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Dear Editor:
As an Indiana author, I believe there are no bad words, only uncomfortable meanings. It is our right as intellectual beings to interpret those meanings for ourselves.
It is ludicrous that books are “moved” to different sections of the library, to be distributed at the fancy of a board of people who are forcing their beliefs and values on all patrons.
As a child, I was a voracious reader. At 12 years old, I was deemed too young by rules to read books that my college reading level needed to keep me engaged. My mother wrote to the library, and I was allowed to start reading ALL the books in the library.
I thought the rule ignorant at the time and I still do.
Libraries are the keepers of knowledge, and EVERYONE has the right to that knowledge. Libraries allow free access to a world of information, and the opportunity this brings is invaluable.
What is going on now at the HEPL is no different than my experience as a child and it is appalling in the extreme.
Not only is the HEPL board imposing its personal views on everyone, they are taking away the rights of the parents to … parent. When we restrict access for children, we signal it is okay to restrict knowledge, and we move one step closer to restricting intellectual freedom of all. Challenges to the sensibilities of patrons such as these challenges our intellectual freedom and smacks of fascism.
This is a most dangerous form of censorship and encroaches on our freedoms as parents, patrons, and intelligent human beings. Our future access to all points of view is in danger with the actions of the HEPL library board.
Moving one book back to the teen shelves where it belongs is a start. Stop the archaic Chicken Little attitude toward uncomfortable subjects and return ALL books to where they belong.
Furthermore, this dunderpated posturing by members of the HEPL board is a waste of library time, money, and resources, based on the actions of the minority. This money would be better spent providing resources to patrons or working with library leaders to find better ways to run libraries.
Perhaps this money and time should be spent on appointing board members with far more credentials than the current HEPL board that won’t use their positions as a stepping stone for political aspirations or take away our freedom to intellectual information.
Nicole Kobrowski
Author and Owner of Unseenpress.com, Inc.
Westfield