Civil Liberties Take Center Stage At Orlando Gathering

Whether it was appearances by Richard Clarke and Amy Goodman or a special screening of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, it was clear that civil liberties took center stage at this year's annual American Library Association (ALA) conference in Orlando.

Greeted with a standing ovation, Clarke, author of Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror(Free Press, 2004), warned that President Bush's "war on terrorism" was not a war on Islam. He went on to say that the USA Patriot Act was having a chilling effect. "Hold on to the Bill of Rights because there are those who will try to take it away," Clarke told the audience, referring to the antiterrorism law. "You have a key role, and I commend you. For us to win the battle of ideas, we need to keep a well-informed citizenry."

Meanwhile, Goodman, of National Public Radio's Democracy Now!, spoke about the importance of an independent media in a healthy democracy and showed her own documentary, Independent Media in a Time of War.

But Moore's documentary was the one that librarians lined up to see. The controversial filmmaker couldn't have found a more supportive audience for his blockbuster hit movie, which examines President Bush's policies after September 11, 2001. Moore and his distributor, Lion's Gate, gave permission for the special screening to support ALA's educational efforts involving intellectual freedom and the Patriot Act.

On a related note, ALA announced it was seeking funding for an in-depth study on the Patriot Act to examine the variety of law enforcement tools being used to "gather data on individuals through their interaction with public and academic libraries." Emily Sheketoff, ALA's Washington office executive director, says, "This information will be crucial for the U.S. Congress when they begin debate on amending or expanding the Patriot Act." The study's launch happens to coincide with the House Republicans' July defeat of the Freedom to Read Protection Act, which would have exempted libraries and booksellers from certain provisions of the law.

Indeed, this year's gathering was in stark contrast to last year's in Toronto, when the fear of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) kept many librarians and vendors away. A total of 19,731 attendees came to the June 24–30 conference, and there were plenty of programs for everyone.

Some 160 librarians turned up for "Great Beginnings! Libraries and Early Literacy," the highest registration on record for a preconference by the Association for Library Services to Children. Kathleen Reif, director of St. Mary's County (MD) Memorial Library, told librarians how to market their emergent literacy programs by reaching out to hospitals, child-care centers, recreation centers, and K–12 schools. "Change your message from 'What your library is doing' to 'Why it matters,'" she advised. Children's author and illustrator Rosemary Wells explained how technology has drawn youngsters' attention away from books, and author Mem Fox described the importance of picture books, including her own, Where Is the Green Sheep? (Harcourt, 2004), in helping kids hear the sound and rhythm of language even before they understand its meaning.

A handful of technology programs offered great tips for dealing with kids in this digital age. The American Association of School Libraries' president's program, "Windows on the Future: Being InfoSavvy in the Information Age," featured educational consultant Ian Jukes, who said that the size and speed of computers are growing so fast that "kids' brains are changing physically and chemically" due to their exposure to fragmented visual images and interactive games.

In "Gaming for Tech-Savvy Teens," Michelle Gorman, a Wired for Youth librarian at the Austin Public Library, described her efforts to promote electronic literacy among kids from lower socioeconomic families. With the help of a local gamer and a $1,000 grant, Gorman hosted computer camps at two libraries, where teens worked together on gaming concepts and creating designs for their own computer games.

For all those children's book lovers wondering about the progress of the International Children's Digital Library (www.icdlbooks.org), "It's a Small World After All" offered an overview of the program as it works toward its goal of posting 10,000 children's books online by 2007 in as many languages as possible. The site's builders, Alison Druin, Ben Bedersen, and Ann Weeks of the University of Maryland, talked about their efforts to create search engines in various languages. Druin said the site's goal isn't to take the place of books, but to provide a wider selection of them to children, especially those with limited access.

Providing kids with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered books was the focus of "Hidden in the Stacks: Building and Promoting GLBT Children's and Young Adult Collections." Scholastic editor and author David Levithan urged librarians to add gay titles to their collections no matter how much controversy it might provoke. "Kids look to books to find themselves," says Levithan, author of Boy Meets Boy (Knopf, 2003). "Your obligation to these kids is stronger than fear—convert your fear to courage." Levithan, who expressed disappointment with children's publishers who have been slow to publish gay literature, offered ways in which librarians could lessen their fear of reprisal, such as putting covers on the books, handing them directly to kids, and even removing their bar codes.