FREE SPEECH FOR LIBRARIANS?

A REVIEW OF SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE LIBRARIANSHIP, 1967-1999

Taralee Alcock

Librarianship is a profession expressly dedicated to the maintenance and defense of free speech.  Yet when librarians themselves exercise that right conflict often emerges. One of the most telling examples of this persistent dilemma can be traced through the history of the social responsibility in librarianship.  This paper will look at social responsibility in the profession. It divides into six parts that proceed chronologically from the Sixties through to the late Nineties.  Following the social responsibility movement chronologically sometimes obscures the persistence of certain issues both within the social responsibility movement and conflicts that erupt around it. To counteract this tendency I have made an effort to make these connections explicit to the reader, sometimes interrupting the chronological flow.  

The first section of this paper defines social responsibility in the context of intellectual freedom and the Library Bill of Rights. The second section provides a brief history of the rise of the social responsibility movement in the Sixties. The third section foregrounds the Berninghausen Debate, an exchange that appeared in Library Journal in 1973.  The fourth and fifth sections follow the movement through the Eighties and into the Nineties where it is seeing a revitalization and, at the same time, encountering new resistance.  Throughout this historical review I will highlight collection development as one important area of work in socially responsible librarianship, it will be used to give concrete form to the ideas discussed in the social responsibility movement. Collection development remains one of many areas social responsibility advocates work in librarianship. For instance, bias in subjects headings is another strong area of work that has come out of the movement.  For the sake of brevity, these other areas have been neglected here.

Finally, after this nearly forty year overview of the movement, I discuss a pattern that has emerged in the resistance to socially responsible librarianship.  There is a great deal of congruity between the social responsibility movement in the Sixties and its present manifestation. There is also a marked consistency in how it is received and treated in the mainstream of professional librarianship.  Intellectual freedom is consistently pitted against social responsibility, and library issues against non-library issues.  My goal is to force the subtle dimensions of this dichotomy to the surface to demonstrate that it is constructed, thus provoking the movement beyond it by highlighting areas for future inquiry. In my opinion, the social responsibility movement has been a important yet undervalued 'pocket of creativity' in librarianship.  Tracing the historical dimensions of the movement to the present time will help illustrate this. I hope it will also contradict the persistant marginalization of social responsibility movement and highlight the important role it has played and continues to play in librarianship.

Perhaps the best way to define social responsibility in librarianship is by first defining intellectual freedom.  Intellectual freedom is currently librarianship's 'core value'. Beginning in 1939 ALA began to document  intellectual freedom and oppose censorship.  Intellectual freedom, based on the Library Bill of Rights (see Appendix 1) adopted in 1939 and since revised, maintains that librarians and, thus, libraries be absolutely democratic. They must serve all members of the community.  Libraries should provide access to all kinds of information and challenge censorship in all its forms.  For example, the 1996 edition of the Intellectual Freedom Manual instructs librarians to apply the principles of intellectual freedom to all of their activities from reference service to materials selection (xvii).  This is achieved by taking a detached and neutral perspective in all professional duties. Personal persuasions and interests should be set aside in the pursuit of intellectual freedom.

That intellectual freedom is being practiced in libraries is, for the most part, taken for granted.   Yet virtually since intellectual freedom moved into the center of librarianship there have been concerns about it.  If, for the sake of argument, it was true that librarians could be impartial, then intellectual freedom would be entirely possible. Yet the social responsibility movement that emerged in the Sixties and continues today has consistently revealed the many ways that librarians are not neutral.  Instead, the rhetoric of intellectual freedom obscures the complex partisan interests that make up librarians, libraries, and their collections. These interests are usually white, heterosexual, upper middle class and very mainstream. Taking for granted that neutrality is possible and intellectual freedom is being practiced is resulting in exclusionary library practice.

