Ms. Sandra Miranda
Director
White Plains Public Library
100 Martine Avenue
White Plains, NY 10601
 

Dear Ms. Miranda:

I feel compelled to write directly to you since my letter of June 24 to Ms. Young (enclosed) remains unanswered.

The rejection by the periodicals committee of a subscription to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs that I donated to the library is a serious issue. By putting it in the context of a unbalanced collection (point 3 of my enclosed letter), this rejection goes against the notions of free speech and democracy. It is not a coincidence that one of the three fundamental themes on which the 1991 White House Conference on Library and Information Services has focused was democracy. Related to this is what Thomas Jefferson eloquently wrote: "A democratic society depends upon an informed citizenry." How can a citizen be informed in a balanced way on this subject with an unbalanced collection like the one in the White Plains public library? The intellectual freedom to access information and rely on it to make judgments is the cornerstone of a strong democracy. Your unbalanced collection does not allow that. In this regard, I cannot but subscribe to what Whitney North Seymour, Jr. and Elizabeth N. Layne wrote in their thoughtful book, For the People: Fighting for Public Libraries: "Although misguided, local officials or library trustees have occasionally engaged in an attempt to exercise censorship over the books placed on library shelves."

The Westchester Conference of the American Library Association and the American Book Publishers Council, now the Association of American Publishers, adopted on June 25, 1953 a set of propositions, which were revised by the American Library Association Council on January 28, 1972. Three of them are relevant to this issue (emphasis mine): 

"1. It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those which are unorthodox or unpopular with the majority.
...

"6. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large.

"7. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression."

 To emphasize the gravity of the issue, I would like to refer also to a very important document, the Library Bill of Rights, adopted on June 18, 1948, amended on February 2, 1961 and June 27, 1967 by the American Library Association Council. It states, among other things (emphasis mine): 

"2. Libraries should provide books and other materials presenting all points of view concerning the problems and issues of our times; no library materials should be proscribed or removed from libraries because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

"3. Censorship should be challenged by libraries in the maintenance of their responsibility to provide public information and enlightenment.

"4. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas."

Sincerely,

Medhat Credi