The Battle for the Soul of the Library: A Response

The following is a letter I sent the New York Times in response to the editorial written by Stanley Kurtz on February 24, 2022.

To the Editor,

I write in response to Stanley Kurtz’s The Battle for the Soul of the Library published in February 24^th. I appreciate Dr. Kurtz’s concern for libraries and very much appreciate his identification of librarians as crucial players in the ongoing debates about challenged materials and ideological debates in our school and public libraries. I do, however, disagree with both his assertion that librarians can be neutral, his attribution of the current raft of challenges to librarians, and his assertion that trust in the profession is founded on neutrality.

Librarians are not, and have never been neutral. They are human, and human beings are driven by conscious and unconscious bias. But rather than debate the point, let me posit we don’t want librarians to be neutral. We want librarians to work to make our communities better. We want our libraries to help communities make smarter decisions and to help community members find meaning.

We see this in the rising trust of librarians that have a clearly stated mission of societal improvement through literacy and access to information, and the waning trust in institutions such as the press and, well, just about every other form of government institution. We trust librarians not because they simply point to all information on a topic, but because they work with us to find the right materials for our given need. This requires professional and personal definitions of “better” and “smarter.”

Librarians believe in freedom of access to ideas. This is not neutral. The fight against censorship and collecting books on controversial topics as Dr. Kurtz lays out are examples of non-neutral acts. There are plenty of countries where such concepts are defined by the state as detrimental to citizens and therefore ideas, stories, and materials are suppressed. It is only through the actions and advocacy of librarians that things we consider neutral or common today have found a place in libraries in the first place.

In his book “Part of our Lives,” library historian and scholar Wayne Wiegand writes about the evolution of the public library. He talks about concerted efforts to keep dangerous materials out of libraries. Books that would appeal only to “Schoolchildren; factory and shop girls; men who tended bar, drove carriages, and worked on farms and boats; and finally, fallen women, and, in general, the denizens of the midnight world, night-owls, prowlers, and those who live upon sin and its wages.” The books in question? Literary novels.

The common acceptance that libraries house novels and promote literacy in children is the result of professional library staff working with their community to reinvent the very concept of a library to be more inclusive. Throughout history we can see how acts of librarians did not simply follow some proscribed neutral course, but rather imagined a better and more inclusive society. It was ultimately acts of advocacy that freed manuscripts from chains, opened the stacks for anyone to browse, and even made real the ideals of an informed society fit to govern itself. It is no coincidence that the very idea of the public library grew out of the same social movements that gave us universal public education, and women the right to vote.

The Bill of Rights you mention was first drafted in the 1930s. It was drafted when libraries, colleges, and our schools were segregated. When so-called unbiased librarians and their boards were content to maintain a status quo. It took the push of citizens and brave library advocates to break the myth of neutrality, and bring us closer to a truth of the ideal of access for all.

Also, let me challenge the assertion that neutrality is achieved through a balance of views. While this may sound good in theory, in reality I believe as a society we feel there aren’t two-sides to issues like the Holocaust. And before I am accused of using a straw man argument, two of the cases of challenged materials in the past months have literally been about the Holocaust. Also, to be clear, in issues of trans-rights, LGBTQ+ representation, black inclusion, and the very foundations of democracy, giving equal time to those that not only ignore science but question the very right of these groups to exist, is not as simple as two equal views on a topic. For our society to have an informed and vigorous debate, it must be provided a foundation of intellectually honest ideas freed from the other pandemic of misinformation. 

Also, as a library science educator let me assure you that building collections and offering programs is not a simple task approached with little preparation. Library professionals, including the woke ones, have extensive study of collection development, including incorporating community needs and norms into the process. Simply developing services or collections with no connection and input from a community is antithetical to the graduate preparation of librarians.

It is in his highlighting of this process that I believe Dr. Kurtz mischaracterizes some of the current controversy. Where he sees divergence from an ideal of neutrality as a primary issue in the current raft of book challenges, I see a more complex reality on the ground. For example, in many of the cases publicized, librarians have been removed from the challenge process. Instead of using established procedures and policies (many of which involve the simple act of actually reading the book in question) boards and school administrators have removed the trained information professional from the process.

I would also contend that in many of these challenges, it is not a matter of balance that is being sought. In case after case, the arguments erupting at our town halls and school boards is not to add materials to a collection. It is to remove books, and ideas, and exposure to thinking that is not held by a vocal part of the community. The solution being proposed to libraries carrying “A People’s History of the United States” is not to add other views – it is to remove them, or worse. He and I agree that a solution of adding voices is positive for libraries, but let us not pretend that all voices are being given equal weight here.

When a 9 page list of books was circulated by the Texas State Legislature to schools around the state, it was not to ensure that multiple perspectives were being made equally available. It was clearly a concern that the books on the list – books about the black experience, about AIDS, about LGBTQ+ topics-were not in line with recent legislation seeking to limit what was taught in the classroom and school libraries. Dr. Kurtz can make the distinction between formal curriculum and resources in a school library, but that is NOT what is happening in these actions.

Also, to be clear that often what is being characterized as woke collections, or activist favoring of marginalized voices is actually a balancing of collections built over decades and in some cases, centuries favoring narratives of and by white straight males. As a white straight male, I really don’t have problems seeing myself in the collection of libraries around the nation. I have too many fellow citizens that cannot say the same.

I would hope Dr. Kurtz would join us non-neutral librarians in fighting for more balance on both sides. But never equate balance – the state of equilibrium among countering forces – with neutrality. And never believe that balance can achieve what we ultimately need from these bastions of social infrastructure: common ground and shared conversations.