According to Chris Atton, a lecturer in the Department of Print Media, Publishing, and Communication at the University in Edinburgh, the perspectives socially responsible librarianship has come to encompass are similar in their concern with "speaking truth to power" (1997 103).   Access is at the centerpiece of most of these positions but social responsibility remains an idea that is open to diverse interpretations.  Broadly, the movement encompasses progressive, activist, radical, and anarchist librarians.  It is a series of initiatives that have one thing in common: a recognition that every aspect of our lives is infused with politics and power relations (Atton 1997 103).   Social responsibility acknowledges that librarianship has traditionally  "disadvantaged significant groups in society -- most notably, women, working people, children, and ethnic groups" (Atton 1997 103).  The movement  not only acknowledges this matrix of power relations, it actively seeks to counter it (Atton 1997 103). Underscoring most definitions of social responsibility is the desire to make libraries socially relevant and improve user access.

Social responsibility is not 'against' intellectual freedom, although this is common misconception. Instead advocates argue for an intellectual freedom that is not based on the 'myth' of neutrality.  They do not accept that neutrality is possible and instead argue that it maintains the status quo.   Steven Joyce points out that "such a stance is both naive and overly simplistic" (11).  Librarians are inextricably linked to their social environments. Detaching the personal from the professional is impossible. It is not only untenable but also dangerous because neutrality can easily act as a ruse for silence. According to Joyce "complete neutrality is the ultimate form of surrender"(11). As an example he writes "I am not for war, but then I am not for peace; I am not for sexism, but then I am not for equality; I am not for homophobia, but then I am not for tolerance; I am for neutrality, I am for nothing" (11). The conundrum that results from such a stance is clearly nonsensical  but to some extent is practiced in libraries.  A telling example is that, while the American Library Association was never segregated, it did it take an active stance against the practice of segregation (Peterson 171).

Under the guise of neutrality commitments not only exist but also shape our collections.  Neutrality cloaks the real issue, that librarians actively bolster and maintain the dominant status quo. For social responsibility advocates neutrality results in passive inaction which, in reality, is an insidious way to maintain prevailing powers.  The goals of social responsibility advocates are not at all dissimilar to that of intellectual freedom proponents.  Indeed, social responsibility is best conceived as a more radical form of intellectual freedom.  The central difference is that they argue that 'neutrality' will never result in intellectual freedom.  

The social responsibility movement has a long history in librarianship, but its most forceful and concerted action coincided with the political and social upheaval of the Sixties. Until the early Seventies social responsibility was hotly debated and highly visible in the profession.  New graduates and long time members of the profession, steeped in the political milieu of the day, were unconvinced by the profession's conservative overtones.  They questioned prevailing assumptions and rallied in response to social justice issues they felt were relevant to the profession.  Their dissatisfaction sparked one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of librarianship. According to Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick J. Stielow, editors of Activism in American Librarianship, 1962-1973,  "the most significant feature of the activism of the Sixties was that it challenged the profession's status quo -- in its associations, its libraries, and its library schools"(Bundy & Stielow 5).  The movement was a serious challenge to the prevailing idea that librarians were impartial collectors that provided equal access to all members of the community.  It revealed that neutrality, intellectual freedom, and even the Library Bill of Rights  were not being practiced by librarians.

Toni Samek, a library historian, explains that the social responsibility movement forced librarianship to reexamine some of its most closely held ideals (Samek 1998 73).  One example of this was in the area of collection development.  Celeste West, publisher of Synergy, and Jackie Eubanks, chair of the Task Force on Alternative Books in Print, noted librarianship's neglect of the alternative press.  Collection development, they both argued, was a cyclical process that systematically excluded alternative publications (Samek 1998 72). New librarians were neither aware of nor given the tools to discover the alternative press and workplace collection development guidelines did little to break  this cycle.  Advocates like West and Eubanks argued that this system "not only favoured establishment interests but economic, social and political ones as well" (Samek 1998 73).  They found that dominant practices did little more than maintain the status quo.  They felt that under the rubric of intellectual freedom  all people were not being served. Therefore a librarianship based on intellectual freedom needed to involve social responsibility if libraries were to even approximate the ideal of the 'balanced' collection (Samek 1998 80).

Many publications and groups emerged in response to this duress.

Under West's direction in 1967  the San Francisco Public Library Bay Area Reference Center (BARC) began its inquiry into non-commercial publishers and printed Synergy.  Synergy, published between 1967-1973,  advocated access to topics marginalized in the mainstream library press. It "defined an alternative library culture that worried less about the library as keeper of the cultural record, and more about the library as an active agent for cultural change"(Samek 83). Synergy was instrumental in spreading the word and social responsibility caught on in other areas of the profession.  

