Ought public libraries advance social agendas?

In My Humble Opinion
101

I don’t know that I thought the displays were “provocative.” And I admit I pay little attention to those displays. I may not even notice them or - if I do - it will be little beyond whatever bright, bold words announcing, “Black History Month” or “Summer Reading Program.” Don’t think I ever paid any closer attention to the details of any of the displays.

I imagine a vocal nonzero number of my fellow citizens would find it provocative enough just to see the words “Pride Week” or “Black History Month”, saying crap like "why not “White History” or “Hetero Week.”

When I said my kid tried to be provocative, I was thinking of something she recently said about some subtext she included in her story times that she imagined went right over most of the parents’ heads. And she had discussed when they were hiring, whether or not the applicants advocated social justice efforts, and then whether they were allowed to pursue them. My use of the word may have been a tad overstated.

As I said, my daughter is very supportive of just about every social justice/DEI (I apologize if I am using an incorrect term - what alternative ought I use?) initiative I have ever encountered. When she quit, she claimed it was “a toxic environment.” And her multi-racial non-cis best friend at work was on some kind of emotional stress leave of absence, due to her perception of the conditions at work. I’m not sure to what extent the workplace was all that bad, or whether their complaints are that it ought to have done more than it did.

Just trying to provide details. I’m sure someone will come along and say how my attempt to do so betrays my horrible nature/values. :wink:

102

Hi! I have been lurking in this thread, as is my wont! I’ve just been stretched a bit thin lately and haven’t felt up to scraping together a useful contribution. It’s super flattering to be summoned though, so I’ll do my best!

So… There’s a couple different things at issue here. Library ethics is, as pretty much any ethical field, an attempt to reconcile a number of different priorities and concerns in order to yield the greatest good.

One of these concerns is duty to taxpayers. A public library is a recipient of public funds and therefore has a duty to provide those services and make available those items that make the best use of those funds. That’s usually interpreted as a duty to do programming with the broadest possible appeal, and to provide access to materials that serve as many people as possible. Now, crucially, this doesn’t mean that every program and every item have to have maximum appeal! It’s why we stock mysteries and romance and horror, and why we stock dense historical tomes and Cliffs Notes and high school algebra texts. Many libraries are going to have a book club almost exclusively attended by older white patrons who want to talk about the newest NYT Best Sellers - that’s a demographic that already uses the library and encounters lots of programming. Ditto young children and new mothers. LGBTQ+ programming, programming aimed at English-Second-Language learners, etc… Yeah, that’s just expanding our offerings and reaching more people.

Another concern is representation of the community. A core value of librarianship (especially in collection development, the curation of materials) is that library collections should be reflective of the community. A library in a heavily Spanish-speaking area with lots of immigrants is going to have much larger Spanish language and learning-English collections than a library in a mostly-white, mostly-affluent area. This is a good thing! Programming is the same way. Not every area needs an anime club, and a library in a retirement village doesn’t need a teen-after-school-program. What’s important is that we don’t overlook a population just because they’re not super vocal, super visible. While we can do demographic research and say “yeah, our community is 98% white and almost entirely English-speaking, we don’t need Spanish-language programs and books in Tagalog,” we can’t just assume that there’s no queer people in our very rural red-state communities. Those people exist, and deserve to have library materials and programs that reflect their interests just as much as anyone else.

(An aside from the above, regarding targeted “minority” programming… It’s pretty uncommon that a program is envisioned with “diversity” as an explicit goal? It’s more likely that a program identifies a need in the community and attempts to meet it. Often this is the result of direct patron feedback. “We get lots of folks asking for a basic computer skills class.” “People are asking for more craft programs for kids.” And yes, I’ve seen “lots of our younger patrons are asking for an LGBTQ+ focused book club” or something like that.)

And finally, yes, there is a duty to neutrality. Libraries have a duty to provide the public the materials they want to read. In any major public library you will find a wide selection of viewpoints on the shelves - including materials most folks will find pretty abhorrent. A good librarian defends the presence of those materials, so long as they are seeing use and meeting a documented demand. With a very limited budget, I have never known a librarian to over-represent ‘minority’ viewpoints in collection development. Col. dev. librarians are very good at getting bang for buck, they buy materials they know their community will use.

