The Price of Apathy
The Lincoln Public Library.
Last week, several people contacted us about the recent vote to essentially defund the Patmos Library in Jamestown, Michigan. The issue? The inclusion of LGBTQ+ materials in the library’s collection. Just another sickening step in the short march to stupidity. We’ve seen a lot of the coverage of the news and noticed how little of it explores how it is that loud, incoherent, and intolerant voices have gained the upper hand. There’s also been limited discussion about how the people who love libraries can help.
While there are millions of library fans out there (including you, we hope!), there are many more millions who are simply apathetic when it comes to public libraries. It’s a huge issue, and frankly, one that needs to be addressed - just as surely as the forces of ignorance and censorship.
Apathy around public libraries has countless causes. There are people who feel able to meet their own information needs. There are others who haven’t set foot in a library in years - decades even - and who don’t know what they’re missing. There are some who think libraries are only for the poor, and others who think they’re only for the rich. There are even a few people who think about libraries as quiet book museums, a place where they will be shushed and won’t be welcomed.
Whatever the reason, when people stop paying attention, bad things happen. Apathy has created the space for groups and individuals with dark motives to make their move. This isn’t hyperbole. The desire to control the flow of information, to restrict what people can find and know, to limit who is represented and whose experiences are respected, to make entire classes of people feel like unwelcome outsiders - those are dark, dark things - and they are happening now.
As Bridge Michigan reported, “Amanda Ensing, one of the organizers of the Jamestown Conservatives group, emerged from the library Tuesday wearing an ‘I voted’ sticker. ‘They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,’ Ensing said of library officials. ‘It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.’”
When did we vote to make information access a “biblical issue?” We decided, long ago, to be a nation of laws, rather than one ruled by the whim of some distant potentate - terrestrial (or otherwise, as far as I’m concerned). Yet now, here we are, listening to “patriots” calling for a straight, white, Christian, conservative theocracy. Lovely.
It’s true, library are good!
Real lovers of liberty stand up to this kind of insanity, they speak out on behalf of intellectual freedom, they support public libraries’ mission to provide free and equitable access to information and the skills and tools to put information to work. What people can’t do - what none of us can do - is sit on the sidelines. That is what leads to ugly developments like the one in Michigan.
According to the Guardian, “The vote came as a ‘shock’ to [Matt Lawrence, former director of the Patmos Library] . . . ‘I knew that there were people that were upset about material in the library, but I figured that enough people would realize that what they’re trying to do with the removal of these books is antithetical to our Constitution, particularly the First Amendment.’”
Hand-wringing is not enough. People need to stand together to protect what matters. Thankfully, there are proactive things people can do to support public libraries and prevent them - and the communities they serve - from being harmed.
Visit your local library and voice your support. Go regularly and be amazed by what you see, by the resources available to you, the space you are free to use, by the people there who are ready to help you!
Share your local library. Once you’ve visited your library, tell your friends all about it! Share stories and pictures on social media and tell the media. If you need ideas or help spreading the word, the Library Land Project can help!
Read up on library theory and practice. As someone who loves libraries, I love this stuff! It is inspiring! Read it, and you might be inspired too. At the very least, you’ll have information to understand and help explain the work and mission of your library.
Support your local library. Financially, of course, but also by becoming a Friend to your library. Pay attention to what’s happening at your library. Find out when your library board meets and attend a meeting to voice your support.
Become a trustee. Or whatever the community governance body is for your public library. Might be elected, might be appointed. Either way, find out and take a seat if you are able. (We are both active in this way for our local libraries; you can do it too!)
These are not easy days, so let’s do our best to make them positive and productive ones. Libraries are often the sole civic institution open to everyone in a community, and they need our protection. The forces of ignorance are gaining momentum and can’t be allowed to turn libraries into bastions of hate and intolerance. Sensible people who value libraries need to become at least as vocal and visible and active as those who do not, or we really do risk losing our libraries, just like Patmos.