 |
Intellectual Freedom Manual,
5th ed., 1996. |
The Internet and the Seduction of the American Public Library
Helen Chaffee Biehle
Last updated 15 January 2000
A revision of "The Seduction of the American Public Library II"
Republished from Family Friendly Libraries. The original page is gone. The text is taken from the
Internet Archive capture of 15 January 2009.
A form of the essay appeared in Eagle Forum's Education Reporter in February 1996:
The Seduction of the American Public Library.
I have not updated the argument. One legal fact is noted in brackets: the federal obscenity finding on 2 Live Crew's album was reversed in 1992, and the performers were acquitted in 1990.
For this reason society requires that the education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. Education is a great measurer, forms the moral character of men and morals are the basis of government. Noah Webster, 1758-1843
"We could drop your kids off at the library while you and I finish our shopping," I said to my young friend. She looked shocked. "I never let my kids go to the library alone!"
I did a double-take. I was, after all, a library lover. As a teacher for 25 years, I had gone to the library more often than I'd gone to the grocer. But I had not looked into the youth division since my grown children had used it.
My friend sputtered on. "The librarians say they have special rights, so they can't protect children any more and can't notify parents. And parents don't have any rights. If we complain they call us 'censors'. I dare you to go into the youth section over at County Library and see what's there. Some of the stuff will curl your hair."
The next morning, I opened the local paper and understood instantly what my friend was getting at. There in bold print was the story of Mrs. Cindy Friedman, her 12-year-old son and the county library. She had refused her son permission to buy 2 Live Crew's rap tape, "As Nasty As They Wanna Be," 1 as had the local record store on the legal grounds that he was underage. I remembered that this was the very tape that had been judged by a federal judge to be obscene and whose seller had been arrested, and whose performers had been arrested for an obscene performance in Florida. [Editor's note: In 1990 Judge Jose Gonzalez declared the album obscene. A Broward jury acquitted three performers of obscenity charges that October. In 1992 the Eleventh Circuit reversed the album finding in Luke Records v. Navarro; the Supreme Court declined review.] True to its title, the tape is nasty, indeed, glorifying rape, with men's voices shouting "I'm gonna break you" and "I wanna see you bleed!" over the plaintive voice of a young girl crying "No! No!" All of the lyrics on the tape are unremitting gutter profanity, and all are about violent and casual s[*]x which gleefully celebrates sadistic cruelty toward women.2 Imagine Mrs. Friedman's astonishment when she discovered that her son, on an innocent trip to the library, had not only found the offending tape in the library's collection, but had been allowed to check it out with his library card with no questions asked.
According to the Sun Messenger account3, Mrs. Friedman, with the perfectly normal reactions of a responsible parent, fell into the library's ideological trap. "If he has to be 18 to buy the tape, he should have to be 18 to take it out of the library," she said. (Zap!) "The Library Bill of Rights forbids discrimination on the basis of age," said the library head.
"The library should have a system of warning parents what kids are taking out," said Mrs. Friedman. (Zap!) "That would be CENSORSHIP. Besides, librarians cannot act in loco parentis." (Excuse me. Who said so? They had formerly been doing this, just as teachers had, for many, many years.)
