Librarian Patriots"Patriotism, Tom Paine observed, is not best measured in times of national comfort and quiet. It is in times of crisis, when the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots have retreated to the safety of official talking points and unquestioning loyalty, that those who truly understand the meaning and merit of the American experiment come to its defense. On the 230th anniversary of the launch of that experiment, let us reflect on those who have met the test, noting in particular that some of the boldest expressions of patriotism have come from groups not necessarily associated with dissent."Consider America's librarians. Since the enactment of the Patriot Act in 2001, the American Library Association (ALA) has been at the forfront of the fight to defend freedom of inquiry and thought from provisions of the act that allow the Justice Department to subpoena the records of libraries and bookstores. The librarians succeeded in getting the House to adopt language protecting library records in 2005--only to have it stripped from the bill to which it was attached by the Administration-friendly House-Senate conference committee. "But the librarians have not just been lobbying to change the Patriot Act, they've been on the front lines of exposing its abuses. When four Connecticut librarians challenged an attempt by the FBI to use a National Se3curity Letter to obtain records of who was reading what in the state, the Justice Department slapped a gag order on them. But the 64,000-member ALA and its Freedom to Read Foundation stood up for the librarians, working with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of American Publishers and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression to make a federal case of the issue. In May, after the FBI dropped its defense of the gag order--and shortly before it withdrew its demand for the records--a federal appeals court declared that order moot, and the librarians were at last free to speak out. Peter Chase, director of the Plainville, Connecticut, public library, explained that he and his fellow librarians decided to fight because of their frustration at receiving the National Security Letter even as "the government was telling Congress that it didn't use the Patriot Act against libraries and that no one's rights had been violated. I felt that I just could not be part of this fraud being foisted on our nation"" ("American Patriots." The Nation, July 17, 2006: 3).
"At the behest of the chemical boys, oil giants, and other polluters, George W.'s corporate-serving monkey-wrenchers have gone after the Environmental Protection Agency's network of regional research libraries. Good grief--librarians? Why would the polluter powers bother with these simple keepers of knowledge? "Precisely because knowledge is power... the EPA libraries are treasure troves of organized, detailed information about specific polluters--what they are doing, where they're doing it, and to whom. Corporations don't like it when We the People have knowledge that can be used to halt their polluting... "Already, they've closed libraries in Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, and Washington, as well as the EPA's principal library for evaluating new chemicals. In the agency's five remaining libraries, hours have been severely shortened, and public access has been curtailed" (Hightower, Jim. "Ignorance is Power." Texas Observer, Dec. 15, 2006: 15).
"The FBI and other US law enforcement agencies involved in fighting counter-terrorism have made more than 200 requests for information about borrowers from libraries since September 11, including those who asked for a book about Osama bin Laden" (Roundup. Guardian Weekly, June 24, 2005: 2).
The IELTS [International English Literacy Testing System] organization recommends that no student with less than IELTS 7.0 will be able to undertake "linguistically demanding academic course" such as "medicine, law, linguistics, journalism or library studies." For courses such as "agriculture, pure mathematics, technology, computer-based work and telecommunications" it recommends that a level of 6.5 is "probably acceptable"" (Rob Burgess. "Ill-used test raises campus concern." Guardian Weekly, June 24, 2005: 19).
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