Legislative Tunnel Vision

By Staff -- Library Journal, 05/15/2006

The hot-button issue of immigration has driven legislators and citizens in Denver to criticize harshly the library's provision of services and books in Spanish. Now Rep. David Schultheis (R-Colorado Springs) wants to take the crusade statewide, proposing to block any publicly supported library from buying printed or electronic publications in a language other than English. There would be exceptions for textbooks and instructional materials for teaching a foreign language and non-English reference materials. Somehow Schultheis missed calling for a block on multilingual Internet searches.