What was going on here? Was there to be no apology to Mrs. Friedman for what John Leo calls the cultural equivalent of poison gas?4 I reached for the telephone. "I'd like to speak to the director of the Cuyahoga County Library system." (This is a system with 28 libraries and 440,000 patrons.) When the director answered, I questioned her current policy on children, and asked for some adult supervision in the purchasing department. She was completely calm and utterly un-apologetic. Much later, I learned that her calm came from following the detailed instructions given by the library's Intellectual Freedom Manual for handling irate taxpayers like me.5
The Library Director's first defense was diversity. "Neither you nor I might approve of 'As Nasty As They Wanna Be', she said, but we serve a very diverse population.6 I assumed that this was a code word for minority groups. But, not long afterward, my trust in her excuse about diversity began to evaporate as I read news accounts about the African-American parents demonstration against Rap recording and their effect on their kids. And later, the whole country began seeing news reports about Rap performers who had been arrested and charged with rape or murder.7
The library head's second line of defense was philosophic. "Not to buy the tape would be making a moral judgment," she said. "We can't do that." (Not make a moral judgment? Can we not judge that cruelty is wrong? Can we not agree that cruelty packaged as entertainment and given to children is morally indefensible?) I couldn't resist recommending a book to the library head: British philosopher Mary Midgley's Can't We Make Moral Judgements8 (sic). (That was in 1991. Who would have guessed that five years later a commercial retailer, WalMart, would put libraries to shame by making moral judgments? It would refuse to sell recordings with obscene lyrics and album covers. The record companies would respond by offering cleaned-up performance version. Bottom line: Parents could trust Wal-Mart.)9
The library head's third defense was the Library Bill of Rights, "You need to read this," she said. "It states clearly that we can't keep materials from children on the basis of age. You can find a copy of it in the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual."10 I hung up the receiver and drove like a demon to the nearest library. I was determined to find out what had caused this doleful change in a formerly beloved institution. Sure enough, buried in the chapters of that ALA paperback manual is the entire history of who changed our libraries, how and when.11
The library with which most Americans over the age of thirty grew up was the creation of people like William Fletcher and Arthur Bostwick, who, writing at the turn of the century, encouraged librarians to accept responsibility for the library's moral influence in the community.12 And this is the heart of the change: today the ALA resoundingly rejects this responsibility as naive and
old-fashioned. Its official statements ridicule and ostracize librarians who do not comply with this rejection and library schools teach the new doctrine. The acceptance of moral responsibility for children in the library is now called "unprofessional;" making a responsible moral judgment about materials purchased for the library is called "elitist," and the librarian who is brave enough to do either is labeled a "censor."13
Look first at the philosophic change: For its entire history, until the 1960's, the philosophy which undergirded the American public library was the same as that which informed the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, and made the free speech clause possible. James Madison's thinking sprang from the English Enlightenment with its emphasis on human reason. However, the dignity of the individual and the attribution to him/her of rights was based on a theistic idea which Madison took for granted: that persons were created by God, who was the source of human rights. Madison's ideals were influenced by the late l7th century British thinker, John Locke, who took a tolerant view of religion and whose philosophic writings balanced freedom with responsibility.14
Libraries, before the 1960's, had great local autonomy. Librarians were free to make moral judgments and were thus free to acquire the best available materials for their library collections. There were separate collections for children and adults, and, until the 1960's, the American library shared common values with its public.
Today, the ALA's handsome brochures invariably quote the First Amendment and picture the Founding Fathers, as though current ALA policies are based on their philosophies and would meet with their approval! In fact, if today's library policies owe anything to the Enlightenment, it is to the French version and its hostility to organized religion.15 The ideas of 19th century British thinker, John Stuart Mill, with his emphasis on self-expression and doubts about the wisdom of helping others, can be seen in library policies based solely on the library's rights. Yet even Mill believed that children needed protection against themselves and that freedom should stop short of harm to others.16
The two men whose philosophies are most clearly evident in todays library policies are Friedrich Nietsche and Jean Paul Sartre. The 19th century nihilist Nietsche, preached that there is no common good to which we are all responsible.17 (This neatly removes libraries from responsibility to their communities.) And, the 20th century French philosopher, Sartre, taught that all values are relative. (Thus, our library director could conveniently say, "We can't make moral judgments.") At the same time, Sartre held absolute freedom to be the highest "good," rejecting all authority and all rules governing human conduct.18 (Based on this, the ALA can take the position that libraries should not block hard-core p[*]ornography, even from children, at its Internet sites.)