A socially responsible approach to librarianship culminated in the formation of the Round Table on Social Responsibilities of Librarians (RTSRL) in 1969.  Affiliated with the American Library Association (ALA), this established social responsibility as a part of the profession. The RTSRL provided librarians with "a formal conduit for its [ALAs] members to tackle social responsibility" (Samek  1998 120).  Bill DeJohn, a member of the RTSRL, explained that among the amorphous membership of the RTSRL (later to be renamed the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT, 1970)) there was no clear-cut definition of social responsibility only an underlying commitment "to the concept of libraries and librarians having a broad social responsibility in our society"(300).  Members refused to separate professional issues from their concerns as citizens.  

A variety of task forces formed following the creation of the SRRT. Notable examples are the Task force on Alternative Books in Print and the Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The Task Force on Alternative Books in Print (1970), led by Eubanks, sought to "make libraries and their collections relevant for their publics"(Samek 1998 155).  This task force worked to promote the acquisition and use of alternative information resources in libraries. Task force members felt that the Library Bill of Rights could only be realized by providing access to a diversity of materials, including those that lie outside the interests of commercial information providers. Part of this effort included the publication of Alternatives in Print (AIP).  The SRRT's Gay Liberation Task Force, also formed in 1970,  sought to end discrimination against lesbians and gays in the profession.  Discrimination based on sexual orientation was a pervasive and unquestioned fact of life for most librarians and library users.  The task force worked to propel this into public view and offer librarians tools to correct the long-standing deficiency in libraries.

Samek  describes the social responsibility movement as "a tonic that invigorated a static library profession in a time of significant social change" (Samek 1998 19).  Yet not everyone considered the rise of the social responsibility movement a tonic to stagnation.  Quite to the contrary, the rise of social responsibility during the Sixties provoked heated debate in the profession. The central opposition came from the intellectual freedom movement.  Many felt that social responsibility was a threat to professional neutrality. The ensuing debate amplified professional resistance as well as compelled social responsibility advocates to give a clearer voice to their interests.

In 1972 Library Journal (LJ) published David Berninghausen's article "Antithesis in Librarianship: Social responsibility vs. The Library Bill of Rights".  Berninghausen, then the chair of ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee and Director of University of Minnesota's library school,  argued strongly against  social responsibility in librarianship.  He described social responsibility as a movement that sought to make libraries "partisan advocates of various causes"(Berninghausen 3680). Social responsibility as he defined it, would compel librarians to "use their libraries as 'instruments of social change' to promote their personal, social, political and religious, and moral convictions"(Berninghausen 3677).  The role of libraries would move from impartial collector to propagandist for a cause. The goal of a balanced collection would be deemed "unworthy" and  "cast aside" (Berninghausen 3681). In lieu of a balanced collection librarians would instead seek "'to educate the people' by giving them access only to the publications judged 'correct' by librarians"(3681).  As a result he finds the social responsibility movement to be 'anti-intellectual freedom' (3677).  For social responsibility to exist in librarianship Berninghausen believed that "the whole effort to preserve intellectual freedom for library users would have to be given up" and librarians would be forced to "cease trying to maintain free access for all points of view" (3680).  Berninghausen maintained that librarians, at their best, were impartial collectors and educators who could represent the gamut of viewpoints without promoting their own.  He maintained that social responsibility could not coexist with intellectual freedom and the Library Bill of Rights because it involved the promotion of individual librarians points of view.  If social responsibility required taking a stance on issues then it directly conflicted with the ideal of librarians as  neutral 'custodians' of culture.  

In January of 1973 Library Journal (LJ) published a series of responses to Berninghausen's article by 19 members of the ALA.  Noel Peattie, Sipapu publisher, would later call this rebuttal "some of the most interesting reading in the history of the profession" (Peattie 155).  Some of those who responded agreed with Berninghausen's position and applauded him for speaking frankly about the damage social responsibility was having on the profession. Yet the majority of the responses solicited by LJ were strongly opposed to his position.  These contributors argued that Berninghausen's definition of social responsibility was incorrect and essentially constructed for debacle and that his definition of intellectual freedom was extremely limited (Wedgeworth et al 32).

