If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s this: Moral certainty is easy. Practical action is hard and almost always requires some degree of compromise.
Here are two principles of public librarianship which underlie our work:
- Public libraries have a mandate to provide materials that represent multiple perspectives on a range of issues and subjects, especially to reflect the various viewpoints of members of the library’s community.
- Public libraries are trusted sources of reliable, authoritative information. We vet information sources to be sure we offer good info to our patrons.
What happens when these two principles stand in direct contradiction with each other? What do you do when you can’t fulfill both of these principles?
As Neil Gaiman said, “Google will bring you back … a hundred thousand answers. A librarian will bring you back the right one.” There’s been a great deal of talk these past few years about the role libraries can play in fighting the spread of misinformation and promoting information literacy.
But we have people in our communities who hold to ideas and perspectives that are incorrect, at least when assessed by standards of information literacy and authority. These people expect to come into their library—which their tax dollars help fund—and find materials which reflect their beliefs.
How do you balance that?
John the Librarian 