The moral tone of today's public library is a casualty of the culture wars which began in the 1960's. During the social turmoil of that period, Judith Krug, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and the Library School of the University of Chicago, was in 1967, appointed director of the ALA's new Office of Intellectual Freedom, a position which she still. holds today.19 A true child of the Sixties, Ms. Krug appears to have rejected the library's trusted role as the repository of civilization, seeing it instead as an engine of social change.20 She has worked tirelessly to make it so, forging, for example, strong links with the American Civil Liberties Union, on whose board she served for three years while carrying on her job as head of the OIF. She has been very successful in promulgating the ACLU's views within the country's libraries, and the ACLU has honored her with awards.21
The policies of the ACLU are based on a philosophical nihilism which sees the freedom of the autonomous self as the highest good, and all censorship as evil. This has not changed since its founding by Roger Baldwin at the turn of the century. According to George Grant's 1989 study, the ACLU believes that children should have the same rights as adults, that p[*]rnography should be protected by the Constitution, and that the tiniest limitation of any expression will lead automatically to totalitarian repression.22 The current president, Nadine Strossen, is the author of Defending P[*]rnography: Free Speech, S[*]x and the Fight for Women's Rights.23
Judith Krug is also director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, which she herself describes as an activist group.24 Like the ACLU, its attorneys stand ready to sue in library censorship cases. Its attitude toward the enforcement of obscenity laws has done an about-face under Ms. Krug's tutelage. In the 1950's, a committee of the ALA and Book Publishers Council had published a list of seven propositions on the freedom to read. No. 4 said "present laws dealing with obscenity should be strictly enforced."25 But in 1972, after the Supreme Court rulings and after the OIF came on board at ALA, a new committee revised the list and threw out the part about obscenity laws.26 FTR's board of trustees included for a time in the early 1990's, the film critic for Penthouse Magazine, whose book, Sense & Censorship: Vanity of Bonfires was published by the FTR and argues that p[*]rnography is harmless and should be protected by the First Amendment.27
It is apparently from these groups that the ALA has absorbed the philosophy that children do not need protection from socially destructive materials. Consistent with this view, in 1967, Ms. Krug's right-hand man, Ervin Gaines, suggested in a national ALA meeting that the word "age" be added to the Library Bill of Rights, so that any child of any age could access adult material in libraries.28 By 1972, the ALA council had approved Article 5 "A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background or views."29
This one word has led to hundreds of conflicts between communities (especially parents) and their libraries. But instead of deleting the word "age" from Article 5, the ALA has developed strategies for doing battle with the public.
The first strategy was to "interpret" Article 5 for libraries and to pressure them into obeying the will of ALA headquarters. During the anti-draft riots of the 1960's, Congress had lowered the voting age to 18. College students had pressed for more personal and s[*]xual rights, denying that colleges any longer had the right to act in loco parentis (in place of the parent). The ALA then moved to deny that librarians, who had been acting in loco parentis for children in the library for quite 100 years, any longer had that right In the case of the colleges, students were rejecting established authority. But in the library's case, we are confronted with the strange spectacle of established authority rejecting its own responsibility to children and their parents.
Article 5 of the Library Bill of Rights does not actually mention in loco parentis, but the Intellectual Freedom Manual lays down the new rules.30 Many libraries, used to a tradition of local control, continued separate card files for children and continued to act as authority figures responsible to the community. In response, the Office of Intellectual Freedom drafted an "Interpretation of Free Access to Minors" and sent it to librarians all across the country. (It was this statement that cut off the partnership between parents and librarians and caused what parents see as a betrayal of their trust.)
The Statement labels as "unprofessional," any librarians who continue to notify or act for the parents. Librarians who do not follow the ALA line are accused of being "in violation of Article 5 of the Library Bill of Rights."31 I asked Ms. Krug if librarians were legally bound to follow the Statement of Interpretation. "no," she said. "It's a philosophical statement. But 55,000 librarians adhere to it."32
The OIF's second strategy for social change was the preaching of a new attitude toward censorship, a strategy which has been wildly successful. According to Ms. Krug and James Harvey, prior to the 1930's, there were few library articles about intellectual freedom and many that did appear "supported censorship and only quibbled over the degree and nature of it.33
Admittedly, it was the Carnegie Libraries which first misdefined the word "censorship" in 1924. They had a "system under which only books approved in a certain manner may be placed on Carnegie Library shelves and that amounts to censorship and it is so intended."35 In the 1970's, the ALA picked up this expanded definition and ran with it, until today, censorship can even mean the use of discernment in the purchase of materials for the library. In the ALA's lexicon, the word is absolute. "There is no good censorship" the ALA's cut-in-stone motto.36
The battle against censorship as defined by the ALA continues through the bi-monthly publication of the "Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom,"37 edited by Ms. Krug. It always lists, by state, all challenges to public and school libraries. We have already noted the importance of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Manual, edited by Ms. Krug and updated every couple of years. The 1996 edition expands the section covering censorship to 59 pages entitled "Before the Censor Comes." It contains Gordon Conable's troubling chapter in which he targets every single person in the community as a potential "censor." His list includes "Parents, either singly or in groups... protected minority groups ... patriotic groups ... emotionally unstable individuals."38 No one escapes suspicion - not even library trustees or staff. Mr. Conable's chapter helps us to see how parents like Mrs. Friedman, who complain about destructive materials being given to their children in the library, are caught in the censorship net, and why they are stonewalled by library officials. For although Mr. Conable's 1996 revision admits that these parents are exercising their free-speech rights, he adds that when librarians or their governing bodies respond by removing or restricting material, they are the censors.39 With advice like this from the top of the ALA, it is no wonder librarians and library boards are afraid to respond affirmatively to parents' concerns.
