This Radical Librarian May Soon Run the World’s Largest Library

[marmar]

from The Nation:


Dr. Carla Hayden will be the first woman and African American to fill the post—unless Senate Republicans stand in her way.

By Zoë Carpenter
February 25, 2016




 President Obama made a historic nomination on Wednesday—not to the Supreme Court but to fill the top post next door at the Library of Congress. If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Carla Hayden would be the first woman, and the first African American, to lead the 214-year-old library. She’s a career librarian, distinguishing her from the scholars that have traditionally been chosen for the post. She’s also a champion of privacy rights, and an outspoken critic of the Patriot Act.

 As president of the American Library Association in 2003 and 2004, Hayden went head to head with then–Attorney General John Ashcroft over the post-9/11 surveillance law. Librarians voiced some of the earliest warnings about its implications for civil liberties, particularly in regards to Section 215—known then as the “library records provision”—which the government later relied on to justify some of the dragnet data collection revealed by Edward Snowden. Ashcroft, attempting to stamp out opposition to the act, accused librarians of “baseless hysteria.” He earned a sharp rebuke from Hayden, who wrote that she was “deeply concerned that the Attorney General would be so openly contemptuous” of librarians. Ashcroft called her to apologize, though he continued to deny that the law was being used to snoop in the stacks.

Hayden advanced the notion of librarians as activists, and of libraries as vital community institutions, not just repositories for books. “We serve the underserved,” she told Ms. magazine in 2003, when the publication named her Woman of the Year. “When libraries fight against the PATRIOT Act, or against [mandatory Internet filters], we’re fighting for the public. Most of the people who use public libraries don’t have the opportunity to buy books at a bookstore or on Amazon.com. What the library does is protect the rights of all people to fully and freely access information and to pursue knowledge, without fear of repercussion.” ..................(more)

http://www.thenation.com/article/this-radical-librarian-may-soon-run-the-worlds-largest-library/

[Wounded Bear]

1. K & R ......for visibility..nt

[bemildred]

2. A radical librarian, now that's a concept I can get behind.

We need lots more radical librarians. "Give me literacy or give me death!"

[hunter]

3. Excellent!

Heck, she sounds like someone I'd want on the Supreme Court.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[fishwax]

5. k/r -- good pick!

[longship]

6. Not the quiet demure librarians of my youth.

Although I helped the school librarian in grade school as a member of library staff. I loved her. She somehow selected me out of the blue and I was more than happy to say yes. It was a great honor for me. Plus, I learned the Dewey Decimal System, now gone.

I could have majored in library science if I hadn't decided that physics was my main interest.

R&K

The GOP will likely oppose her because... (wait for it)

Harry Potter!

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. kick

[Bradical79]

8. Sounds like a great appointment :-) -nt

[MisterP]

9. "what can a librarian do"? some might ask

Bartlesville, Oklahoma, was cracking down on the menace of small Black children; since they couldn't fire the respected librarian, they decided to red-bait her by photographing the "subversive" material like YWCA documents, The Nation, WWII stuff, and travel guides to the wrong side of the Curtain; library materials were snuck in and out in the middle of the night

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Brown_%28librarian%29