Critics of Berninghausen railed against his dichotomous portrayal of intellectual freedom and social responsibility.  Social responsibility was being defined by its detractor as everything intellectual freedom was not. This made it easy to attack in a profession dedicated to the maintenance of intellectual freedom.  Advocates pointed out that there was simply no basis for this claim.  Social responsibility was a movement that sought to compel librarians to live up to the rhetoric of intellectual freedom. Yet by constructing the social responsibility movement as antithetical to intellectual freedom  Berninghausen rhetorically  predestined the social responsibility movement to be 'anti-intellectual freedom' and therefore censorious.  

Contributors instead described social responsibility and intellectual freedom as "a single continuous concept" (Wedgeworth et al  29).  The role of social responsibility was to bring about an intellectual freedom that was available to all.  Betty-Carol Sellen from the Brooklyn College Library argued that partisanship has always been a hallmark of librarianship only "towards those social groups which have  the largest and most conservatively respectable power base"(Wedgeworth et al 27). The social responsibility movement sought to counter this partisanship and have libraries serve all people.   E.J. Josey from the New York State Library argued that the kind of intellectual freedom that Berninghausen was advocating was "a kind of Iaissez faire capitalism" within which "the voices of the rich, powerful, clever, and established being given ear, with the counter voices being left to the tender mercies of a marketplace dominated by the rich and powerful"(Wedgeworth et al 32).  Intellectual freedom in this context is not freedom at all. According to Josey "as a black man who was born and grew up in the South, I have experienced his kind of 'intellectual freedom' and I reject it as inimical to my freedom as a human being"(Wedgeworth et al 33).  Jane Robbins at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences agreed that if the library profession retreated from  "our increasingly interdependent and politicized world" an impoverished form of intellectual freedom would result. This kind of intellectual freedom would not be for all people, but for the rich and powerful (Wedgeworth et al  29).

Samek has pointed out that the Berninghausen debate exemplified that the Library Bill of Rights in its 1967 version was subject to different interpretations (1996 51).  For Berninghausen the Library Bill of Rights "served to both codify and standardize a purist moral stance on intellectual freedom by which impartiality and neutrality on nonlibrary issues served as the central principle of the profession"(Samek 1996 52).  Berninghausen's interpretation was unlike that espoused by the social responsibility activists.  They railed against his neutral reading of the Library Bill of Rights and read the Bill differently. They felt that the Library Bill of Rights was conducive to their idea of social responsibility because it supported  a "library's responsibility to inform on the issues of the day...[and] implied that imbalance in library collections should be redressed" (Samek 1996 55). In the Berninghausen debate these two different interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights clashed. Nonetheless, both were staunchly based on a strong commitment to intellectual freedom.

Indubitably Berninghausen's article  "ushered in a germinal debate concerning professional 'neutrality' that significantly affected librarianship for the rest of the century" (Samek 1998 209). It would be misleading to say that he 'defined' the debate. Instead, he is symptomatic of criticisms of social responsibility in librarianship. As Peattie would later note "the debate solved nothing  -- debates on principle never do -- but the exercise...was far from pointless.  It gave local habitation to the polarization of opinion that goes on today" (Peattie 51). It would not be the last time that social responsibility in librarianship would be seen as threat to intellectual freedom. Neutrality proved to be an extremely tenacious discourse in the profession.  Even with the SRRT established, it met with resistance within ALA when advocates "challenged ALA's vital interests"(Samek 1998 237).  After 1973 the social responsibility movement shifted out of the limelight and the "ALA continued to promote 'neutrality'"(Samek 1998 7).  Establishing the SRRT did not signal a new self-critical era for the profession.  This is not to say that significant gains weren't made, only that the ALA and the profession as a whole was slow to give way to criticism.