In spite of Mr. Conable's admission of parents' rights, the campaign against public "censors" continues unabated. Part of the strategy is an annual Banned Books Week. The OIF distributes hundreds of posters and resource kits;"40 and People For The American Way publishes their annual list of "Banned Books." The list was recently exposed as being made up largely of material which has been challenged (usually by parents) but almost never banned. In 1997, in fact, not a single book was banned in the entire country. (One p[*]rnographic audiotape, given to a child in Ohio, was.)41 Clearly, the OIF's imagined First Amendment crisis does not exist. Since the expose, the Banned Books list has added the word "challenged," but the headline, "Banned" remains the same, and challengers are tainted by association. In other strategies, the "Intellectual Freedom Newsletter" calls for "Freedom fighters" to report library challenges to the OIF office, and the Intellectual Freedom Roundtable presents annual awards to groups and individuals who have successfully fought "censorship" in their libraries.42
Yet the ALA must surely know that parental complaints about libraries have multiplied into a national chorus. Indeed, a grass-roots organization, Family Friendly Libraries, formed in 1995 to help parents and librarians, especially those troubled by policies imposed by the ALA bureaucracy, to work together.42b
Individual parents as a last resort, frequently call for warning labels on books and audio and videotapes, a system which has worked well in the private sector. The ALA refuses, pointing to their 45-year resistance, long pre-dating Ms. Krug's arrival at ALA., The ALA's 1951 Statement on Labeling, with its denial of any communist ties, was made in response to political pressures.43 The 1981 Statement deletes the sentence on communism, but repeats the 1951 assertion that "Labeling is an attempt to prejudice the reader and as such is the censor's tool."44 Today, with children's access absolute and acquisition standards gone, libraries are pressured by parents to label morally offensive works, especially for children. The ALA is adamantly opposed. I have heard Mr. Conable declare that labeling takes away our First Amendment rights.45
"Before The Censor Comes" contains, besides Mr. Conable's chapter, one by Carol Nielsen, in which she discusses "Pressure Groups" and their leaders. Ironically, only Christian groups are listed, because, she says, she can find no "liberal" or "left-wing" group with as much "financial backing, huge membership ... political organization ... and an agenda that includes the censorship of information."46 In reality, there are many left-wing groups who fit this profile: the ACLU, People for the American Way, and the Gay Liberation Caucus, for example. All are generously funded and politically organized; except for GLC, have large memberships, and all attempt to censor information with which they disagree. The ACLU, for example, is devoted to censoring religious information out of the public square entirely.47 (To Ms. Nielsen's credit, she admits that religious groups have a First Amendment right to express their opinions.48)
It is a fact that most of the material about which parents complain would never have been found in the library before the 1970's. And, had the Internet been in existence, the ALA would have found the idea of access to p[*]rnography in the library to be simply out of the question. The enormous change in attitudes toward the selection of materials for the library is vividly illustrated in the ALA's own literature. For example, Arthur Bostwick, President of ALA in 1908, said in his inauguration speech:
"Books that distinctly commend what is wrong, that teach how to sin and how pleasant sin is ... are increasingly popular, tempting ... the publishers to produce, the bookseller to exploit ... Thank heaven they do not tempt the librarian."49
In his 1929 book, The American Public Library, he says "Nobody can buy every title that is published, and we should discriminate by picking out what is best ..."50
In 1956 the Division of Public Libraries of the ALA Coordinating Committee published guidelines for materials selection which were taught by library schools. At first glance, the following guideline looks like a statement by today's ALA:
"The collection must contain various opinions which apply to ... controversial questions... including unpopular and unorthodox positions... Selection must resist efforts of groups to deny access to materials in the name of political, morals or religious beliefs."51
But then, we remember the context. Library collections were still separate for children and adults. The Supreme Court had not yet let down the bars against indecent material. Libraries still. had great freedom from the heavy hand of the ALA. In that context, the statement fits comfortably with the Committee's other important guidelines for materials selection:
"The library continually seeks the best ... Materials acquired should meet high standards of quality in content, expression and format ... Factual accuracy ... significance of subject, sincerity and responsibility of opinion must be considered."52
(Madonna or 2 Live Crew in the library? Not under these guidelines!) Now fast-forward to 1996 and Mr. Conable, speaking for the ALA in the Intellectual Freedom Manual. He says librarians should not "narrowly limit collection scope on the basis of purely subjective factors such as "quality" or "popularity," which require outside endorsement in the form of reviews or recommended lists ... or which are written in a way to justify the exclusion of controversial material ..." "If material remains unordered, un-catalogued or un-circulated, ... censorship has occurred "53 (Emphasis added.) Here, the use of any kind of responsible judgment is equated with censorship, thus making it impossible for a librarian to build excellence into a collection.
It was almost inevitable that standards of quality would decline after the, 1973 Supreme Court's ruling in Miller v. California brought to the market literary works which would not previously have been allowed in the U.S. Today, the Intellectual Freedom Manual advises librarians never to remove material that is challenged because it is obscene, until ordered to do so by a court of law.54 This presupposes a legal battle, and libraries have much greater access to free legal assistance (ACLU and FTR) than do most private citizens.
Tax-supported libraries allow children access today to material so destructive that before the Internet, Ted Bundy could only get it from adult bookstores off-limits to children.55 In libraries, ironically, nothing is off-limits to children. Yet libraries are currently immune to obscenity and "harm to minors" laws. The seriousness of this situation is brought home by the fact that were a librarian to provide some of the material in question to a child on the street outside the library, that adult could be subject to arrest.
In their 1997 ruling, the Supreme Court "enjoins the government from enforcing ... prohibitions (which) relate to 'indecent communications,' but expressly preserves the government's right to investigate and prosecute obscenity or child p[*]rnography activities prohibited..." by the Federal Communications Decency Act."56 This confusing ruling in a case brought by the ACLU (with the ALA) discouraged parents like those in Medina, Ohio who had spent hundreds of hours fighting to block online p[*]rnography in their library.57 And it emboldened predators.
Parents are not the only ones concerned about the Court's decision. Groups who supported the Communications Decency Act, such as the National Law Center and Enough is Enough (a women's anti-p[*]rnography group) met with opponents of the Act, such as the ALA and Microsoft Corporation, for serious discussions in December, 1997. The conference, called Online Summit: Focus on Children," was held in Washington, D.C. In the face of growing concerns, the ALA's hard-line zealotry looks increasingly obstructionist. The fact is, new, very sophisticated, yet modestly priced, software is available which blocks p[*]rnography only. Some is already in use in responsible libraries in Boston and Orlando and in Loudoun County, Virginia."59 Yet in June, 1997 Judith Krug, speaking for the ALA, stubbornly insisted, "Blocking material leads to censorship. That goes for p[*]rnography and bestiality, too. If you don't like it, don't look at it."60
This is the ALA, behaving as if p[*]rnography were protected by the Constitution. (This same confusion is rampant in Hollywood. The movie, "The People vs. Larry Flynt " portrays him as a First Amendment hero, but never shows the pages of his unsavory "Hustler" magazine which depicts women in various stages of horrible mutilation.)