Programming is a little different. The OP refers to what we call “passive” programming - book displays. These are usually seasonal or related to current events. Black History Month, Banned Book Week, Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, and yes, Pride Month. And yeah, they can be fraught. If a community is vehemently opposed to a Pride display, frankly speaking, it usually goes away. But keep in mind… There are still queer people in that community. Bullied, harried, driven into the closet, but they’re there. No such thing as an all-straight community. Racially pretty homogeneous, sure. Religiously, economically homogeneous, OK, such places exist. (Fewer than you think, but whatever.) But there’s queer folk everywhere. I’d like to think the library is for everyone, even those who have to hide part of who they are.

I feel like I went on a bit of a ramble there! If anyone’s got more specific questions I can definitely try to answer or give a perspective, this post was kind of an attempt to give two cents on a hundred-post-thread.

103

Things may be different in your region, but where I live I characterize such statements as small talk. Nobody I’ve met is really offended. Not to say such sentiment doesn’t exist, even in Florida:

I just haven’t met someone with that viewpoint to discuss it with, and from what I can find online, it tends to be religious.

If your daughter was put through some sort of ideological test as part of the library’s hiring process, that sounds like a problem. Or if she expected the library to be a platform for more radical social change (at least without a legal mandate such as with desegregation), that also seems like she was destined for disappointment. A toxic work environment is always a problem, as well.

~Max

104

No. It was a truly great and helpful post.

105

Thank you for giving your opinion! I completely agree, library materials should reflect the interests of the community it serves. This is a much better goal than what I tried to express before about having a representative sample of literature.

This makes more sense as well, though Dinsdale described a situation where people of color in the library’s neighborhood weren’t comfortable using the library. It’s a third-hand account but that sounds like a major problem that the library needs to address if at all possible.

~Max

106

Yeah, this would be of enormous concern to me, too. That said, “programs for Black people” is a weird and fuzzy target to try and hit. This is an occasion where I would want a lot more information. Why are the people of color in our community uncomfortable in our library? Black folks have been enthusiastic users and supporters of public libraries even when the programs and collections therein were most definitely not curated and created with them in mind. I would strongly suspect much more explicit issues than “not enough books by Black authors” - a staff member or patron who is saying racist shit or following them around suspiciously, for example.

(Of course, if there’s not sufficient materials representing these members of my community or programs that reflect their interests, those are definitely situations that need fixing. I just find it hard to believe that they’d be enough to keep people out of the library on their own.)

107

I also suspect it had more to do with the “considerable objection to some such displays”, meaning Black History Month, and “repeated objections - mostly conservative/religious - to various materials”. Maybe meaning patrons were vocal about not celebrating Black History Month without celebrating White History Month or Confederate History Month (which is, unfortunately, a thing - but not in any library or school I’m aware of). Or maybe there were objections to childrens books depicting multi-racial families as normal. That sort of atmosphere would drive away people of color.

In those circumstances I would support the library taking a hard stance (if feasible) on keeping the displays for Black History Month. Not because of its mission to have materials represent the community’s interests, but because of its mandate to provide services to the public and not just the majority race. But I recognize it’s not necessarily feasible, at least when it comes to Pride rather than Black History Month (which has broader support).

~Max

108

Actually, I was under the impression that some of the displays the OP was talking about were not book displays, but rather general displays unrelated to books.

Could you clarify, @Dinsdale?

109

Sure, I should have put “for example” in there before “book displays.” Libraries have a general educational-entertainment mission, so displays that are generally informative are also a common bit of passive programming. In areas with a strong interest in local history or genealogy, Black History Month could be an awesome opportunity to highlight contributions made by notable Black members of the community. That kind of informational display is an offering of information resources just like a book display.

110

To me, that is not advancing a social agenda. That is allowing people with that social agenda to see some choice reading.

If a grocery store sells kosher, or halal, or gluten free or vegan food , are they advancing those agendas?

111

Okay, I could see a problem if some Black students had their pictures and achievements put up in February’s kid’s corner without there being an opportunity to similarily recognize white students. That would peeve a lot of parents.

~Max

112

I’m discussing the displays mentioned in the OP:

The library in our community - mostly white/upper middle class/purplish/Chicago suburb - used to regularly put up displays in various display cases for such things as Pride Week, Black History Month, and other seasonal celebrations/recognitions. They would also have displays of related books and materials.

These holidays are seasonal recognition of the existence of minority groups. The displays acknowledge both that these national holidays exist. And these holidays exist to remind people that these minorities exist and their history exists. The only “social agenda” is the truth.

