The Limits of Tolerance: Censorship and Intellectual Freedom in Public Libraries

Citation

Hendry, J.D. (1999), "The Limits of Tolerance: Censorship and Intellectual Freedom in Public Libraries", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 7, pp. 51-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.7.51.6

The remarkable burgeoning of the Internet, and the protection that the first amendment to the US Constitution seems to offer freedom to those who are, in the view of the author of the Foreword of this book (Bob Usherwood) now permitted to release, “a torrent of hatred to spread across America′s airwaves and the new information technology”.

Is this literature of violence and intolerance, and its resultant manifestations, acceptable? Is there now an impression that violence itself is acceptable? And so, is there now a value problem for public librarians? Western society (in the personal opinion of this reviewer) has become over reliant on the dogma of market forces as paramount, and the parallel mantra that information is merely another marketable commodity. The very real contradictions and clashing of cultures, between censorship and traditional values on the one hand, and intellectual freedom on the other, are addressed in this scholarly work, which is an edited version of a doctorate at the University of Sheffield.

Ann Curry′s thesis examines the rather different circumstances of the UK and those of Canada, with fairly regular checking back to the circumstances pertaining in the USA. In particular, she seeks to assess how directors of Canadian and British public libraries view censorship and intellectual freedom, and how they reconcile their own personal opinions, those of their staff, their governing bodies, and their communities. She cites Plato′s view, in his Republic, that imaginative writers should be restricted to conveying only lawful, just, beautiful, or good ideas, and 2,000 years further on J.S. Mill, in Liberty, argued against Plato′s vision of society. Instead, Mill promoted the need for the expression of all ideas and a dialogue within society which would best reveal truth and foster the health of that society.

There are chapters on research design, definitions of intellectual freedom, public library roles and their relationship to intellectual freedom, selection of materials, managing intellectual freedom and support for directors and their intellectual freedom. Yet Curry finds that two‐thirds of directors from both Canada and Britain seldom discussed matters relating to intellectual freedom. Either because they were too busy “managing the technical and staffing problems of the library, or because the topic could cause discomfort”. Her conclusion is that the philosophy of intellectual freedom is the most difficult issue in public library administration, at the end of the twentieth century. She reflects the views of many library directors in describing this issue as “walking a tightrope”.

I really think that we owe it to this profession and the communities which we purport to serve if, in the next millennium, we stop playing dangerous circus games and get some intellectual bedrock as a proper foundation from which to work. For myself I would begin this debate by agreeing with John Milton′s assertion of 1644: “Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”.