The Anchorage Daily News reported on Palin’s attempts at censorship today. Palin Pressured Wasilla Librarian
A lot of stuff we already know – however, this is new:
Were any books censored banned? June Pinell-Stephens, chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, checked her files Wednesday and came up empty-handed.
Pinell-Stephens also had no record of any phone conversations with Emmons about the issue back then. Emmons was president of the Alaska Library Association at the time.Books may not have been pulled from library shelves, but there were other repercussions for Emmons.
Four days before the exchange at the City Council, Emmons got a letter from Palin asking for her resignation. Similar letters went to police chief Irl Stambaugh, public works director Jack Felton and finance director Duane Dvorak. John Cooper, a fifth director, resigned after Palin eliminated his job overseeing the city museum.
The comments section is quite shocking, though. It seems that many people have no problem with ‘cleaning up the smut’ at a public library, or that it takes a certain ‘moral authority’ to stand up to the public library, and that books and librarians must be banned from time to time.
September 5, 2008 at 4:56 am
No books were ever removed from the library? Is your theory that public employees and services should not be accountable to elected public officials? That seems pretty strange. If the way you do your job generates complaints from the public, you generally expect the mayor to do something about it.
September 5, 2008 at 1:57 pm
It’s obvious that the previous commentator has never worked in a public library. A incoming mayor would be way out of line to fire all department heads as “a test of loyalty.” Mary Ellen was on the hot seat before she even worked with Palin for writing a check to Palin’s opponent, which becomes common knowledge in a small town. When Palin fired Mary Ellen over 100 residents of Wasilla formed an action group and got her reinstated. She was a very, very popular library director, a professional through and through, and like most of us in Alaska, bought materials that were appropriate in her community. Had the public had a problem with her selections, they would have gone to Mary Ellen, not the Mayor…unless their requests were fueled by an ultra conservative agenda that wanted to play thought police in Wasilla. All of the public librarires in Alaska have a “request for reconsideration” form. In 20 years here, I have had two patrons fill out that form and have dealt with the matter in the library. If a patron is not happy with the librarians decision, the next order would be the library board, the city council, etc. The mayor would never be involved unless it went national.
September 5, 2008 at 3:06 pm
We just had a “regime change” in my city, approximately 80,000 residents, and one of the first things the Mayor did was fire everyone from the previous administration. There is a political school of thought that considers this to be a good thing. Expect it happens somewhere in the country pretty much every election.
However, rest easy, librarians, seems the county runs the libraries here.
September 5, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Palin’s efforts at censorship are appalling, but I am also interested in another aspect of this story. Much has been made about Palin’s “executive” experience. I became an “executive” (library Director) about the same time Palin became a mayor. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot, but from “day one” I could have told you it was not a good idea to write a letter to someone telling them “I am going to fire you.” You either fire someone or you don’t. You do not write them a letter telling them they are going to be fired in a few days. I hope her executive skills have improved over the years.
September 5, 2008 at 7:13 pm
A library director job is not and should not be a political position. Public libraries are not places that should reflect the politics of their city, the nature of their very existence is as a well rounded institution that represents many many views. Anyone who has ever taken a course in library science would know that. Library directors are professionals who should not be accountable to elected officials. There are special libraries that function to present a certain political perspective, like Presidential libraries. It would be unfair to the citizens of the community for a library director to pander to the desires of a mayor or one faction of the community. There is a system in place if a citizen objects to a book in the library, a formal complaint can be filed which then goes to a review board. The review board takes into account book reviews, like library journal horn book (for children’s lit) and other publications, as well as historic positions on the books. Sometimes the book gets moved to a more mature room, sometimes it gets removed, sometimes the committee asses the patron can choose to simply not allow their kid to take the book out. Parents should ultimately be the ones to censor their children’s books, however, not librarians. And it was not clear Palin objected to just children’s books, which is the truly scary piece of this story.
September 5, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Miss, I could not have said it better myself.
It seems that Palin wanted to ban certain books, fine.
There is a system in place to challenge books.
However, instead of using this established system, Palin asked the library director if she would just ban them.
About the time when the librarian balked at the request, Palin wrote a termination letter.
When the public began to get upset over the turn of events, Palin backed down and did not in fact fire the librarian.
September 5, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I just wanted to say thank you for creating this blog. I’m so glad that there are others out there who think this way of Palin.
September 8, 2008 at 6:17 pm
The issue is not *which* books but *any* books. Once you admit “a decider” can ban any book–far away from professional practice, civic mission and cultural literacy–the issue of “a list” (which ones) becomes hardly relevant.
The fact is Palin reportedly wanted to be able to have clear authority to control appointed professionals. These librarians would be serving the public under professional best practices guidelines (a combination of community need, ALA guidelines, constitutional freedoms, and individual training and on the job experience) and serving the missions of their departments and the mandates of the profession, and human literacy.
If we take this further, it is not *which* human beings an authority seeks to control (think WW II), it is that it would be wrong for an authority other than the individual to control *any* human being–particularly in the realm of expression, freedoms, choice, and knowledge. To limit one is to limit all.
The example of Palin’s behavior around libraries seems improper and just plain bad. But the implictions of using authority to cross lines and borders, well, that makes her not only culturally illiterate (at the least insensitive) but also ethically abusive.
September 10, 2008 at 5:17 am
You must be some kind of kooks, if you think that censorship is alright !! Governor Palin, the creationist, the fundamentalist, is a political novice and an opportunist. Her selection was made from the basest of reasons, to pander to a segment of the electorate !! there is no other logical reason, then to garner the disillusioned woman’s vote. The ironic thing about that choice, it’s working. Women are flocking to the Republican Party, the party that fought against their progress as a gender and as individuals. The Republicans have designs on overturning Roe vs Wade, and are against other women’s issues. Well, women, if that is what you want, it’s all yours. There will not be much left of the America of our parents, and of their parents, but, it will still be called America, at least !! Good luck, with your new Republican buddies !!