Editorial- Defend That Hostile Workplace

"Please tell John Berry that those of us who oppose unrestricted Internet access are not all 'right-wing extremists.' I think that is his attempt to marginalize people like me, and I really resent it. I am a liberal democrat...so is...."

I was deeply saddened when I first learned that the writer of that message and the other "liberal democrat" had filed charges against their library employers. The two professional librarians assert that their exposure to the viewing of online pornography at public Internet terminals by library patrons constitutes a "hostile work environment." Like anyone who has worked in a public library, I know the place is quite frequently a "hostile work environment." In my experience the hostility came from folks who wanted to restrict the library freedom of others. When my fearful library bosses decided to lock up many books to "protect" local teenagers, I surreptitiously put them out on the reading room tables where the kids could find them. It worked. The adolescents in that town got to read the magnificent curses from Mellors, Lawrence's gamekeeper at the Chatterley estate, and the delicious soliloquy from Joyce's Molly Bloom.

I don't know or care if these two librarians are liberal democrats or right-wing extremists. I do know that good professional librarians oppose censorship. Good professional librarians oppose official invasion of the privacy of library users. They oppose censorship and protect privacy, whether that user is an adult or a child. Those are as close to core values of the library profession as you can get. Both positions are the result of historic struggles with politicians and other librarians. In those struggles courageous librarians ranging from Ruth Brown, Zoia Horn, and Blanche Collins to John Forsman, Gordon McShean, and many others paid the ultimate price in job and career loss.

The public library has always been one of the most "hostile" work environments in our society. The root of that hostility is that the library belongs equally to every citizen. Unfortunately, that hostility is more often expressed by vocal opponents of open access to everything in the library than those in favor of it, but as those brave librarians knew so well, if it is everybody's library, it must serve everybody's interests.

Victories for open libraries in America did not come easily. Our society, alas, has always had more than its share of true believers who are convinced that they must dictate limits to the rights of expression of all. Fortunately, our history is the history of progress in expanding freedom, an expansion empowered by laws, new technology, the courts, libraries, and the media.

Despite that history, there are still very few places where we allow the full exercise of that freedom for which we fought. When you think carefully about it, you quickly realize that public theaters, the airwaves, the movies, television, and even our newspapers (unless you own one) are limited in their expression and thus still limit our access to expression. The truth is that the only truly free places left are the streets, the Internet, and, of course, most of the libraries.

So now I am "hostile" to any librarians who assert a right to abridge the exercise of full intellectual freedom on an Internet terminal in a public library, or in the street. These are venues for which we all pay taxes. If those librarians persist or come anywhere near to winning the right to censor my freedom, I will double my efforts and expenditures to fight them.

They can pursue their complaint all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I promise them I will devote the rest of my life, and all the resources I can muster, to fighting them. I want to be certain that the freedom we have won is always there for me, my children, and their children. I want to be sure that library environment remains totally "hostile" to censorship and the invasion of privacy.

The public library belongs to all the people, all the citizens who use it. It is not there to provide an "environment" that is defined by the narrow sensibilities of a couple of librarians who work there.