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[JT]

Councilors of the ALA  might do well to remember VI and VII of their code of ethics

VI. We do not advance private interests at the expense of library users, colleagues, or our employing institutions.
VII.  We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representation of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.


The expertise shared by professional librarians enables them to make any more justifiable  pronouncements on the morality War in Iraq any more   than  those of, say Computer Scientists, Mathematicians or Chemists. ---so distinguish between personal convictions and porfessional duties.
 
Although Russell, Einstein and Chomsky voiced concerns regarding the dangers of modern warfare and related injustices.  But it  in doing so it is clear that they wrote and spoke as moralists rather than as  mathematicians, physicists, or a linguists.

[humble homemaker]

Thanks for speaking up.  As  the consumer I must say the censorship I've observed at the Library I frequented came from the leftist Librarians in charge of ordering and removing books.  In fact I find the least diverse, most intolerant of all people, are the leftists in learning, who believe shoving and pushing the rest of us into their corner is their God given, oops I mean government ordained destiny.  They believe social reform begins with the education of our youth and their job is to make sure balance doesn't exist.  Sounds to me like the brainwashing of the Hitler Youth.

[T. Ciambor, MLS]

Who is buring books?  Who is "invading patrons homes"?
You set up your argument with  hyperbole and exaggeration to justify political action.  What patent nonsense.

[J. Elliott]

You got it!  I have noticed the same thing.  Leftist librarians never call it censorship.  They call it "collection development" and "collection maintenance" but no matter what you call it, no matter how you cut it, bologna is still bologna.  And censorship is still censorship.

[%sig%]

[J. Elliott]

682--that's not very many, is it, Stephen?  

I was with the Dallas Public Library when the book was published and the librarians there were generally so against allowing it to be purchased that there had to be a special committee set up to study the "problem."  Sanity prevailed (barely) and the book managed to squeak by the censorship committee.  (Censoship committee--I mean, what else could you call it?)

By the way, Stephen, 682--the number you got from your WorldCat search--is not an entirely accurate number.  WorldCat shows that Dallas Public Library still owns the book.  However, if you search the Dallas Public Library catalog you will find that DPL no longer owns the book.  Alas.

Now, wouldn't you think a serious study by a respected and experienced professional journalist about censorship in the USA, a book that explains in painful detail how censorship is practiced here in America, be of some interest to most librarians?  Wouldn't you think so?  

I would think so.  And that a paltry "682" libraries own it is both a shame and a glorious testament that censorship is indeed alive and well in the ALA.

[%sig%]

[senior prof]

Librarians can have and support any political views they want---so long as it is on their own time and is kept off campus.

When you start to bring your idealogy to work, and impose it on others, and even punish those who don't agree with you, then this is NOT a free speech issue nor an academic freedom issue. Its flat out persecution of those who don't toe the line.

The american library association has been doing this for years. Its about time they were investigated by the federal governement.

[Michael Pyshnov]

Librarians are not different than most of the professors. This is the marihuana generation. These people did not come to universities for science and literature, they came to establish counter-culture, but it was never explained in universities that counter-culture has no place in universities.
Remember the Sokal joke? Did it not prove that politics is their main preoccupation in universities and the science and literature is only a vehicle delivering their salary?
Now, you can't do anything, it's too late. Well, unless you start explaining things. In which case you will probably do the explanation from somewhere outside.

[%sig%]

[Why?]

I agree wholeheartedly. Keep up the stacks and keep the online databases running. Period. Everything else do at home after work.

[Manuel, Coordinator, UTPA]

I love what a library is meant to be.  It is a haven for me to explore.  But there are great problems facing local libraries.

By focusing on politics, the ALA avoids time and energy from focusing on their core issues.  Years later the question will be asked, "where was the ALA in addressing the important issues affecting libraries?"  Sadly, the response will be they were too busy on foreign affairs.

Thank you for revealing the truth of a great hypocrisy.   I have heard many liberals claim to be open-minded.  But as their influence has waned over the years, they seek whatever avenues to reinforce their ideas.  They have eventually turned the ALA away from their original purpose.  It is a shame.

I support you.

[%sig%]

[Ted Kane, librarian]

Since when did ALA matter to anyone?

[anon22]

Forums Moderator wrote:

> If librarians
> are supposed to defend intellectual freedom and diversity of
> opinion, how can they allow their profession to be "a bastion
> of orthodoxy"? Is it appropriate for the American Library
> Association to take stands on political issues, such as a
> recent resolution calling for the United States to leave Iraq?
>

What?

Since when do librarians have ANYTHING to do with academic freedom? They are there to do one (and only one) thing:

make the materials faculty, students, and researchers need to do their work.

period.

As far as the ALA goes, they are an extreme leftist organization that needs to be investigated by the U.S. Attorney's office.

[P.Borkowski, American Universi]

A librarian has one job: the documentation and archiving of research works. That is all. Those who want to escape from this task commit the classic error: he who attempts to leave his proper place shows that he is ignorant about both what he left and what he seeks to enter.

[John]

Ted,

Unfortunately--quite unfortunately--ALA does sometimes still matter.  Too many libraries, when advertising an opening, ask for candidates who have graduated from an ALA accredited program.  Alas.

[%sig%]

[John]

Manuel,

I've been a professional librarian for well over twenty years.  I can assure you that the ALA was a bastion of left-wing politics when I first got into this "business" over twenty years ago and things have only gotten worse since then.

Assuming that ALA's original purpose was, in fact, to address "the important issues facing libraries," that original purpose was abandoned a long, long, time ago.

ALA has been off track for a long time; it's not a new thing.

[%sig%]

[anabolina]

I had no idea how political the ALA was until I had to consult its webpage for information on the Patriot Act.  It was a bit of a surprise and when I mentioned it to my classmates and friends, they were not surprised.  I guess everybody knew but me and I suppose the librarian field is now notorious for being liberal because when some people hear I'm a librarian, they automatically assume I am liberal.  I do wish politics were not a part of librarianship, or at least we would not emphasize it to the exclusion of other, more pertinent, aspects. 

I try to ignore the ALA whenever possible because you have to take everything it says with a grain of salt.  Given their political emphasis, I don't feel I can trust anything they say and I couldn't imagine joing the ALA.  They are NOT getting my money.  As a librarian just starting in the field, the ALA's politics are very off-putting.