OCT 15, 2022
BRIAN RAITZ
Executive
Director, Parkersburg-Wood County Public Library.
editorial@newsandsentinel.com
The Library Board meeting of Sept. 28, 2022, was an
incredibly challenging evening for anyone in that room. Passionate emotions
grew high with the basic core standings of a public library being the center of
the conversation.
To begin with, several people came to the board meeting
upset about a certain book: “Gender Queer” by
Maia Kobabe. I was unaware at first of the purpose of their attendance at the
board meeting. They asked about the library, funding, and management. I went
over a brief history of the library and its funding resources. It was later
that we heard about the book at the heart of the visit.
The book in question is a graphical autobiography of
someone’s life growing up with gender identification issues. The issue with
this book is a couple of frames with graphic portrayal of a sexual nature that
offended those in the room. It offended most, but not all, and this may be the
heart of the issue.
Libraries are not safe repositories of a past or present
that is inoffensive to everyone. Public libraries are wild and wonderful places
to explore the world and our community together through the past, the present,
and the future. The past is there in older materials in the collection that
sometimes become less relevant, or other times may give us a window into who we
were, such as genealogy and local history.
Public libraries are also a reflection of the interests
of everyone in the community now, and a glimpse of where those interests are
going. Anyone that spends time in a public library will soon run into materials
and people that challenge, disturb, and offend them. We are a broad spectrum of
people in our community, and to meet the needs and desires of everyone, this
challenging and uncomfortable part of public libraries is inevitable.
Libraries are a wonderful place for parents and
guardians to help the children in their lives negotiate the good and the bad in
our world. Libraries empower parents and guardians with all the information
they need: the pros and cons, for and against, that with which they agree and
that with which they vehemently disagree. Those viewpoints are not forced on
anybody in the public library; they are there to be consumed by those who are interested,
and ignored by those who are uninterested. We give the keys of knowledge to
parents; how parents use those keys to teach their children is their choice and
no one else’s.
I am not upset with the individuals that came in
passionate protest to the Library Board meeting. I actually have quite a bit of
empathy for them and their feelings. I have those same feelings of misgiving
regularly about materials that I see and help purchase for the library, but I
have also come to realize that the public library is not a reflection of only
my interests or those that agree with me. It is here for everyone in the
community equally. I need to provide that service equally to each and everyone
in the community, and that is when conflicts arise.
I challenge everyone to look around you at the world. Do
you agree with everything there? Are you in the majority on every subject, or
are you in the minority on any subjects? Do not all of those interests need to
be reflected in our public library? For that is what we are at the core. The
public library reflects the entire community in all its various beliefs. It is
a place where we can come to explore those interests that we may share with the
many or the few, and be treated with respect.
I know this is hard to swallow for many that do not work
in a public library setting (and even those that do), because the library is
such a personal place. We think it reflects us, and I hope it does. The
obstacle is that it also reflects others in the community that we do not agree
with in various ways. For the library to be yours it also needs to be theirs.
That may be easy intellectually to understand, but in daily life it is
exceedingly difficult to come to grips with on a personal level.
I wish the best to all of you that take this wild and
wonderful journey of navigating the untamed content of the library. It is
challenging, but I also think that it is the core of what we are as a free
society and as a public library serving our community.
We would like to honor free speech by inviting all
members of the public to engage with us in this conversation. The library is
going to be building two lists of books we as a community love and hate on our
website to share with each other. Watch the website http://parkwoodlib.com or
contact the library to find out how to add your choices of books you are
passionate about.
***
Brian Raitz is the executive director of the Parkersburg-Wood County Public Library.
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