By Dr. William R. Taber, NYSALB Trustee
Due to term limits, this is the last column that I will write while a member of the NYSALB board. As a member, I have had the privilege of thinking and writing about library issues within our society, and it has led me into a deeper concern about our shared future. These articles and other items are on my website http://www.telenet.net/~billt (In regard to the Leatherman mentioned below, click on "…TRAVEL: USA", then on "Brassieres and Barbed Wire". No, it is not X-rated).
A few weeks ago, Paul drove me to Washington. DC on a Friday for a weekend visit with a couple of friends of his age who live and work just outside the city. I had not been to the nation's capitol since 1960; so the Washington, DC of 2005 was to be a new experience for me.
Although this second visit was certainly interesting and very enjoyable as a whole, it did not start well.
Late Saturday morning, Paul, Jen (our hostess), and I came into the city on the Metro. As we walked up a street behind Congress, the first building of note that we happened upon was the Library of Congress. Naturally, as would any library trustee, I wanted to go inside for a few minutes. I especially wanted to see with my own eyes the main reading room ---- which might be larger than our whole library building at home.
It was not to be.
The entrance from the outside is through two narrow doorways that open immediately upon an electronic security gate manned by a guard. Totally non-metallic Jen walked through the machine without a peep and went inside to arrange (as I learned later) some kind of tour for us.
As instructed, I took all the metal that I could find and piled it (camera, keys, coins, pens, Leatherman, watch, etc.) into a little tray on the side.
At the instant when the guard saw in the tray my little Leatherman tool (a gift from Jean which I have carried for over ten years), I was suddenly transformed from my accustomed state of respected citizen into a public enemy or a non-citizen to whom civility, respect, or any kind of cooperative treatment was unnecessary.
My words can not convey the abruptness and the belligerence with which he started and continued, "You can't bring THAT in here. You have to LEAVE. NOW!", "You have to get out of here." "NOW." He didn't touch me, but he literally herded me to the door. He wouldn't even give me time to put my possessions back into my pockets. I was forced to go through the door with my hands full of all the contents of the tray --- trying not to spill everything onto the ground as I juggled with them.
I don't believe that I said anything at all to this man. As this was going on, Paul did ask him if I could leave the tool with the guard or at the desk and pick it up when we came out. His response was, 'No. I WON'T. You have to leave. Get out." Since Jen was already in the library (within sight, at a desk), Paul asked the guard if he, Paul, could `tell her that we weren't coming in. He absolutely refused. "Okay," said Paul, "Would you just tell her that we won't be coming in?" The answer was, "I don't DO that SORT of thing." And so on.
I have no idea why this man was so abusive, as we had done nothing in our behavior or words to provoke any rational person. His psychology would have made more sense if he had been wearing a swastika on his sleeve. Even Paul, whose generation is more blasé than mine in regard to civil decline, felt that the man's conduct was exceptionally rude.
Is there a larger meaning to this? Perhaps there is.
Although this guard was clearly not the best book on the shelf, nevertheless he was the face of the Library of Congress during that morning of Lincoln's Birthday (which is normally more associated with extending civil rights than with diminishing them). Assuming that he is not a rogue, he was applying upon the real world - in our case upon a high school librarian (and ex-journalist), an attorney, and a retired college professor from upstate New York - a policy of the library's board of trustees.
I don't imply that the policy directly calls for belligerence, incivility, a bullying attitude, nor preemptory ejection of completely law-abiding patrons, but it obviously gives license for such behavior and empowers such usage. This may or may not have been envisaged by the trustees who undoubtedly acted with good intentions in formulating or accepting rules within our present ideological climate.
Most of our small libraries don't deal with many issues of power, but this little incident (in a library of all places!) is a typical warning. From a board member's point of view, any overgeneralization of a category or any ambiguity in policy language that is used to extend power will be distorted somewhere.
Licensed power invites over-extension unless there are very strong restraints placed upon it from other sources - either from widely shared cultural expectations that lead individuals to defend freedom as a long-term priority - or from specific institutional constraints that citizens with similar ideas (such as our Founding Fathers) build into the structure and procedures of our organizations. Such balancing acts are an old story in regard to political power and police power. Until recently, our country has been one of the best in dealing with them. And until recently, libraries have had little need to think about similar problems.
Even under the aegis of a War on Terrorism, there should be room for common sense.
As examples, a real threat to a library building or archival collections is from hidden explosives and/or accelerants in plastic packaging. They are not metal; they won't be put into a tray; they are truly destructive. But they would have passed through unchallenged. On the other hand, the abrupt expulsion that I experienced was ignited by an overgeneralization that squeezed my little Leatherman into the same conceptual box as (say) a fire-grenade. A generalization overrode any common sense that might reside somewhere in the mind of the guard.
Another example: they failed to establish any reasonable alternatives (such as a simple checking system for items that are obviously neither inherently dangerous nor illegal). As the institution now operates, an agent of that library is in fact peremptorily expelling people who should not be treated in such a manner in a non-dictatorial society.
Apparently, some element of phoniness taints this whole "Security" thing, since electronic gates and guards' nasty attitudes are mostly irrelevant as real protections against real threats to a national institution or to a library. Mostly, these devises only accustom us further to the experience of suspicion and authoritarianism.
This story is informative. We as trustees must be vigilant in our own policy-making not to authorize things which can lead to consequences that are inherently contrary to the values that we are supposed to be supporting. Perhaps also, we as a country should put some term limits upon the mindset of the War on Terrorism; for its dominance in our thinking may be doing more damage to our society than it prevents.