Showing posts with label Somerset County Library System. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Somerset County Library System. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

A New Way ALA Misleads Parents: The National Trainer Who Wrote as the Local Director

Peter Bromberg:
EveryLibrary Board of Directors
Director of the SCLSNJ
This is another method by which the American Library Association (ALA) and its political partner EveryLibrary mislead parents and elected officials. It is not a false job title. It is a national advocacy officer, trained to switch language by audience, writing as if he were only the county library director. Further, he uses his own technique to manipulate the public in an effort to excuse local librarians for promoting Chicago ALA's own political goals that harm children.

On Sept. 1, 2026, New Jersey Hills published an opinion column by Peter Bromberg, identified only as director of the Somerset County Library System of New Jersey (SCLSNJ). The piece is titled “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America.” It quotes Ronald Reagan and James Madison. It calls libraries “strong supporters of parents and families.” It says libraries “curate age-appropriate zones and displays.” It tells readers that if a title offends, they are “free to reach for something else.”1

That is the local byline. It is not the whole record.

Bromberg became SCLSNJ director on Aug. 1, 2025. For the four years immediately before that he was Associate Director of EveryLibrary, the national 501(c)(4) that organizes against book challenges and trains library boards in political messaging. On May 30, 2025, announcing the Somerset job, he wrote that he looked forward to “continued service on the EveryLibrary Board of Directors.” EveryLibrary’s board page still lists him. His own résumé lists the associate-director post as May 2021–June 2025 and the board seat as 2014–present. When SCLSNJ hired him, MyCentralJersey reported the EveryLibrary job. The system’s official staff bio does not. Neither did the column.2

EveryLibrary is not a book club. It is the national political-action shop for libraries. Its companion 501(c)(3), the EveryLibrary Institute, publishes training for the same fight. Bromberg was the named presenter for the Institute’s webinar “Advocacy in a Polarized World,” that teaches Arnold Kling’s Three Languages of Politics and how to “intentionally use language” across the spectrum. In 2021 he gave the Utah Library Association the talk “Advocating Effectively Across the Political Spectrum.” In September 2023 Niche Academy listed him, then still with EveryLibrary, on a webinar that walked the same framework and a “27-9-3” message formula: 27 words, 9 seconds, three points, mapped to the audience.3

The worksheet for that method is not a rumor. A 2023 EveryLibrary Institute handout, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook, includes a page headed “The Three Languages of Politics,” filed under “Intellectual Freedom and Book Challenges.” The page tells staff that progressives, libertarians, and conservatives each have a default moral language, then gives the assignment:

  • Progressives: frame the library in “equity, social justice, a leveling of the playing field… and equal treatment for all.”
  • Libertarians: frame it in “liberty, self-determination, and support for those that are motivated to help themselves.”
  • Conservatives: frame it in “preservation of tradition, local community history, help with assimilating new arrivals, and traditional American values.”4

A related EveryLibrary presentation the same spring supplied fill-in sentences for the conservative ear: the Constitution, the First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, the Founding Fathers, and “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution.” Another line: “We should never usurp the role of parents.”5

Read the Somerset column against that page. Bromberg did not write in the progressive dialect. He wrote in the other two.

  • “Freedom. Liberty. Justice. For all.”
  • “Self-determination, intellectual freedom, and liberty for all.”
  • “Forge our own destinies without government overreach.”
  • USA250. Reagan. Carnegie. Roosevelt. Madison.
  • America versus “authoritarian regimes where state officials strictly dictate what citizens read, think, and believe.”
  • “Strong supporters of parents and families.”
  • “The parent’s role to set and enforce boundaries.”
  • “Family values.”
  • If a book offends, “we are free to reach for something else.”

That is the conservative and libertarian tip list, aimed at a Somerset Hills paper, in the same week the same paper group was covering a Pride-program petition and a local official urging towns to question library programs.6

The column never quotes the rule the script is built to protect.

Article V of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights says a person’s right to use a library “should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” ALA’s official interpretation, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors,” is plainer: the right to use a library means “free access to all services, materials, and facilities and unrestricted use of everything the library offers.” Restrictions based solely on age, apparent maturity, educational level, or legal status “violate Article V.” ALA “opposes any efforts to restrict access based on age.”7

A children’s room is furniture. Under that interpretation it is not a lock. “Age-appropriate zones and displays” is what the playbook would call conservative language. “Unrestricted use of everything the library offers” is the written professional rule. Only one of those sentences appeared in the newspaper.

