I Visited The Library Yesterday...

[JimGinPA]

They had black material covering about a third of the bookshelves with notes attached. They said "Our funding is in peril! Call your local legislators and tell them to support LEVEL PUBLIC LIBRARY FUNDING!"



Pretty scary.

[MountainLaurel]

1. I'm actually sort of impressed by that

Usually library staff are told to hide budget issues and not discuss them with patrons. (For example, when people complain about having to wait in a line to check out books, you're not allowed to tell them that the reason there's a line was that the county cut 5 of your 9 staff positions.)

[havocmom]

3. Staff may be told to hide budget issues,

but library staffers are notorious rabble rousers. When the Patriot Act was first passed, some of the best information about it came out from library staffs. Letting patrons know Big Brother was watching more than ever and if the Feds came snooping staffs would not even be able to tell their dogs. Honing policies and practices to best protect patron privacy in both items checked out and internet use, they were way ahead of the rest of the nation in finding legal ways to protect fellow citizens from intrusive surveillance.


Yep, lots of 'radicals' who believe in democracy and encourage citizen participation in making public opinions known to politicians can be found at your local library. Best way to do that is to make sure the public has information.

Ben Franklin had a pretty good idea when he came up with the local library.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. I remember seeing some of those little signs posted by the checkout:

'The law forbids me to tell you if a government agent has been getting information on what books you are borrowing.'

[havocmom]

5. goes beyond signs

Lots of libraries tweaked their software to where only records kept were contact info and materials currently checked out, not a history of what had been returned.

Firefox got more popular as browsers on Public Access Computers as it is easier to set them up to dump history. True, the FBI can take a hard drive and get the skinny on much, but lots of libraries did what they could to protect privacy.

And some officials at a library group in CT went to court (as John Does) to have the gag order on libraries lifted at the time Patriot Act was up for renewal. bush malAdministration told Congress that no libraries had been searched, and the gentlemen in CT knew better because they were currently dealing with it and under gag order. They actually won the case due to the feds screwing up redaction of their names before court docket info went online, but sadly,
Patriot Act II passed before the win and they didn't get to tell Congress they were being lied to in time for it to matter.

Libraries are hot beds of radicals who like to open windows on government. Support them. They support you more than they can tell you.

[Captain Hilts]

2. In polling, people always choose to cut parks and libraries first when budgets are tight. nt