Mrs. Toni Cox-Burns
President of the Board of Trustees
White Plains Public Library
100 Martine Avenue
White Plains, New York 10601

Dear Mrs. Cox-Burns:

A correspondence has been going on with Ms. Sandra Miranda, the director of White Plains Public Library, over the gift subscription to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs I donated to the Library (enclosed a copy of the correspondence).

I am forced at this stage to turn to you, as president of the Library Board of Trustees, because Ms. Miranda either failed to give an adequate answer or simply failed to give an answer to the questions Mr. Richard Cross, Mr. Edward Meany and I have raised in our letters.

As far as failing to give an adequate answer, I would like to mention that she keeps repeating that the point of view of this magazine is available in other publications. So does the opposing point of view which is even more favorably represented in the mainstream media. Why then is the Library paying, in these difficult financial time, for a subscription to three publications (Commentary, Midstream and Tikkun) which support one viewpoint and is rejecting a gift subscription to the Washington Report, that, even if accepted, will not redress anyway the imbalance in the Library's collection on this particular subject? Saying that "we know our collection to be well-rounded as to format and point of view in the area in question" (her October 5 letter) is not only an inadequate answer but obviously untrue.

As far as failing to give an answer, I would like to mention that she also keeps repeating that the Washington Report is not indexed. I am not denying that. I totally agree with her on the usefulness of indexes for researchers. But a public library is not open only for researchers. She does not address this point. More importantly, this Library carries unindexed collections. I specifically asked her how can she account for that while using indexing as a reason to reject the Washington Report. She simply failed to give an answer to this very important question.

These are just two examples. There are many others raised in this correspondence (i.e. selection vs. censorship, serendipity, browsing, political correctness..). I appreciate very much to have your opinion on this.

Sincerely,

Medhat Credi