Yes, the OP did reframe this as “advanc[ing] social agendas,” implying that these are bad things. I do not agree, therefore I did not stick with that framing. I find that reframing questions often helps people understand better.

113

Libraries are one of our communal spaces for our society writ large, not just the community of the neighborhood or town or of one particular demographic.

If our society has declared a national day week or month then a recognition of that day highlighting library material relevant to it is appropriate.

Yes there is a sensitivity to both challenging the public with material and being aware of sensitivities. Both some conservatives and some liberals may need trigger warnings?

Highlighting material of interest to members of the community that is not hate speech or obscene is also appropriate. So sure a white fundamentalist town may also highlight material of interest to that group and a Latino inner city neighborhood library may also highlight other material.

Seems very simple to me.

114

In the context of this thread, yes. Sure, you can always say that any messaging has a social or political message behind it. But what I’m saying is that said message is that these holidays exist, and the things they celebrate exist.

Though I note that there is also the part in the rest of my post where I talk about how libraries do in fact have an “agenda” (though not in the usual negative sense used today). They are inclusive by nature. And thus displays that promote inclusion of minorities make sense in a way that ones that would promote their exclusion would not.

Libraries aren’t entirely neutral. Their mission inherently requires inclusivity. To greatly simplify what @NinthAcolyte said, they are supposed to be non-partisan, not entirely 100% non-political. For the reasons @Chronos said early on, that is not possible.

In many contexts, the term “political” has a more limited meaning, that is roughly similar to partisan. It is in that vein that I would say that these displays are not political, but merely acknowledge things that exist.

115

I would add on to this that the ignoring those “things” by a societal communal space once communally recognized is a very political act.

116

Seems to me that they listened to critics, that is a far cry from being malevolent.

117

I like that distinction. Nonpartisan ≠ apolitical. The existence of public libraries at all is inherently political - they are a statement that free education and entertainment for all is a valid use of public funds raised via taxation. A reasonably popular political statement, perhaps, but far from a universal one.

118

When I asked my kid the other day, all she said was something along the line of, “when they come in, they don’t see people who look like them.” Presumably patrons and employees. My thought was, surely we aren’t going to hire people of color to act as patrons… And, in similar situations before, I’ve thought, well, if THIS person comes in despite feeling uncomfortable, then perhaps the NEXT person and the next will feel less so…

My impression is that the staff is largely white. As I said, my kid’s non-white friend felt it an uncomfortable place to work.

I just looked it up, and the census says the city is 81% “white alone”. My impression is that a good percentage of the non-white folk live on the far north side - near the adjoining town which is 57% white alone, in which library they feel more comfortable.

They are essentially bulletin boards with frames around them and glass fronts maybe 2-6" in front of the board. I’ve seen them in all manner of schools and public buildings for the posting of rules, information, public information… Of the 2 I saw last week, 1 was maybe 3’x4’, another maybe 6’ by 8’. The one in the kids’ department is quite long - maybe 6’x15’. Maybe they have shelves in them. You’ve never encountered such a thing?

Here’s a site from someone who sells them. I didn’t search it to find ones most similar.

119

In my experience, the layout is usually somewhat abstract, not a rigid grid or anything like that, so when someone checks out a book, they can just rearrange the others a bit to fill in the space.

Such factors exist for every library. They’re not necessarily factors inherent to the library itself, but embedded into society. There’s a persistent and pernicious notion that education isn’t for “those sorts” of people. Or in some cases, that “those people” shouldn’t even exist at all, and should be shunned from all institutions. And libraries have to constantly fight back against that.

As for “political vs. partisan”, I’m not sure it’s always possible to stay nonpartisan, either. If one party adopts as a plank in their platform that libraries are evil and should be shut down, then of course the libraries are going to be opposed to that party. It’s nice to pretend that we still live in an era where the political parties are both sane and reasonable, but wishing or pretending won’t make that actually happen.

120

At a minimum, the library should feel free to celebrate whatever holidays/events are celebrated by the municipality that provides their funding. If the county posts signage anywhere celebrating pride week or Black history month, then the library has a green light to follow suit in whatever way they choose.

Absent that, the library should feel free to experiment with whatever celebrations as long as they don’t violate any laws or any of the municipality’s policies or regulations (for example hate speech).

As long as the library’s management honors those limits, they should feel free to use their own judgment as to what they express, and how they react to community pushback. They should have latitude to call bullshit on heckler’s veto operations, within the policy constraints I outlined above.