The environment in which we live is polluted by the link between p[*]rnography and rape or pedophilia. The woman or child stalked by a rapist may have followed Ms. Krug's advice and never have looked on p[*]rnography, but the evidence is overwhelming that the rapist has. In a less physical way, p[*]rnography's cruelty infects the aesthetic and moral realm for all. of us, Judge Bork has pointed out in a telling chapter on censorship in Slouching Towards Gomorrah"61
The problems are complex, as are the solutions, none of which will satisfy everyone. But the tide is turning. Today, not every left-liberal thinker agrees with the ALA, the ACLU and their extreme position on censorship. Astonishingly, one important skeptic was the late Ervin Gaines, Ms. Krug's former lieutenant, who in 1967, had made the resolution which resulted in children's unlimited access to libraries' adult materials. By 1985, as Director of the Cleveland Public Library, he wrote a letter to Ms. Krug in which he refused to allow her elaborate censorship display to be shown at CPL:
"You know that I have not been enchanted with ALA's endless repetition of censorship themes for the last quarter of a century, and I anticipate nothing instructive in what you have assembled."
Norman Podhoretz tells us that Morris Ernst was one of the earliest and most important First Amendment spokesmen to have second thoughts. It was he who had argued before the Supreme Court the case which legitimized James Joyce's Ulysses and its use of a four-letter word. As early as 1970, he declared sadly,
"I deeply resent the idea that ... the most tawdry magazine ... should be able to compete in the marketplace with no constraints."
He added that he was "repelled by the present display of s[*]x and sadism on the streets and sodomy on the stage..."63 Norman Podhoretz, former Editor-At-Large of "Commentary" magazine, was well-known for writing and speaking against censorship. But, in a brilliant April, 1997 article for the magazine he states:
"Little did I ever expect that I would wind up on the edge of endorsing the censorship of p[*]rnography, and never in my wildest conservative dreams did I entertain the thought that we might have been better off if a masterpiece like Lolita had never been published ... there is no escape from the guilt everyone surely feels over doing so little in general to ,protect the children of this country from the poisons in the air ... Should we not be willing to take measures that would offer protection against the pollution of the moral and cultural environment? ... If we cannot have Lolita without Larry Flynt or for that matter the Marquis de Sade, perhaps we should refuse the whole package deal."64
Everyone accepts, for the good of the community, mild limits on freedom in other areas we must have a license to drive; we stop at red lights; we do not even fish without a license. Reasonable limits to intellectual freedom for the good of the community should frighten no one, for these limits were once observed in this country with a correspondingly better quality of life, including the safety of children.
Our quarrel with ALA is over their belief in Sartre's absolute freedom of the individual. This kind of freedom rejects responsibility and is blind to consequences. On the other hand, those., who reject the ALA philosophy believe in the "freedom to do as one ought." This classic definition of freedom involves responsibility and weighs consequences to the community, especially its children. Only this kind of freedom is appropriate in a truly civilized society.
End notes:
- Benedictis, A. (July 25, 1991) 'Bad Rap', in "The Sun Messenger". Cleveland,
- Lacaya, R. (June 25,1990) 'The Rap Against a Rap Group', "Time" Magazine, New York, p. 18.
- 2 Live Crew. (1988) "As Nasty As They Warm Be", Luke, (Atlantic Dist.)
- Leo, J. (March 27,1996) 'The Leading Cultural Polluter', in "U.S. News and World Report" New York. p.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom (1989) 'Procedures for Handling Complaints' in Intellectual Freedom Manual, American Library Association, Chicago.
- Telephone interview with Claudia Muller, Executive Director of Cuyahoga County Public Libraries, Parma, Ohio, September 1991.
- Sims, C. (November 28, 1993) 'Gangster Rappers: The Lives, the-Lyrics', "New York Times".
- Midgley, M. (1991) Can 't We Make Moral Judgements? (sic) St. Martin's Press, New York.
- Thomas C. (November 15,1996) 'Wal-Mart Censors the Cultural Dictators', in "Plain Dealer", Cleveland.
- OIF (1992) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 4th edition, ALA, Chicago, p. 3.
- ALA governance: One delegate from each state, one from each library division and 100 delegates at-large totals 176 members, representing 55,000 librarians. Quorum is 75; 39 votes, a majority.
- Pletcher, W. (1894) Public Libraries in America, Roberts Bros., and Bostwick, A. PhD, (1929) The American Public Library, D. Appleton and Co., New York.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom, (1989,1992,1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual. Also separate, one-sheet, double-aided 'Statements of Interpretation' distributed to all librarians.
