LibraryTechtonics

I’ve seen a lot of posts all over the place about the Library Patrons of Texas making efforts to have items removed from the collection, in the midst of various complaints and challenges several libraries are receiving about online and print content accessable by kids. LACK has a good followup post on the situation.

“They are your children. It is your tax dollars. It is your library. You are entitled to know.” is the slogan at the top of their home page. While this is true, it’s not just the children who get to use the library, it’s not just parent tax dollars funding the library, and not all parents feel the way this group does. I may be preaching to the choir here, but the fact remains that by trying to pursue the selfish “I want [my] kids to be safe” strategy, they deny access to others who don’t agree with them.

I’d like to see other taxpayers, with or without children, publicly weigh in on this. As a library patron and taxpayer without children, I think censoring content for the sake of the children puts my rights at risk. Maybe there’s just too much apathy, maybe non-complaintants think it’ll blow over. While I understand why parents want to protect their children, the censoring of content in libraries because parents don’t want the content accessible to their children, and the notion that the librarian is the babysitter and the surrogate, stand-in parent who is responsible for the moral fiber of a child is a disturbing, growing trend that’s getting out of hand. I mean, librarians are smart and cool, and having an influence on a child’s thinking is neat in it’s own right, but *parents* should be parenting their children, and parents are ultimately responsible for their children.

Tags: librarianship