Parents and elected officials are the intended audience for the first sentence. They are not told about the second. They are also not told that the author spent four years as the national group’s associate director, remains on its board, and taught librarians how to switch dialects by audience so the access policy still wins.

Using different words for different listeners is ordinary rhetoric. Hospitals do it. Campaigns do it. The problem is the combination: a national advocacy officer, writing as a local director, in a live materials fight, in the dialect his shop published for conservatives, while leaving the shop and the age rule off the page.

The authorities the column skipped are the ones that actually speak to minors. In United States v. American Library Association (2003), Justice Kennedy wrote that “the interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree.” President Eisenhower, at Dartmouth in 1953, told students not to join the book burners, then added the clause library essays usually drop and ALA's own 2025 movie "The Librarians" actually dropped: use the library “as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.”8

Madison on knowledge is not an answer to age. The playbook does not ask directors to answer age. It asks them to talk liberty and family until the question of age goes away.

Somerset County’s Library Commission sets policy for SCLSNJ. It can ask its director, in public, three questions that do not require a theory of anyone’s soul:

  1. Does SCLSNJ adopt ALA’s Library Bill of Rights and the Minors interpretation as collection policy?
  2. If a parent asks that a child’s card not check out adult or s[*]xually explicit titles, will the system honor that limit?
  3. Why did a column on “liberty for all,” published during a local program fight, omit the author’s EveryLibrary board seat and the Institute’s published conservative-language tips?

Those are records questions. The playbook page, the résumé, the LinkedIn post, and the byline are already public. The only thing missing from the newspaper was the second half of the sentence.

Parents who only read the byline were not given the shop, the script, or the age rule. That omission is the method. 

So this is a new way ALA misleads parents and politicians: 1) the national trainer who wrote as the local director to 2) attempt to manipulate local people into affirming Chicago ALA’s anything-goes for children policies, 3) using the very means by which he trains people to manipulate others.


The Three Languages of Politics


Notes:

1. Peter Bromberg, “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America,” New Jersey Hills / Bernardsville News, Sept. 1, 2026, https://www.newjerseyhills.com/bernardsville_news/opinion/columns/liberty-for-all-public-libraries-and-the-promise-of-america/article_0cc5e4e4-ff48-44d3-a095-fbf5befe4dc5.html.

2. Somerset County Library System of New Jersey, “Peter J. Bromberg,” staff biography, https://sclsnj.org/about-us/staff/peter-bromberg; Peter Bromberg, résumé, https://peterbromberg.com/resume/; Peter Bromberg, LinkedIn post, May 30, 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peterjbromberg_after-nearly-4-years-at-everylibrary-i-activity-7334307222258143233-Vt7C; EveryLibrary, “Board of Directors,” https://www.everylibrary.org/board-directors; Cheryl Makin, “Somerset County Library System has a new director,” MyCentralJersey.com, June 30, 2025, https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/2025/06/30/somerset-county-library-system-has-a-new-director/84259228007/.

3. EveryLibrary Institute, “FREE WEBINAR: Advocacy in a polarized world,” presenter Peter Bromberg, Associate Director, EveryLibrary, https://www.everylibraryinstitute.org/advocacyinpolarizedworld; Peter Bromberg, “Advocating Effectively Across the Political Spectrum,” Utah Library Association Annual Conference, May 21, 2021; Peter Bromberg, “Future-Proofing the Library,” Niche Academy webinar, Sept. 6, 2023, https://www.nicheacademy.com/hubfs/Future-Proof%20Your%20Library%20(Niche%202023)%20(1).pdf. Bromberg’s résumé also lists the NJLA Public Policy Forum keynote “Libraries are Political (And So Can You!),” Livingston, N.J., Nov. 14, 2025.

4. EveryLibrary Institute, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook (file dated April 1, 2023), p. 4, “The Three Languages of Politics,” circulating as https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hvATAuYlYrTv7rHfEDNr7bz2qb8BEWjB/view. Parallel text appears in “Real World Policy and Messaging,” June 2023, Wisconsin Public Library Consortium packet, https://www.wplc.org/files/5a115d098/Real-world-policy-and-messaging-June-2023.pdf. Arnold Kling, The Three Languages of Politics (Cato Institute).