According to Eric Moon, during the most active period for the social responsibility movement  "there were a number of librarians who lost their jobs, who were given a very, very hard time" (Stielow 102).  Exasperated, many prominent social responsibility advocates left the profession altogether (Carmichael).  Nonetheless a glimmer of the movement remained, not so much within the professional instrument of the ALA but in small individual and group initiatives.  The activists of the Sixties had built a solid foundation for librarians with social concerns to effect change in their professional lives. The SRRT remained as part of the ALA but librarians interested in social justice increasingly did their work a step removed from what proved to be an organization incapable of addressing their concerns.  The movement shifted from trying to change ALA and the profession as a whole to smaller scale initiatives.  Throughout the late Seventies and Eighties most of the published literature was concerned with practical ways of meeting the needs of underserved populations.  The broader philosophical issues, previously debated in the pages of mainstream library journals, were given less attention. Self-scrutiny did not overtake the profession but it did become a more prevalent and accepted activity (MacCann 117).  It was becoming widely acknowledged that libraries indeed had some 'underserved' populations. There continued to be disagreement about what the librarian's role should be in redressing the problem.  Now, the goals of social responsibility were being met with greater acceptance but advocates themselves were often criticized for being partisan.

Through the Eighties some important publications emerged.  Alternative Library Literature (1984) edited by James Danky and Sanford Berman was a "deliberately unbalanced" biennial anthology that included material on library and information issues from a  "critical, nontraditional, socially responsible perspective" (Berman & Danky 1984 1). The anthology drew from both library and non-library sources. A variety of points of view besides those from librarians were included.  Poets, writers and activists were some of those included.  Articles were diverse and included subjects from serving the disabled borrower to alternative press publishing for children.  

Alternative Library Literature had a mixed reception.  In its first edition it was only sparsely reviewed and not indexed by at least one major source, Library Literature. Only two years later, in its second edition, did it provoke more interest. In The Journal of Academic Librarianship Gary D. Barber, Head of Reference and the State University College at Freedonia, had only a lukewarm reaction to the book.  Norman D. Stevens concurred,  writing of the 1984/1985 edition that "in all...this is not a terribly stimulating edition" and none of the essays "are likely to be of enduring value" (60).  On the other hand in Library Journal, Jim Dwyer of California State University felt that the same volume was "excellent" and "very highly recommended for all types of libraries and librarians"(56).  Dwyer explains that "you may not agree with every article or agree with every point but you will be anything but bored" (56). The book was not widely purchased.  After its first issue its publisher Ornyx dropped it, however it was soon picked up by McFarland and continued publication (Dwyer 56).

Another publication to come out of the Eighties was Social Responsibility in Librarianship: Essays on Equality edited by Donnarae MacCann, a children's librarian who has also taught at UCLA, the book focused on "problems that affect unempowered populations and, therefore, everyone in our society" (9).  All of the authors were associated with the ALA's Civil Rights Task Force. The focus of the book was on feminism, literacy, bilingualism, 'minorities', and children. Most, although not all, reviewers of the book found the subject matter interesting but were critical of its politics. Gary D. Barber considered it "a solid contribution to the field" (238).  Yet Lou Sanders, Acting Dean of libraries at Jackson State University, believed that  "this collection succeeds in giving readers a panoramic view of the inadequacies in access...yet the essays may not be convincing enough to alter significantly the philosophy of those who hold a different view" (153). This was perhaps because, as Neal J. Ney pointed out in RQ, "the case that MacCann argues has more to do with creating a librarianship in the service of equity than it does with the serious effort to provide an equity of library service"(380).  Ney's judgment of the book was damning. He wrote that "there is a compelling need for clear-thinking librarians and public officials to examine their social responsibilities and this is not the book to begin that examination' (381). While improving access was welcomed, taking an active stance on social problems remained an unpopular position.  By being politically up front, MacCann weakened the thesis of the book in the eyes of many of her peer reviewers.

One of the first in-depth treatments of the recent history of the social responsibility movement also came out in 1989.  Activism in American Librarianship, 1962-1773, edited by Mary Lee Bundy and Frederick J. Stielow, was a compilation of fifteen essays, nearly all by prominent activists during that period.  The diverse articles dealt with subjects from women's rights to the Vietnam War. Marva L DeLoach at Illinois State University called the book "a pivotal work" in RQ (127). She proclaimed that "it should be required reading for all students of library history and scholars interested in the interaction between professions and social change"(127). While DeLoach's review is positive it is interesting to note where the author thinks the book will find its relevance.  She identifies the book as interesting to students and scholars while omitting its relevance to practitioners. This is radically different from Berman's review of the book for Library Journal. For Berman "these essays...remind us that much was done and can yet be done".  He sees Activism in American Librarianship as both an overview of the past and "an agenda of what remains to be done.  Militarism, racism, homosexuality, and sexism continue to plague both the nation and the profession" (1988 88).  Tellingly the  'partisan' reception of the book exemplified by Berman was a feature of the book that was criticized.  Eldred R. Smith, a professor at the University of Minnesota, found the book a "valuable first hand accounting of an important period" but also found that the opinions of the "openly and consciously partisan" contributors resulted in a weaker text (240). He remarks that "fuller and more dispassionate accounts" should be planned for the future (240).

