ALA Losing Credibility on the Hill?

Staff -- Library Journal, 1/19/1998

Judith Krug, director of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, acknowledged that ALA's stand against filtering "is causing a loss of credibility" among some formerly sympathetic Congressional legislators. Later, Carol Henderson, director of ALA's Washington office, commented that "some of the press coverage is having some effect on Congressional attitudes. They perhaps think of libraries as controversial places. It's small, but I wouldn't want it to grow. That's one reason we intend to concentrate on Legislative Day [May 4 & 5] telling the library story, getting legislators back into hometown libraries. You counteract the negative by making sure officials have personal knowledge of what libraries do, and how much people need and want access to the Internet."