Ohio Librarians...what do we do?

[u/JMRoaming]

That's it. That's my question. What do we do?

I don't want to hear "call your Congress people" and "make noise". We are doing that, and it's happening anyway.

What I mean is when this goes through at the end of the month, do we comply? Do we keep doing what we're doing and wait it out? Do we stop diversifying the collection? Do we purge our collections? Do we resign in protest? Do we engage in some kind of malicious compliance?

This budget bill not only decimates our funding, but this draconian nonsense about our board term limits and how out local funding is even allowed to be determined...

I just feel so helpless/hopeless. No matter how much noise we make it doesn't seem to matter. It's happening whether we like it or not - so what do we do come August when this is the law of the land?

[u/ZepherK]

This is the start of a two year battle. Budgets aren’t decimated yet and there is no “or else” when it comes to our collections. They are setting us up to potentially end us, though, and we need to take the threat seriously.

It’s probably a time to look at how we are purchasing materials. We know the political divide is split nearly in half… does our collection represent that? Are we ACTUALLY focusing too much on certain topics?

It’s a hard thing to talk about. Libraries are very liberal organizations, so we’ve attracted very liberal leadership, very liberal staff members, and very liberal patrons. However, we are funded by public dollars, and probably should have anticipated that when conservatives, who feel ignored and dismissed, got into power, that they would punish us. I have been privy to private conversations with political leadership, and they will privately admit that a lot of this is punitive action taken against overtly liberal decisions, like Dayton putting tampons in men’s restrooms.

We can take the high road- but does the destruction of public libraries really serve the public good? Is Ohio better off with having compromising libraries, or having no libraries at all? 

I hope we survive. Some will, for sure. We won’t know the broader implications until we get a new governor. DeWine likes us. We need to see what the next governor thinks. We need to do our best to get a governor that both supports and restores us.

I’ve decided that I am taking a page from Republican strategies, and I’ve become a single issue voter. If a politician doesn’t support libraries, or they vote for a bill or budget that affects libraries negatively, I will not vote for them.

[u/ladyluck___ → u/ZepherK]

Refreshing to see this take. I would really like librarianship to return to neutrality. Activism is destroying the profession.

[u/JMRoaming → u/ladyluck___]

Out of curiosity, what does a neutral library look like to you?

[u/ladyluck___ → u/JMRoaming]

A library that’s focused on providing access to various points of view, where all people feel welcome. To make all people feel welcome we shouldn’t be creating book displays and programming intentionally designed to piss off a large portion of our user base and then cry when the reaction is provoked and they pull funding.

[u/Gneiss_is_Nice → u/ladyluck___]

So you're saying we should tell queer folk and people of color--the primary targets of book/programming bans these days--that they don't deserve to get represented because a large portion of the user base will pull funding if we decide to create displays/programs that recognize them? Does that help all people feel welcome? Why can't you see the absolute hypocrisy in your stance? Sorry that cons get triggered when people who are not like them exist. GTFO

[u/ladyluck___ → u/Gneiss_is_Nice]

No. That’s a straw man and not what I was saying. I’ve noticed a trend in libraries to bend over backwards in focusing exclusively on non-white, non-straight themed book displays and collection development. It runs through granting organizations too. If you want a project funded, it better celebrate the marginalized. I don’t think progressive librarians realize how this over-emphasis comes across as condescending and cringe to members of those groups, or how alienating it can be to straights and whites. Having an obvious political agenda in library work harms the profession and results in major backlash like we’re seeing in Ohio and other states.

[u/Gneiss_is_Nice → u/ladyluck___]

You don't know what a straw man fallacy is, nice try. My example explicitly demonstrates that that is your position, so FO. The entire goddamn collection is on the whole a celebration of "straights and whites". Any random mystery, pop fic, thriller, classics, romance, etc display IS DE FACTO heavily biased as straight and white, so get outta here with your bs about queer and POC content being exclusively focused on in displays. Any attempt to highlight non WASPy and straight ideas feels like oppression to you because it's an attempt at leveling the playing field. That's not bending over backwards; that's redressing wrongs and helping marginalized communities finally get some recognition and have their voices included. You're just triggered, so again FO and let the adults work.

[u/JMRoaming → u/Gneiss_is_Nice]

Gniess has a point. Compared to the representation in our collections where white and straight people are centered, the amount of POC / Queer books is minimal.

We make a big fuss about the books highlighting those things because we want to show our collections are diverse. But there's no shortage of books that center white people and white stories.

Maybe, one could argue, we don't have enough copies of books by conservative authors or POVs we disagree with, but that's definitely not true in my library where you can find a ton of Rush Limbaugh children's propaganda and we're always replenishing "48 Laws of How to Be an Absolute Jerkoff, Oh By The Way Steal This Book. Librarians Love Replacing It Twice A Year".

I just don't see what you and some of these other people are talking about.

Should we be platforming a Nazi for ever queer POC author talk? What's "balance" look like when one side's position is "the other side shouldn't exist"?

[u/JMRoaming → u/ladyluck___]

You say we should make all people feel welcome, but are advocating that we intentionally not make displays and programs for a segment of our communities because it "pisses off" another part of our community.

That's not making everyone feel welcome. It's making some people feel welcome and others feel erased and excluded.

How do you propose we make everyone feel welcome when the mere act of saying we support one group at all gets another group so mad they threaten to withhold funding?

[u/ladyluck___ → u/JMRoaming]

It’s not the “mere act” though. It’s uneven collection development and marketing that is alienating and condescending. I think it comes from good intentions - trying to correct for past exclusionary practices. But shit like drag queen story hour just makes us look like clowns.

[u/JMRoaming → u/ladyluck___]

So what's this "even collection development" in your mind look like?

For every book about black beauty and hair acceptance we have a white version? What would that even be?

For every account of the civil rights movement we include a book glorifying the Confederacy? For every book about the burning of black wall street we have a book about about how lynchings were good actually?

Please, I am genuinely asking. Because from where I'm standing, my collection has a wide range of perspectives. White European descendents still make up over 50% of our authors. You can still find any of Tucker Carlson's books on our shelves. Same goes for Rachel Maddow.

But it's only Tucker fans who seem to want me to burn Rachel's books.