IFRT Members Community (Open)

As a member of Intellectual Freedom and Social Justice Working Group and one of the primary researchers on radical empathy as a possible replacement for neutrality and one of the writing team for the report (attached) I disagree with much in the open letter but find the criticism of value in the complete process of finding a substitute for neutrality. 

With so many ALA members speaking out against our current use of neutrality I think it is appropriate to explore alternatives, including but not limited to radical empathy, trauma-informed librarianship, and cultural humility, as a beginning to the process. This report is only that, a report to the Executive Board. The Board may reject it out of hand or ask others to consider it or move it along to the Council to consider its implementation. Remember neutrality does not appear in any official ALA document so replacing it as a core principle will be complex and time consuming and obviously not without opposition.

Ray

Eldon Ray James (Prefer "Ray") Retired Researcher IFRT Coalition Building chair 2021-2022 TAG Task Force member 2021-2022 IFRT Obelor Award committee member 2021-2022 FTRF Developing Issues Committee member 2021-2022 Intellectual Freedom Committee IFRT liaison 2021-2023 Intellectual Freedom Committee LSJI liaison 2021-2023 Intellectual Freedom & Social Justice Task Force 2021-2022 (LSJI liaison) Challenges to CRT and Diversity Training Toolkit Subgroup member ALA Standards for Library Services for Incarcerated and Detained Individuals Working Group member IFLA Guidelines for library services to prisoners working group (2021-2022) Library Services to the Justice Involved (LSJI) member (2021-2022) TLA member TLA Retired Librarians Round Table IFLA member   He/his/him erayjames@utexas.edu & erayjames@gmail.com

 

The choices basically boil down to neutrality or varying degrees of fanaticism in just about every direction on just about every topic. From my observations over the last 22 years, those librarians who seem to be most deeply and even angrily against the very notion of neutrality are just as often vocal and convinced political ideologues, if not full-on monomaniacs. These are often the people who insist that libraries should make statements, issue edicts, become partisan. But asking public institutions to pick and customize their respective causes and degrees of commitment (and continually re-assess them, I suppose)  is politically suicidal for the profession and turns libraries EVEN MORE into the electoral footballs that WE have arguably already allowed them to become. This is truer in public libraries than in those sorts more insulated from the feedback and pushback of taxpayers, but the entire field suffers for the public fist-pumping of the convinced.

More specifically, the idea that a notion like "radical empathy" could become a "core value" in a profession not related to religious or therapeutic work is not intellectually serious. The writers of this statement, however, seem refreshingly serious. This is a well-written statement against the amplified anti-neutrality drone note of the last few years, partially played on the ALA's horns. The call to actively embed neutrality as a core value is especially courageous right now. Good for them.

Darryl H. Eschete, MLIS

Director, West Des Moines Public Library

4000 Mills Civic Parkway

West Des Moines, Iowa 50265

Tel--515-222-3409

Fax--515-222-3401

The choices basically boil down to neutrality or varying degrees of fanaticism in just about every direction on just about every topic. From my observations over the last 22 years, those librarians who seem to be most deeply and even angrily against the very notion of neutrality are just as often vocal and convinced political ideologues, if not full-on monomaniacs. These are often the people who insist that libraries should make statements, issue edicts, become partisan. But asking public institutions to pick and customize their respective causes and degrees of commitment (and continually re-assess them, I suppose)  is politically suicidal for the profession and turns libraries EVEN MORE into the electoral footballs that WE have arguably already allowed them to become. This is truer in public libraries than in those sorts more insulated from the feedback and pushback of taxpayers, but the entire field suffers for the public fist-pumping of the convinced.

More specifically, the idea that a notion like "radical empathy" could become a "core value" in a profession not related to religious or therapeutic work is not intellectually serious. The writers of this statement, however, seem refreshingly serious. This is a well-written statement against the amplified anti-neutrality drone note of the last few years, partially played on the ALA's horns. The call to actively embed neutrality as a core value is especially courageous right now. Good for them.

Darryl H. Eschete, MLIS

Director, West Des Moines Public Library

4000 Mills Civic Parkway

West Des Moines, Iowa 50265

Tel--515-222-3409

Fax--515-222-3401

Accurate information vs. truth is always interesting to me when we discuss that here. I use the 200's (religion) and diet books as an example. I prefer to provide sources, or direct them to the area, but remain neutral for the best diet, or recommendations on a good religion.  My state has a majority of right-wingers, and they hold the financial control of libraries. I don't find most of them hateful and angry, but we too have our groups who are. We don't query their motives when attending or using our library, but we do have use rules. I feel neutrality is the word that applies, in that library users are all afforded their privacy. We may never know personal details of who uses our libraries.  Empathy requires me to make assumptions and guesses of those towards whom I must show compassionate treatment, based on a marginalized status, neutrality requires me to attempt to treat people, my collection and my policies equal and fair.