It occurs to us that we are sometimes too harsh on the Masters of Library Science and our town's public library. We don't get out much these days, especially to public libraries in other parts of the world, so we miss a lot of the administrative drama that goes on between beleaguered library boards and outraged parents over things like access to pornography on the library's computers.
That said, we're just glad that we don't live in someplace like Orland Park, Illinois, where the Masters of Library science think they have to post notices like this on their web site:
The whole thing lives at the other end of the link.The Internet is a wonderful thing, but it often empowers irresponsible people to make claims and accusations that have very little to do with the truth. So for all our patrons, and residents of Orland Park, here are the FACTS.About six weeks ago, two non-residents made false and very unfair characterizations about the library and its employees. One of them allegedly saw a patron viewing offensive material on a computer in the adult section and subsequently made public accusations that the library was an unsafe place for children or anyone to visit. Well, nothing could be further from the truth.
Of course, not everyone agrees. Blogress Linda has this to say:
Porn at the Orland Park Public Library and of COURSE they attack the messengers
They uploaded a WARNING. A WARNING! OMG! They are actually warning people about the two people that brought the porn to light. Here is the gig. They need a PR Crisis intervention. They are handling this so wrong, that other past employees that I know are thinking about coming out and talking, too.
OPPL- STOP! You are mudslinging and setting the next stage for a full-blown SNL skit. It was bad enough SNL poked fun at you on the big Lady Gaga hosting night. I had not watched SNL in months but did not want to miss the Lady Gaga episode. Proved to be better than I thought when Seth Myers suddenly starts talking about the Chicago Library with the porn problems.
The whole thing lives here.
From this distance, it looks like both sides have a point. But the relative merits of each side are obscured by the bunker mentality adopted by a best and brightest head librarian, an out of touch and complacent library board determined to maintain their ancient privilege under attack by the hoi polloi, both of them seeking to use the full repressive machinery of the State in their defense of intellectual freedom and an increasing number of outraged mothers of small children using the as-yet-unregulated freedom of speech accorded by the internet to keep certain library materials away from certain library patrons.
Irony abounds, as it often does. What we're happy about is that we don't have to try to use a library that has descended into the kind of toxic dysfunction and acrimony that seems to prevail in Orland Park.
From this distance, it looks like both sides have a point. But the relative merits of each side are obscured by the bunker mentality adopted by a best and brightest head librarian, an out of touch and complacent library board determined to maintain their ancient privilege under attack by the hoi polloi, both of them seeking to use the full repressive machinery of the State in their defense of intellectual freedom and an increasing number of outraged mothers of small children using the as-yet-unregulated freedom of speech accorded by the internet to keep certain library materials away from certain library patrons.
Irony abounds, as it often does. What we're happy about is that we don't have to try to use a library that has descended into the kind of toxic dysfunction and acrimony that seems to prevail in Orland Park.
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