They Know What They're Doing

At the Gwinnett County Public Library (GCPL), Lawrenceville, GA, they filter every public Internet terminal. "Why in hell would you select a library that does that to be the LJ/Gale Group Library of the Year?" It is a legitimate question, given the strong opposition to filters that has been repeatedly expressed, indeed harangued, from LJ, even on this very page. We will try to explain.

When we face one of these tough, complicated questions, we often turn to the ancient wisdom of librarianship for help. There is no better place to start than Jesse Shera's writings. In his seminal study Foundations of the Public Library (Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1949), Shera gives the beginnings of an answer to the apparent paradox that despite its very strong tradition of defending free expression in its book collections, GCPL decided to filter totally library Internet access. Consider what Shera said:

Judged by every standard and measured by every criterion, the public library is revealed as a social agency dependent upon the objectives of society. It followed -- it did not create -- social change. It was an outward and visible manifestation of the spirit and ideals of the people.... The library, in common with all social agencies, moved through alternate periods of fluidity and convention but always responded, in greater or less degree, to its environment.... The true frame of reference for the library is to be found in its coeval culture.

We can easily rail against filtering from our offices here in Manhattan, and we do urge all librarians to take up the struggle. Shera helps us understand, however, why GCPL's director, Jo Ann Pinder, and its governing authority opted to filter despite their incredible record of success defending the books selected for the library. A citizen challenges a book every month at GCPL.

We don't subject candidates for Library of the Year to a litmus test on Internet access policy or any other views the editors or judges might hold. While one judge might accept or reject a library because of those policies, the award itself is meant to celebrate the services, support, innovation, and effective governance of the agency. GCPL is our Library of the Year because of the excellence with which it delivers library services to the people and society of Gwinnett County and the way in which its staff has gone about planning for that service. The award is not only for defending the printed word on paper.

Of course many of us wish GCPL could liberate those Internet terminals. We know the library has processes in place to reconsider the current policy, as it does for the reconsideration of any item it has selected (or not) for the library's collections. But its "coeval culture" is, indeed, the true frame of reference for GCPL. Right now that culture won't accept unfiltered Internet access.

So if Jo Ann Pinder, from her vantage point right there in Gwinnett County, decides the people and the future of the library will be better served by "selecting" the content of the Internet to which library users can get access, who has the arrogance to second-guess her? We cannot deny the library the award it so obviously deserves because we disagree with her decision. The fortunes of GCPL will be best served by the informed decisions of those who know and live in the society it serves, not faraway judges.

Have we changed our views on filtering? Absolutely not! Will we try to convince GCPL to change? Of course! But we think giving them an award that they deserve will do more to strengthen the position of Pinder and her staff than not. When the next challenge comes, we hope the award helps them win and retain the confidence of the people and the society they serve, confidence that those librarians are making the right professional decisions for good library service. The documentation they provided in their award entry has already proven to us that those librarians know what they are doing at GCPL.