5. John Chrastka, EveryLibrary, “Answering Censorship Challenges: EveryLibrary’s Fight for the First Initiative,” Towson University, April 27, 2023, https://towson.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=71758347 (conservative sample: Constitution, Founding Fathers, “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution”; “We should never usurp the role of parents”).

6. New Jersey Hills package teaser published with the Bromberg column: “Pride v. Prejudice? Petition to Keep County Library Branch Starts as Sweeney Urges Other Towns to Question Programs.” Peapack-Gladstone is a SCLSNJ member community.

7. American Library Association, Library Bill of Rights, Art. V, https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill (“age” included 1967; reaffirmed 1996); ALA, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,” https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/minors.

8. United States v. American Library Ass’n, 539 U.S. 194, 215 (2003) (Kennedy, J., concurring); Dwight D. Eisenhower, commencement address, Dartmouth College, June 14, 1953.



Opinion for Publication Submitted to Editor September 1, 2026:

New Jersey Hills:

Peter Bromberg’s Sept. 1 column, “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America,” identifies him only as director of the Somerset County Library System. That title is true. It is not the whole identification.

From May 2021 until June 2025, Mr. Bromberg was Associate Director of EveryLibrary, the national 501(c)(4) that organizes against book challenges and trains library boards in political messaging. On May 30, 2025, announcing the Somerset job, he wrote that he looked forward to “continued service on the EveryLibrary Board of Directors.” EveryLibrary’s board page still lists him. His résumé lists that board seat from 2014 to the present. MyCentralJersey reported the EveryLibrary post when he was hired. The system’s staff biography does not mention it. Neither did the column.

EveryLibrary Institute published the method. A 2023 handout, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook, includes a page headed “The Three Languages of Politics,” filed under "Intellectual Freedom and Book Challenges.” It tells staff that progressives, libertarians, and conservatives each have a default language, then assigns the frame:

Progressives: “equity, social justice, a leveling of the playing field… and equal treatment for all.”  
Libertarians: “liberty, self-determination, and support for those that are motivated to help themselves.”  
Conservatives: “preservation of tradition, local community history, help with assimilating new arrivals, and traditional American values.”

A related EveryLibrary presentation the same year supplied conservative sample copy: the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, Freedom of Religion, and “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution.” Another line: “We should never usurp the role of parents.”

Mr. Bromberg’s column is written in the conservative and libertarian dialects. Reagan. Madison. The Constitution versus “authoritarian regimes.” “Freedom. Liberty. Justice. For all.” “Self-determination.” “Strong supporters of parents and families.” “Family values.” If a title offends, “we are free to reach for something else.” It is not written in the progressive dialect. It was published as the same paper group covered a petition and a local official urging towns to question library programs.

The column never quotes the rule that script is written to protect. Article V of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights says a person’s right to use a library “should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” ALA’s official interpretation, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors,” states that this right means “free access to all services, materials, and facilities and unrestricted use of everything the library offers,” and that limits based solely on age, apparent maturity, or legal status “violate Article V.” A children’s room is furniture. Under that interpretation it is not a lock.

“Age-appropriate zones and displays” is what the playbook would call language for a conservative paper. “Unrestricted use of everything the library offers” is the professional text. Only the first sentence ran.

Using different words for different listeners is ordinary rhetoric. The problem is the combination: a national advocacy officer, writing as a local director, during a local materials fight, in the dialect his shop published for conservatives, while leaving the shop and the age rule off the page.

The authorities that actually address minors were also left off. In United States v. American Library Association (2003), Justice Kennedy wrote that “the interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree.” President Eisenhower, at Dartmouth in 1953, warned against book burners then added the clause usually dropped: use the library “as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency.”

The Somerset County Library Commission sets policy. It can ask, in public, whether SCLSNJ adopts the ALA Minors interpretation; whether a parent may limit a child’s card; and why an EveryLibrary board seat was omitted from a column on “liberty for all.” Those are records questions. The playbook page, the résumé, and the byline are already public.

Dan Kleinman  
Chatham, N.J.