- John Locke on religion and society, in Edwards, D. (1983) Christian England Vol.II, Fant Paperback Books, London, pp. 393-397.
- Clark, K. (1970) Civilisation (sic), Harper and Row, New York, p. 262.
- Midgley, M. (1991) Cant We Make Moral Judgements?, St. Martin's Press, New York, pp. 35,38.
- Ibid. p. 92.
- Ibid. p. 98.
- Fact sheet, 'Judith Krug' (n. d.). Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association, Chicago.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual , American Library Association, Chicago, p. xx.
- Fact sheet, 'Judith Krug' (n.d.) Office of Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association, Chicago.
- Grant, G. (1989) Trial and Error : the American Civil Liberties Union and Its Impact On Your Family, Wolgemuth and Hyatt, Brentwood, TN pp. 45, 81, 92-93.
- Strossen, N.,(1995) Defending P[*]rnography: Free Speech, S[*]x and the Fight for Women's Rights, Scribner's, New York.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, p. xxv.
- Ibid (1996)p. 138.
- Ibid (1996) pp. 141-142,146.
- Pally, M. (1991) Sense and Censorship :Vanity of the Bonfires, Freedom to Read Foundation, Chicago.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, p. 87.
- Ibid, p.91.
- Ibid, P. 91.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom, (adopted 1972; amended 1981, 1991 'Free Access to Libraries for Minors'.
- Telephone interview by the author with Judith Krug, Fall, 1991 or Spring, 1992.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, p.xxi.
- Ibid, p. 9.
- Ibid, p xxi.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom (1991) Statement of Interpretation: 'The Universal Right to Free Expression'. ALA, Chicago. One page, double-sided.
- Krug, J., Editor. Bi-monthly "Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom", Intellectual Freedom Committee, ALA, Chicago.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, pp. 263-267.
- Ibid, p.266.
- Ibid, p. 337.
- Minnery, T. (November, 1997) 'No Banned Books? Make Some Up!', in "Citizen", Colorado Springs, P.22.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th Edition, American Library Association, p. xxxii.
- Ibid, p. 115.
- Ibid. p. 117.
- Conable, G., (May, 1992) Speech at Cuyahoga County Library headquarters, Parma, Ohio.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom, (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, P. 245.
- ACLU Policy Guide, cited by Grant, G. (1989) The American Civil Liberties Union and Its Impact On Your Family, Wolgemuth and Hyatt, Brentwood, TN, pp.
- Office for Intellectual Freedom, (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, American Library Association, Chicago, p. 253.
- Ibid, p. xxii.
- Bostwick, A. (1929) The American Public Library, D. Appleton and Co., New York, p. 154.
- Coordinating Committee on Library Standards (1956) Public Library Service to America, American Library Association, (manuscript copy, courtesy University of Maryland Library) P.51.
- Ibid, p.49.
- Office of Intellectual Freedom, (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, p.267.
- Ibid, p. 138.
- Jones, E. M. (July/August, 1997) 'What's the Difference Between a Public Library and an X-Rated Book Store?' In "Culture Wars", South Bend, IN, p. 13.
- #368-3308 Reno et al. v. ACLU et al. (including ALA).
- Interviews with Julie Wojtala and Michelle Yezerski, officers of Citizens for the Protection of Children Medina, OH, April, 1997.
- Harmon, A. (December 1, 1997) 'Ideological Foes Meet on Web Decency' in "New York Times" p. C 1.
- Weinberg, S. ( October, 1997) 'One Public Library That Is Not an Adult Book Store', in "Culture Wars" pp. 18- 19.
- Ibid, p. 17.
- Bork. R.H. (1996) Slouching Towards Gomorrah. HarperCollins, New York pp. 140-153.
- Letter from Dr. Ervin Gaines to Judith Krug, (1985) Ervin Gaines Archives, Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio.
- Podhoretz, N. (April, 1997) 'Lolita, My Mother-in-Law, the Marquis de Sade. and Larry Flynt', in "Commentary", p. 33.
- Ibid, p. 35.
Source: Family Friendly Libraries, last updated 15 January 2000,
archived 15 January 2009.
Note: Words with letters elided like s[*]x are needed to defy the censors, ironically, and are the only changes to the original.
