To Add Or Not To Add, That Is The Question

Note: I started to write this post shortly after the events described below happened. I fully intended to publish it shortly thereafter, but I ended up taking a right at Albuquerque and things went a little askew. I still think this is an important issue, so I'm still publishing it.

I finally gave in and admitted to myself that I was never going to play the copy of Cards Against Humanity that I'd purchased a long while back. Since I'd never even opened it, I decided to bring it in and donate it to the library where I work. We have a small game collection that I'm planning to grow, so why not? Right? I brought it in and handed it off so the game could start along the windy path all items follow in my library to be added to the collection. Then, a couple of days later, this copy of CAH came back to me because someone who works for me - rightly - had reservations about adding it to the collection. I'll admit I felt a little defensive. Like most people, I don't like to have my mistakes pointed out, but since I didn't want to make a decision from that initial reaction, I took it back and said I'd think about it.

Then I turned to Twitter. And to friends. I turned to WorldCat to see who else owned it. I thought about it overnight. I'll explain how I made my decision in the following paragraphs, but let me cut to the chase first: we are not adding it to my current library's collection.

How I arrived at that decision was somewhat circuitous, but in the end the biggest factor with whether or not to add something to a collection should always come down to context. Here are most of, if not all, of the arguments I saw and/or had:

• The whole point of CAH is to be offensive. To make you cringe, and then laugh at your own discomfort. I don't enjoy that kind of humor, personally, but I don't want to get in the way of people who do.
• Context is so important with offensive materials. For instance, libraries stock Mein Kampf so we can learn from history (although, considering the fact that we have Nazis in this country again, it didn't work).
• We don't yet have a collection development policy for our board game collection, so how can I really include or disallow anything? (We obviously need to write one.)
• Some might try to call this game satire of a sort, but satire needs to punch up and this game does a lot of punching down. Disrespecting and making fun of disenfranchised and disadvantaged groups is not satire - it's cruelty.
• Board games have more power than other objectionable things to do immediate harm. All I could think about was students checking this game out of the library and playing it in the student union, and having a transgender student or a disabled student walk by and overhear. Reading a horrible book only impacts the person reading it.
• I know this isn't censorship. My library has printers, and CAH is open source, so students can still play. We don't have rules about what people can and can't print, so I am not blocking their access to it.

I know how other libraries handle this game. I specifically sought out other librarians who handle games collections to ask their opinion. So that copy of CAH ended up in the recycling.

Please note that I reserve the right to delete comments on this post or close comments all together. I know I've opened myself to claims of censorship, despite the last point in the bullet list above. I used to be a free speech purist, but I know better now. Words can do harm.

Freedom of Library Speech

I've been struggling with how to write this post, and I'm still struggling with the concepts. The idea of freedom of speech is foundational, especially how it intersects with libraries and librarianship, but I'm still working to wrap my head around it. There are a lot of great pieces out there about library values, such as a post written by Meredith Farkas. Then there's the whole Operation 451 effort that is also along these lines. I admire these, and am - to some extent - using them as a springboard for this piece. However, the reason I've struggled with this is that freedom of speech, especially the library's role in that speech, is at best muddied waters. (Sorry for using such a cliched descriptor, but "muddied waters" is still the most apt phrase.) What I'm trying to say is that my writing here is my way of working through my thoughts.

First, we have that infuriating but also beautiful document, The Bill of Rights, that established - among other things - the idea of freedom of speech. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Holy heck, yeah! Give us, the people, the right to yell at our Government, to speak up and out. And let us be exceptionally and explicitly clear here: this prohibits the government, not your neighbor Bob, from curtailing your speech. Bob can stuff it, anyway.

But whenever I think about the first amendment, I think about the fact that there are legal and just exceptions to that freedom. Child pornography is not covered by the first amendment, and neither is hate speech. That makes sense, though. Things that will lead to or are included in committing a crime are generally indefensible, right? But then we come to community standards and who's writing the laws. Things that are legal aren't always right or just.

Add to this the fact that libraries do selectively censor - no matter what anyone says to the contrary. I know of one big library that has some porn, but it's in their special collection and is tied to an alum, but your average library doesn't have Debbie Does Dallas in their DVD collection or Penthouse in with their periodicals. We spend our money as best we can to support the efforts and needs of our communities, and sometimes whether by purposeful or unthinking omission, things get left out. No matter how much students at my school might joke about wanting Playboy, we don't have it (somebody added it to a poll we ran asking students which popular press magazines they wanted here).

Even with all this, I still believe providing access is one of the most important things a library can do. Like it says in Article V. of the Library Bill of Rights: "A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views." At my library, we serve our community to the best of our ability, but it's a balancing act. Yes, all students and faculty and staff are welcome, but if someone is being overly disruptive, violent, or is caught destroying library property, they will be escorted out of the building.

It's not easy to find my way through this issue, but something this important shouldn't be easy. We do need to think about those who are holding the purse strings, but we can't always bend to their dictates. We do need to consider community standards, but sometimes the community is flat out wrong. We do need to protect and provide access to speech, but not hate speech.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm still trying to suss out where I stand on all of this, on the interplay of community and legality and access. I'm trying to figure it out both personally and professionally. I know believe in freedom of speech, but not as an absolute. I know it seems like a lifetime ago, but really it was just two year past that we were saying:

I hope you all will join me in a careful consideration of what we mean by library core values, but most especially what we mean by freedom of speech.