Dreams & Swords
February 2008 issue
Backissues
Dreams & Swords
All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut, or you can drug, with words.
- Amy Lowell (Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds)
The Librarian and the Legislator
It's an election year, in case you haven't noticed (and have been living in a cave lately, with no iPod, no cell phone, no communication with the outside whatsoever). This brings to mind a little known fact about the library profession, at least for people who aren't in the profession, which is that many librarians spend a good amount of their time addressing legislative issues at the local, state and federal levels. Why? And what does most of this activity center upon? Two words - First Amendment. Or two other words - Intellectual Freedom.
The Patriot Act was/is one piece of federal legislation that has galvanized the profession these past six or so years. Not because librarians and library supporters don't value security, but because they value civil liberties a great deal. Librarians became such an irritant to the Justice Department in the first Bush Administration that U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft characterized them as "hysterical." At the next national conference of the American Library Association (which can number up to 30,000 attendees), buttons appeared on many a librarian's chest proclaiming, "I'm a hysterical librarian."
Each May, librarians, library trustees and other library supporters descend upon our nation's capital for National Library Legislative Day. State delegations spend the three-day event learning the latest on federal legislative issues that affect libraries and those who use them, and spend the rest of the time on "The Hill" visiting the offices of their elected officials in the House of Representatives and Senate. (One quick lesson in how our government works is that more often that not you are meeting with congressional staffers rather than your elected official … while the average citizen may be disappointed by this, it is important to know that staffers hold positions of great influence over how your Congressperson or Senator may eventually vote.)
Two issues currently in Congress are:
The SKILLs Act (Strengthening Kids' Interest in Learning and Libraries Act; H.R. 2864 in the House and S. 1699 in the Senate). If passed this piece of legislation would ensure that every school has a state-certified school librarian/media specialist. The SKILLs Act would be included in the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. Preliminary results of recent research conducted in the state of New York (by Syracuse University) show that students in schools with certified librarians have higher test scores than their peers at schools that do not have certified librarians on faculty.
A second federal legislative issue is the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 (H.R. 1255). In 2001, President Bush issued an Executive Order 13233. This allowed current and former presidents AND vice-presidents to withhold or delay the release of presidential records - indefinitely if they so chose. H.R. 1255 (with its later amendment) would nullify Executive Order 13233, and it would remove the ability of vice-presidents to claim executive privilege over documents from that office. The current and any living former presidents would have a set time period of up to 90 days within which to make a case to the office of the national Archivist as to why certain documents should not be released. H.R. 1255 has an interesting Alabama connection in that Sen. Jeff Sessions is on record as being a lead opponent of the bill.
Don't forget to check out the "What's New?" column and find out about some of the new award-winning films that have been added to the collection.
Eric A. Kidwell
Director of the Library