NOTE ADDED 2 SEPTEMBER 2026:

Tonight I spoke at the commission meeting wherein Peter Bromberg is a member. He was there. So I confronted ALA head on. You see, people, it's not that hard. I've done it before. Don't be intimidated by them.

Here is what I said, along with other graphics showing the extent of the problem. It's my own recording as the commission makes no recordings.


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Location: 1 Vogt Dr, Bridgewater, NJ 08807, USA

Monday, January 29, 2018

Age Discrimination in Libraries

Age discrimination in libraries?  It appears so.

Notice the sad way the information came out: "Levin herself spoke at the commission meeting of her retirement, and painted a different picture of her release from the library system."  Then the library attorney attempted to silence her.

No library media has yet written about her, other than my own.  Library associations like the American Library Association are too busy addressing non-library issues, like how to train school children to resist President Donald Trump or how to position librarians against "stand your ground" gun laws.

It is worthwhile to note that the library prohibits age discrimination when it comes to children viewing inappropriate material.  Is it possible a double standard exists where the library may discriminate based on age but no way will it protect children from inappropriate material?

Read the full story at this link, followed by more information and policy analysis:

"Beloved Librarian Leaves Bridgewater Branch Library"

by Audrey Blumberg 

TAPinto the BReeze, 19 January 2018

BRIDGEWATER, NJ - After 25 years as a librarian in the Somerset County Library System, at the Bridgewater branch, youth services librarian Carol Simon Levin submitted her retirement papers in January.

News of her leaving the library system caused uproar from parents and library system employees who have benefited from her services over the years, and several turned out to the county library system commission’s meeting Jan. 10 in protest.

“I have had the pleasure of working with Carol, and she is light years ahead of me in terms of creativity,” said Somerset resident Lawrence Sapienza, who retired from the library system in April. “She is a wonderful asset to the staff, as well as the public.”

Several people spoke during the commission meeting of Levin’s service to the public and the programs she has spearheaded for children in her position as child services librarian. They expressed their sadness over the loss.

“My child has been coming to the library for 10 years, and comes to story time,” said Bridgewater resident Jodi Golden. “She cried when I told her Carol was leaving.”

Another Bridgewater resident said she has been bringing her children to story time for years with Levin, and the quality of her programs is far superior to those in any other library she has visited.

And still another Bridgewater resident said she has admired Levin’s dedication and intelligence in the field for 25 years.

Resident Atulya Chaganty credited the library, and Levin, with helping her become who she is today, a graduate with a masters degree in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design.

“My family moved to this town when I was 10, and we did not know anyone or have a lot of money, so we found refuge in the library,” she said. “We went to every program, got to know our librarians and I even logged the most hours as a volunteer during the summer reading program during my middle school and even some of my high school years.”

“This library made me who I am because of the librarians,” she added, “librarians like Carol, who taught me so many things, not just about reading, but about life.”

Chaganty said she has seen changes in the library over the years, from old computers to limited decorations in the children’s department and a lack of librarians available on Sundays.

“(And) they ended the career of one of the library’s last living legends, Carol Simon Levin, a woman who has dedicated her life to this community,” she said. “Incredibly educated, compassionate and committed to everyone she meets, she does not even need to know you to invite you into her home and welcome you into her life. These actions all symbolize to me a culture shift I am not happy to witness.”

For many, although they will miss Levin’s programs and her presence in the library, of biggest concern was the apparent way in which she left her position in the library system.

According to Brian Auger, administrator of the Somerset County Library System, Levin submitted her retirement from the system, which was accepted.

In the case of a retirement, according to the bylaws of the library system, there is no vote taken by the commission, the retirement is accepted by the director only.

Auger said that according to the bylaws for the library system, the administrator is in charge of executing policies, dealing with personnel and a host of other responsibilities. 

In the case of personnel issues, Auger said, he has the ability to terminate an employee, who then is able to file a grievance if they believe they were wrongfully terminated. At that point, he said, the commission would get involved to do an investigation regarding the termination.

Because Levin submitted her retirement, Auger said, the commission did not have any say in the situation.

“I don’t begrudge anything, they meant well from their perspective,” Auger said of the people who spoke out on Levin’s behalf during the commission meeting. “They came out and spilled their hearts and told us what they thought.”

