Politics...Everywhere?

Just recently, I signed up for satellite TV and, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I watch a little television on my lunch breaks. I notice lately that we are in full-tilt politics season and ads for candidates are literally one after the other, and increasingly obnoxious and negative. Public, visible politicking is all part of living in a democratic society. Politicians want to reach people.

A little while ago, a gentlewoman came into the library and seemed quite annoyed that I hadn't allowed a flyer for her organization to hang on one of our bulletin boards in the lobby. When I explained that I had researched her organization at the website of the Center for Responsive Politics and wasn't comfortable with the close ties it seemed to have with one of the major political parties (and other groups which backed it), she displayed a bit of anger, insisting that it was NOT affiliated with a party in any way. On her way out the door, she warned me that libraries will be in trouble when the political party opposing the one she just told me her organization WASN'T affiliated with came back into power. I thought it was a telling statement.

One thing that I like about being a librarian is that, though politics are sometimes involved in running a library, the job isn't--or shouldn't be--overtly political. Libraries, despite the occasional activist-librarian who insists otherwise, should not be sounding boards for political causes or the groups espousing them, regardless of whether they see libraries as an important social pillar or a drag on the public pocketbook.

The point I think I'm trying to make is that this library has policies in place that allow the library user to know with some confidence that the focus of our mission here is educational and cultural and that anything political--ANYTHING--is held suspect and taken on a case-by-case basis with some thought. Take, for instance, our meeting room policy in regards to who gets to use the rooms. One of the "restrictions on usage" says we'll disallow "political campaigns, although bi-partisan political forums are permitted." I, as your library director, apply this standard to our public notice space, too.

When an organization has demonstrable ties to a political party and makes efforts to be more visible during campaign season or engage in campaigning, even of a surreptitious sort, I make the judgment call that they are part of a political campaign and thus will not be allowed to meet here or display their literature, ESPECIALLY when they aren't forthcoming about who and what they are, who funds them and what they do with their money.

It isn't personal or a reflection of my politics as a director or those of the library board. It's common sense. And good politics.