Library Association. So its not surprising that they don’t carry enough conservative books
Librarians, of course, are self rightous about their efforts in preventing censorship. The ALA proclaims “Celebrate Your Freedom to Read September 20–27, 2003.” Why don’t they give me the freedom to read, from their libraries, critical books about the left?
Regarding their “Library Bill of Rights” they say:
Article II maintains that “Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.” Library services, materials, and programs representing diverse points of view on gender or sexual orientation should be considered for purchase and inclusion in library collections and programs. (ALA policies 53.1.1, 53.1.9, and 53.1.11). The Association affirms that attempts to proscribe or remove materials dealing with gay or lesbian life without regard to the written, approved selection policy violate this tenet and constitute censorship.
Okay, that’s nice for gays and lesbians, but how about Conservatives? Must we parade down streets in our underwear and throw feces at leftist icons to get our rights?
The next time you hear a librarian brag about protecting your rights; about defending against censorship; about hysterically shredding records in fear of the dreaded Patriot Act; or about protecting the rights of their patrons to sit at a terminal next to children and view pornography (they don’t put it that way), just remember:
Many of them are hypocrites!
More on this topic later.
Submitted for Your Approval
Here all the links submitted by members of the Watcher’s Council for this week’s vote
The Council Has Spoken
Here are the full tallies of all votes cast
Libraries make a policy of discarding books that don’t get checked out very often.
So you’re pretty damn lucky they have a copy of Ann Coulter’s stuff at all.
(You should also probably try spelling her name correctly, if you’re such a big fan of hers.)
What happens to the old books? They generally have a booksale and you can buy used copies from them. They do this to make space for new books coming into the library. BTW, for all you accuse ‘liberals’ of leftist conspiracy, you seem to be quite paranoid yourself. Take a look in the mirror… maybe you are a closet liberal! Or maybe you’ve just forgotten your Thorazine.
Your point? Libraries that discard books that have only been in print for two months, and which have long hold lists on them from people trying to get them, are not operating responsibly.
I would suggest that you take the thorazine yourself, since you are obviously delusional. Nowhere in this article is the word “conspiracy” mentioned. It is just your hallucination.
You know, maybe it was the phrase, “Must we parade down streets in our underwear and throw feces at leftist icons to get our rights?” that made me think you were delusional….
Or else really fond of feces throwing.
Wow, conservatives sure have trouble finding a voice in this country. They are completely marginalized. Will no one speak up for them?
(Note to Anne Coulter fans: the above was irony and was not meant to be taken seriously.)
With the help of a biased press corps, extremely biased university professors, far-left-wing Hollywood writers (see this), and useful fools like librarians and most teachers, we have far less of a voice than the left. The default sources of news and attitude formation for non-politically-active citizens is still massively biased against us.
But no, we are no longer without a voice. Talk radio was our *only* mass meda voice for many years. It was the only place to hear the other side. Now we also have Fox News, which gives us a TV alternative.
Now, it would be nice if we could get conservative books from the library with same ease as liberal books. It would be fair. And it would especially be nice if the libraries would stock more of the books which document that which the left denied for so long: the record of communism in creating death and misery throughout the world, and in affecting US opinion makers.
But the ALA is a strongly left wing organization, following Conquest’s second law:
I’m sure S.W.K.Y.A.F.I. used the word conspiracy in connection with your fascinatingly paranoid ramblings because of the following: “I won’t name it here because I would hate for the librarians to vengefully start denying us service!” But there are other phrases too which suggest the same thing.
Here’s a helpful definition of conspiracy so you’ll know it when you see it.
1. A combination of men for an evil purpose; an agreement, between two or more persons, to commit a crime in concert, as treason; a plot.
2. A concurence or general tendency, as of circumstances, to one event, as if by agreement.
Note the words, “as if by agreement” and “two or more persons”. The goofy stuff you are suggesting requires a, say it with me, “conspiracy”…
John Munsch says:
I’m sure S.W.K.Y.A.F.I. used the word conspiracy in connection with your fascinatingly paranoid ramblings because of the following: “I won’t name it here because I would hate for the librarians to vengefully start denying us service!”
If you were regularly dependent on people who you are criticizing in public, you might want to conceal their specific identity, since they are serving merely as an example of a general trend. Paranoid? Hardly… more like commense sense precaution. My wife is a former librarian. She understands how easy it is to provide inadequate service to people you don’t like, as does any service worker.
As far as conspiracy, that term is generally used in a form different than you define. See:
1.An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
2.A group of conspirators.
3.Law. An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
4.A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.
Now I hardly imagine that there is a conspiracy of people at that library. I think their behavior is a result of their natural biases and the ideological indoctrination they received from the leftist dominated liberal arts colleges and the leftist ALA.
Now… if you were to donate a right-wing (but not looney right… just respectable right) book to the library… one which they don’t have but which is of interest to a significant percentage of their patrons… and find that it passed right through to their surplus books sale, would you consider it paranoid ramblings to conclude that perhaps there was an ideological motive behind that action?
I could go into the other behavior of the ALA, such as passing a resolution condemning supposed Israeli destruction of Palestinian libraries while refusing to pass a resolution condemning Castro’s jailing of a number of librarians, their hysterical *lies* about the impact of the Patriot Act, or other behavior, but I won’t list them all. It’s obvious the organization itself is leftist, as is easily predictable from Robert Conquest’s second law.
I’m a librarian. It’s unlikely a best-seller would go to a booksale. They’re rented. After a pre-determined period of time, normally 18 months, a copy or two per branch are converted to the permanent collection, if the copies are still in good condition. The rest are returned to the jobber.
Lee,
The comment you are responding to is not about best sellers from a renter. It’s about donated popular books that may not be best sellers but have a significant readership.
As far as the best sellers, the problem we have observed is the relative proportion of “left” books to “right” books, and the relative proportion of “new age religion” books to Catholic books in an area that is both conservative and highly Catholic. Also damning is the relative length of hold queues on book categories. One would hope that if the hold queues would be of roughly the same length regardless of category on popular books.
An important thing to remember is that librarians, like newspaper editors, operate a censors, in the sense that they select what is not going to be read. Given limited resources, they must of course do this - they can’t buy everything. But given that they are censors, they need to be extremely evenhanded in their censorship.
I agree with you, John. I’m just explaining how things work.
With a donated best-seller, if it’s in better condition than the copy we have, I’d have them swapped out. If it’s something we don’t own and is in good condition, I’d have it added to the permanent collection.
I know very well we censor. But in judging the numbers of best-sellers, be sure to check release months. It’s the non-hot titles that made me laugh. I get a kick out of ordering conservative titles and then checking to see which other libraries ordered them as well.
ALA is like a religion. I already have a religion, so I give ALA a miss.
Thanks, Lee, for the information.
I agree that release months are important for valid stats.
And the ALA certainly validates Conquest’s Second Law (above in the comments).
My family does so much reading that we are heavily dependent on the library. Otherwise we would be spending a thousand dollars a month on books! So we are pretty sensitive when our titles are censored.
Oh, and my wife used to be a librarian many years ago in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica.
John
Hey John- I’m thinking of you as I do my order today.
I got you the first two books in the “Seven Deadly Sins” series (non-fic). I would have gotten you the new biography of St. Therese of Lisieux, except for it’s written by Kathryn Harrison, of all people. :0