So, it’s banned books week. I have a few links I’ve been sitting on for a while trying to find a way to look at them together but I think this week has given me the nudge. Banning books is bad. Challenging books is an exercise in free speech and a totally appropriate way of giving community feedback on library selection policies. Lumping challenged and banned books together confuses two different issues, to my mind. For some reason thinking about free speech and libraries makes me think about union issues. There have been a few in the news lately and not so lately and I apologize for not getting to them sooner.
- I read in Library Journal that the Jackson County libraries in Oregon will be re-opening. You may recall these libraries were in in areas hard hit by the drop-off in lumber industry work and general poverty conditions and the county could not keep them open. Now they can. What happened? The county outsourced the running of the libraries to LSSI, a library services company based in Maryland. Library workers from the system have to apply for their old jobs. What does this mean? It means no unions for employees anymore — the union had also submitted a proposal for re-opening the libraries. It means that a larger percentage of the library’s budget will actually be leaving Jackson County, not staying in it.
- In Vancouver BC the librarians have been on strike for 70 days and my apologies for not discussing this sooner. Check out the library website, bleak huh? I’ll be in Vancouver next week. I’d like to go to the library. If I have to cross a picket line, I don’t think I’ll go, or maybe I’ll just go and talk to the picketers instead. Here’s a Flickr photoset from Day 64 of the strike and a nice black and white set. The union, CUPE 391, has their own photo area and have a website and blog to get out not just their message, but responses to the messages put out by their adversaries.
You can read more about this sort of thing over at Union Librarian.
cepu, jacksoncounty, unions
12 Comments on banned books week looks at union issues, last added: 10/3/2007
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Good to see a shout-out to VPL. Sadly it looks like it will come down to an imposed, not negotiated settlement. And if you can on your way through Vancouver to Access, drop by one of the picket lines (all the libraries are actually closed).
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[…] book week. I hate to be yet-another-copy-cat but, I have to simply say, “ditto” to Jessamyn West’s recent post on banned book’s week: Banning books is bad. Challenging books is an exercise in free speech and a totally appropriate […]
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Thanks for some recognition for the VPL staff. Re: the VPL website you can still get at most of the static pages (eg. http://www.vpl.vancouver.bc.ca/general/mission.html ) but the catalogue is down.
Jamie, it’s not an imposed settlement. The mediator is currently coming up with an offer that will hopefully be agreeable to both parties. The union and the library board (or the Library Mannagement Team or city council or mayor Sam Sullivan or the GVRD labour bureau; who is in charge of the library is an issue :P ) will then vote on the offer. The union members are not being forced to accept anything. In fact it looks as if we will get a good deal. Cross your fingers for open libraries in Vancouver next week!
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Collective bargaining labor relations advocates are routinely blocked by our cities’ public libraries from public records of their public institutions contrary to FOI freedom of information public records principles, sunshine open public meetings principles and intellectual freedom principles. Advocacy on this by librarians, archivists and records managers is generally misunderstood. There is a balance of preserving confidentiality and preserving access to the historical public records. Ask for the public records of your favorite cities’ public libraries, annual reports, curatorial reports, long range plans, budgets, reports to the board, et al.
Note that banning is the blocking of access to the public information. Too often our favorite cities’ public libraries intellectual freedom activism are enunciated by the same folks banning access to the public institutional records. How ironical !
don.saklad you are not making any sense.