It’s Critical to Support Local Library and School Librarians
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
School starts soon and with it the resumption of regularly scheduled school board meetings, some of which were inflammatory and downright rude last year. Perhaps the board members who were put in at the last school board election can do a better job of running a civil meeting.
This is a note to encourage parents of school-age children and others to take advantage of this lull to look ahead to the fall. It is a call for all fair-minded, thinking people to support their local school and public librarians now, not wait until something controversial comes up at a school board meeting.
How do you do this? Make sure you know the name of your librarians. Talk to them when you go to the library or visit your child’s school. Tell them you want to show support for the intellectual component they bring to our communities.
In addition, talk to the elected officials in your town. Ask them about their position on censorship and do not be satisfied with generalities. Ask candidates running for office where they stand on censorship and book banning. Write a letter of support to your local library board and send a copy to your local paper.
This is an issue for all reasonable people to get involved with, whether you have a child in school or are a regular library user or not. Take action to support democracy and freedom of expression – our First Amendment right.
No one has the right to enforce their values on others. Librarians are trained to evaluate books according to high standards of literary merit and to know who in their community would be served by access to many different types of books that open the world to all thinking people. We do not all see the world through the same lens nor should we be required to.
There are procedures in place for those who disagree. Running roughshod over these procedures is both thoughtless and anti-democratic. Take some small action now and pave the way for reasonable discourse this fall.
Marilyn Elie
Cortlandt Manor
The letter writer is a retired elementary school librarian in the Yorktown Central School District.
