Multitype Librarian: Veterans Day Salute

Today is Veterans Day. Coming from a heritage that places a high value on commitment to patriotism and many years as a military spouse (career and now retired), I know first-hand the pride, satisfaction, and cost of military service. Few of the Veterans in my family talk much about their time in uniform. In fact most are reluctant to talk about their part in an era of family contributions that span World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and all the years through the Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.

Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000. It is a collection of audio- and video-taped oral histories, as well as documents such as letters, diaries, maps, photographs, and home movies, of America's war veterans and those who served in support of them. The collection is maintained through the Library of Congress and is being built by volunteers -- including many libraries and history centers.

As a librarian, I also take seriously my professional role in preserving democracy and individual freedoms. We call it intellectual freedom -- that assurance that citizens have a right to uncensored access to information. No unit of government should make a policy that supresses anyone's access to a broad range of ideas. In cultures of oppression, the government doesn't want people to know or see anything in oposition to the philosophies of the powerful. Education is not nurtured or may even be denied.

Today is a good day to review the Library Bill of Rights: from the ALA website

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.