FEATURE
Fighting the Good Fight
by Carolyn Foote
“Libraries are the living memory of mankind.”
— Aldous Huxley |
Libraries are facing daunting times. Intellectual freedom is under sustained attack, funding is being cut, academic institutions are under threat, and librarians and libraries are confronted with legislative attacks at the state level. We are seeing restrictions on database content emerging again and new types of arguments being made in court. (A troubling new argument around libraries as government speech is making an appearance and, clearly, case law is being tested.)
However, some good news is that thus far, lawsuits relating to libraries have all been found in favor of libraries or the right to read (at least, as of this writing). In fact, several librarians who have lost their jobs have gotten settlements after filing lawsuits, such as Suzette Baker who was fired in Llano, Texas. Multiple states have passed Freedom to Read bills to safeguard due process for materials and to protect librarians from unwarranted criminal charges.
Be Proactive
There are many proactive ways we can respond to this assault on intellectual freedom and work together more effectively. It is far past time for us to be siloed into types of libraries. Coalitions have already been formed for those supporting the right to read. They are stronger than before, with parents, students, librarians, authors, and publishers joining hands to build stronger outreach and messaging. This increased organization will allow us to spread the word more widely about the impacts of these attacks and reach out to the broad public support for libraries. If your organization is not part of a coalition, finding an existing one or forming your own is a positive way to become more strategically engaged. Reaching out beyond the walls of our libraries is key because there are many organizations that care about the values that we care about.
Librarians are particularly skilled at bringing order out of chaos. Thus far, the new administration feels quite chaotic to the average person. How can we use our skills to create some order out of this, help facilitate effective news feeds, or generally help people break down the issues? Picking a few key issues for your local community to help community members make sense of them in a nonpartisan way provides a service to all. In doing that, we also need to be mindful of creating things that are quite accessible to differently educated patrons.
Be Prepared
Most importantly, being prepared is another critical thing we must do. Does your library have a crisis plan for situations such as social media attacks, presidential attacks, lawsuits, and funding attacks from city councils or school boards? There are plenty of organizations that can help library directors prepare an effective crisis plan. While large public libraries are more likely to have a crisis plan, school libraries and small rural ones mostly do not, but it’s important to be prepared. Crisis plans do need to include how to address sudden federal funding cuts, how to communicate around them, and what to do. Even if there is not a crisis, it may be helpful to have a rumors FAQ page if your library is in an area where there is frequent misinformation, as AASA (the School Superintendents Association) recommends (k12dive.com/news/3-strategies-to-combat-misinformation-school-communities-aasa-2025/741867). That way, community members know where to go to fact-check rumors about the library directly.
Engaging workers in practice scenarios is another way to prepare the whole staff. If you are in a school, it’s effective to use scenarios with your administrative team as well, since they aren’t librarians themselves. What will you do if a member of the public challenges a display? What if a parent gives a principal a whole list of books to remove? What if someone calls your library clerk on the phone with disparaging remarks? Working through these scenarios with staffers helps them to be prepared.
Preparing written rationales for each library display or event that might attract negative attention is another method for being proactive. It is much easier to do this ahead of time when you are not under pressure. Use your city’s or school district’s mission statement to support the program or display. Also, if you are building programs, find ways to more actively engage community groups and nonprofits from the beginning. If there is a group requesting programming, you have community support built in. Engaging with community groups and asking them for feedback or even creating your own library advisory group (for any kind of library) allows you to also have built-in advocates if you need them.
Build Messages Around Shared American Values
Using clear messaging is another important piece of the puzzle, including having a variety of spokespeople who reflect our varied communities. Effective messaging can center around our shared values as Americans. Generally, Americans oppose book banning and believe in the Bill of Rights. Generally, Americans support their own public libraries. Generally, Americans believe in freedoms. (I recommend Timothy Snyder’s book On Freedom to gain a deeper understanding of how freedom matters to different constituents.) Another common value centers around families. Going beyond the parents’ rights issues to embrace entire families includes a broader swath of our constituents who care, bringing in grandparents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, etc., as well as nontraditional families. We also need to find ways to talk across the aisle. This is where understanding shared values matters. We can actively communicate that we may not agree on a particular issue, but can we find areas of agreement, like agreeing that literacy matters? Remember to build forward-facing messaging, messaging that rouses people to action, and behind-the-scenes messaging that can build bridges.
Overall, an effective messaging structure is naming a shared value, reinforcing it, explaining the harm, and then if appropriate to the issue, making a call to action. We have to leave behind library jargon and explain the impacts in ways that are clear to patrons. Our messages should be specifically created for different stakeholders and able to be altered on-the-fly, but it’s helpful to have a document showing how the message can be tailored for different audiences.
An example of a messaging area is state-funded databases or ebook content. Should we wait for negative legislation or attacks before we make it clear how much these save our local communities and what the benefits are? Why not go ahead and craft consistent and regular local communication about this? We can continually gather not just numeric data but qualitative data about how these services have helped patrons. It’s also important to pay attention to state library organization newsletters about upcoming legislation on topics like this and to communicate that to supporters.
Advocate for Laws That Support Libraries
We should also be considering what types of state legislation we could help build that would support libraries. Literacy, early childhood education, civics education, and career education are all areas of bipartisan agreement, generally. How can library services or funding be inserted into bills like these? How can we work with state agencies in charge of administering funding to include libraries in the rules and regulations for how new laws are implemented?
We also have to have message unity on communicating about harmful legislation, such as bills that seek to slow down book purchasing, criminalize librarians, and enable state book banning, as we have seen in a number of states. This is where being part of coalitions allows us to have a clear approach. Lawsuits have become a vital part of this defense of library services and will continue to be part of the landscape for the next several years, so supporting organizations with the ability to file lawsuits is another proactive, personal thing we can do.
There are also other more esoteric ways we can prevent attacks, such as submitting comments to the Federal Register. When federal regulations are changed, they are posted to the Federal Register. Each agency has to respond to every comment submitted to a regulation change. It can take a long while for staffers to work through these submitted comments and respond to them. They can also be submitted anonymously if a librarian or patron is concerned about privacy issues. Sometimes, slowing down poor regulations is a way to fend off attacks on intellectual freedom.
Keep the Faith
There are many fronts of attack to intellectual freedom and libraries at the moment. Exhaustion and hopelessness are a real impact of that. However, librarians are uniquely equipped for this moment because we know how to find information and organize and communicate it. Our founding fathers created the first libraries, and Thomas Jefferson’s collection became the Library of Congress. Libraries as institutions have historically been regarded as fundamentally representing democratic values. Libraries and librarians have a strong foundation on which to rest. We need to support one another across silos and actively create new coalitions and communities, and we must fight for the fundamental rights of Americans to read.
It’s up to us to take breaks when we need them, to continually decide what level of involvement we can manage, and to support one another as colleagues. The McCarthy era ended because of the quiet and loud courage of many Americans, and history tells us we are on the side that will ultimately prevail. But it won’t happen without us utilizing our professional and personal skills to support the institutions we care about. There is hope undergirding the hopelessness and change. The hope is us as information professionals.
|