“But there are two sides to a story, and when it is a supervisors’ side, we must remain silent,” he added of the commission’s decision not to comment with regard to a personnel issue. “All they know about Ms. Levin is that she is a great librarian, does great story times, she is positive and upbeat and the kids love her programs. There are two sides to every story, but she is retiring.”

But the side of the story that the commission could not comment on during the meeting was what was so troubling to many members of the public.

“I had just become aware that Carol was retiring, so to speak,” Sapienza said. “Sometimes it’s not always by choice, and that is, I fear, the case here.”

“When an employee of 20 plus years is put in that position, sometimes I think the commission needs to get involved,” he added. “This is one of those cases. She is a remarkable lady, and I hope that the commission might take time to talk to Carol to see if this is something she wants to happen.”

Levin herself spoke at the commission meeting of her retirement, and painted a different picture of her release from the library system.

“I did this because, after 25 years of consistently exemplary reviews from my supervisors on the quality of my programs and reference transactions, and many appreciative letters sent to supervisors from happy patrons, I was presented with termination documents and told I would be fired if I did not accept retirement and sign away all my employment and legal rights,” she said.

Levin said the charge was insubordination, although the commission’s attorney requested her not to continue speaking on that because it was  personnel issue that is not permitted in a public forum without a signing of a RICE notification that allows an employee’s status to be discussed in open session.

Levin said, after the meeting, that there were a number of incidents that led to her leaving the system, beginning in April when she reported that she found it surprising none of the programs from the library system were appearing in the “Courier News” newspaper. She said she was reported and received a notice that she would have her duties reduced to reference desk and regular story times, as well as the elimination of her display in the lobby.

In October, Levin said, she violated those terms when she put up a display on the “Day of the Dead” an in almost empty space where the Halloween books had been, rather than in her allotted space. In the ensuing days, she said, she was cited for a violation again when she put up a poster for Books for Kids on the children’s reference desk, using one from several years ago instead of one that was new.

“It distresses me mightily that I have been asked to leave over a series of events that had to do with publicity and marketing,” she said. “What bothers me most is this is a pattern, it’s not just me.”

Levin said she has heard from others who value her work, and has worked with patrons, teachers and others to help them find books and more.

“I’m a librarian, I eat, drink and sleep it,” she said.

Levin said that in order to retire, she was required by administration to sign away her ability to ever work again in any library with the Somerset County Library System.

“Though I would have loved to continue creating innovative programs for Bridgewater library youth patrons and helping them, their parents and their teachers find information and great reads, I am not able to do so,” she said.

Auger maintained that Levin had submitted her retirement papers, and there was nothing he or the commission could do in the matter of her employment. He declined to comment on any of the statements made by Levin regarding termination at the commission meeting, citing personnel privacy.

But Levin said she is disturbed that this all came about because she spoke out.

Still, for many patrons of the library, the loss of Levin will be felt by all, young and old.

“I realize this situation is extremely complicated, and we all have a tainted view on what happened,” Chaganty said. “No matter personal feelings, those in power must maintain some professionalism, respect and dignity. Many of us gathered in support of Carol not to reinstate her position, but because of the lack of respect that was shown to a woman who is a 24/7 librarian.”


Here are additional sources for context/information.

Notice library policies prohibit age discrimination in employment and in what children may view generally and specifically on the Internet, in which case only parents may discriminate:


The Somerset County Library System is an equal opportunity employer. SCLSNJ complies with Federal and State legislation and SCLSNJ policies prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, gender identity, religion, creed, color, national origin, citizenship status, ancestry, age, marital status, veterans’ status, sexual orientation, domestic partnership, civil union partnership, disability, genetic data, criminal history, and any other legally protected status. 


Patrons of all ages may use any part of the library and may select materials from any part of the library.
.... 
The viewing and use of materials on the Internet is the responsibility of each individual user, and the responsibility of parents or guardians for their children under 17;
.... 
Access to computers and the Internet is available to all library customers. However, this service may be limited any time such use is not consistent with the policies of SCLSNJ. Parents and legal guardians for people under 17 years of age assume responsibility for their children’s computer and Internet use by signing their child’s library card application.




—
URL of this page: 
safelibraries.blogspot.com/2018/01/age-discrimination-in-libraries.html

On Twitter: 
@SCLSNJ @SomersetCntyNJ @TheBReezeTAP

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Location: 1 Vogt Dr, Bridgewater, NJ 08807, USA
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