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California has a reputation for initiating trends. The rest of the country often looks to California, sometimes with a grin and bear it expression, to see what's new, to see what's possible.
The California of the past has shown that it's possible to welcome all newcomers as well as provide for those already here. As more and more people arrive from different parts of the world, the public institutions in California must not ignore the new challenges which come with the California dream.
The California of today faces extraordinary challenges which include educating anyone who shows up at the door of the public school as well as providing information for anyone who shows up at the door of the public library. Libraries have always accepted the challenge to provide for the educational and recreational needs of the public. Inherent in this challenge is the seed of intellectual freedom.
Intellectual freedom, guaranteed by the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, is one of the safeguards of a democratic society. To defend this freedom, we must fight any attempts to limit access to library materials, meeting rooms, exhibits and programs. When censorship hits the library, in whatever form, from whatever source, we believe that the public's right of access to information and the right to choose for themselves what to read, what to see, even what to know is denied. Intellectual freedom continues to stand for freedom to think, to speak and to receive information. We hope that librarians everywhere will actively seek material which expresses different points of view, including the unpopular.
In keeping with this fundamental idea, we have prepared this manual to help any librarian in California who faces a challenge to intellectual freedom. We feel it is important for librarians to know they are not alone when challenged from within or without, and to know that help and support are available.
Institutions, policies and decisions outside the library's walls have a significant impact on whether or not essential information and diverse points of view are accessible to libraries and, through them, to library users and communities. The American Library Association Library Bill of Rights mandates that "Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas." Coalitions based on this principle will take different forms in different communities and at different times, but libraries and librarians have a consistent responsibility to participate in political processes that determine what information is available and whether it is organized, packaged, priced and disseminated in a way that makes it genuinely accessible.
The federal government has a fundamental obligation to acquire, organize and disseminate information about public policy and the operations of the government itself. It is this information which allows citizens to participate effectively in democracy. State and local governments have similar responsibilities with regard to policies, laws and operations vis-a-vis their own constituencies.
Official secrecy and classification are among policies which restrict this essential activity. Throughout the 1980s, the Office of Management and Budget exercised broad powers to oversee the publication programs of federal agencies under the Paperwork Reduction Act (1980). The result was curtailment or elimination of research and publication programs of demonstrated value, distribution of important documents only in relatively inaccessible microform or electronic formats, challenges to the Federal Depository Library Program, and privatization of numerous publications. Privatization in this instance means turning information acquired at the taxpayers' expense over to private companies to distribute--at a cost which often restricts access by libraries and citizens. At least one essential California state document, the California Code of Regulations, was recently privatized with a disruptive impact on library access.
In the private sector, too, the dissemination of information and ideas may be restricted without explicit censorship. Many analysts have suggested that increasing monopoly of the news media, the book trade and other parts of the information industry is resulting in a narrowing of views and exclusion of controversial and minority voices. It is in libraries' interest to support policies which protect diversity in the information industry and which fund or in other ways facilitate the creation and dissemination of the widest possible range of information and ideas in a variety of formats.
We must also be concerned about the increasing economic value and importance of information and the resulting pressure to put a price on information which should be public. Do communities have a right to information about hazardous chemicals used by nearby industries, or can this information be protected as trade secrets? Do business database producers have a right to prevent access by unions or other specific types of users? Libraries and librarians have an essential stake in these questions and others like them.
If intellectual freedom and the right to know are not defended in these wider arenas, libraries may find themselves providing uncensored access to an ever-narrower universe of ideas and communities and the information that our present and future users need to take part in decisions which affect their lives.
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