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Town fires librarian who worked there for 11 years because she refused to remove LGBTQ+ books
(www.lgbtqnation.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Reposting my comment from a while ago, with some edits:
The library I work at has had Moms for Liberty attend several meetings demanding we withdraw books that are against their beliefs, no specific titles, just a general demand. This would include anything on LGBTQ+, children’s books with rainbows, our Banned Books display, and anything promoting voting and civics education. More recently, they want us to stop holding some events, including adult focused events about race relations in the Midwest, and we should no longer host any programs funded by State and Federal grants. Lastly, they have said we need to stop allowing the staff from joining ALA or the state library association.
If any of these restrictions or censorship upsets you at all, please attend a library board meeting and voice your support for the library. Some even let you write in. Groups like MFL make it a point to attend a lot of the meetings in hopes to get their way, and it’s working.
Similarly, I attend my local govt meetings each month to stay informed on this kind of stuff TBH. Can't have these groups stunting communities and local public services to align with their twisted beliefs
As a side note... It is kinda depressing how my local community of 11k people only have at most 2 civillians besides myself attending the meetings. Do people really not care about where they live, and the local public services? The bus service here has almost been scrapped TWICE as one example, and right now a neighboring local govt is helping to pay for it for now. It won't last for long, but you can be sure as heck people will complain when they've got to drive or uber into an already traffic clogged city due to the absence of public transit.
Not enough people attend to make a case to keep services and things in a sane condition, compared to organised twisted groups who make convincing cases for the wrong things.
I think its often less about not caring, and more not having the energy, or not believing it would do any good.
This is definitely part of it. Meetings are usually at 5pm but I have seen some start at 7pm and go on for hours, looking at you budget hearings. These are important; however, the information is usually in a giant PDF or print only. I think the other part of the equation is how the municipality communicates and engages with its population.
As a librarian, I want to help with organizing the information and make it available in different formats, but it takes a lot of buy in from elected officials and other departments. Not saying that’s how all local governments work, it’s just my experience with a couple.
On a side note, Data Governance and Analytics now falls under my department. This thread just gave a goal for next year, just got to figure out how to word it.
Uh, sorry, what the FUCK? They can’t be more obvious than this.
They were arguing that teens would show up, because we don’t prevent them from attending the event. This would lead to awkward conversations that the MFL group members are not ready to have as parents.
I don’t know what universe they live in, it’s hard enough to get teens to attend programs that are focused towards them let alone something like this.
My wife is a library administrator, and getting our teen daughter to go to the library is like pulling teeth. They have a teen room and everything.
My fiance is also a librarian in the midwest and your experiences seems to mirror his. We're trying but it's an uphill battle.