From the reception of these three texts certain themes emerge.  All were criticized for being too 'partisan'. Moreover,  historical portrayals of the social responsibility movement tended to be received more positively.  The texts that furthered the interests of the movement in its contemporary form were somewhat suspect.  It appeared that social responsibility as history was far more palatable than activism around contemporary issues.  This was a trend that would continue through the Nineties. Grappling with diversity had gained a degree of credibility but librarians were still expected to gain their strength from a neutral and non-partisan position.  

While many familar organizations like the SRRT persist new organizations and publications have also emerged.  The concerns of the Sixties activists are still at the heart of contemporary activism but advocates are driven by issues in the current context.  Electronic communication is also coming to have a positive and profound effect on the movement.

The Progressive Librarians Guild (PLG), affiliated with SRRT,  was formed in 1990 by librarians concerned with the profession's rapid movement into questionable alliances with business and the compliance with service to the political, economic and cultural status quo (PLG).   They believe that  "current trends in librarianship assert that the library is merely a neutral mediator in the information marketplace and a facilitator of a value-neutral information society" (PLG).  Members of the guild reject neutrality and the emerging trend that it fosters: the commodification of information.  They acknowledged the centrality of political and economic issues to all areas of library work and argue that cataloging, indexing, acquisitions policy and collection development, the character of reference services, library automation, and library management all "embody political value choices"(PLG).  Guild members "aim to make these choices explicit, and to draw political conclusions"(PLG). PLG alleges that new developments within the profession, whether they involve dealing with new technologies or responding to social issues, all challenge librarians "to live up to our sometimes all too complacently assumed and (despite our rhetoric) sometimes rather tenuous commitment to democratic values" (Rosenzwieg 1991).  The guild and its publication Progressive Librarian were created to consciously oppose the pervasive assumption of neutrality in librarianship and to serve as a mechanism for librarians to live up to these democratic values.

SRRT still remains an essential component of the movement.  According to their recent mission statement the group "has worked effectively to make ALA more democratic and to establish progressive priorities not only for the Association, but also for the entire profession. Concern for civil and economic rights was an important element in the founding of SRRT and remains an urgent concern today" (SRRT).  It remains a "dynamic voice for social change within the American Library Association" that stimulates ALA "to make libraries more responsive to social needs and more active in promoting social justice". The SRRT Alternatives In Print Task Force (AIP) now publishes Counterpoise.  The journal's mandate is to fully realize the Library Bill of Rights by "providing

access to a diversity of materials, including those that lie outside the interests of commercial information providers", the same mandate that lead to the creation of the AIP in the Sixties.

A new international effort to organize socially responsible librarians recently took place at a 1998 International Federation of Libraries Association (IFLA) meeting. Participants from the US, Austria, Sweden, Germany, South Africa and the UK participated in the  "Social Responsibilities around the world program". Al Kagan describes "the great positive energy generated that resulted in the beginnings of an international network of progressive library organizations"( Kagan 7). At the meeting the group sanctioned a statement against  IFLA's choice to hold this year's Visitors reception at the World Bank.  Members boycotted the event "in protests over the Bank's 'Structural Adjustment Programs" which decimate social programs so that countries can pay their debts as dictated by the international financial systems". On of the first planned campaigns for the group was to opposed the Multinational Agreement on Investments (MAI).

In the mid to late Nineties the Internet is also proving to be an excellent transnational conduit for revitalizing the social responsibility movement. These electronic endeavors draw together an often geographically dispersed group of individuals. Publications like Library Juice, MSRRT Newsletter, and to some extent the Progressive Librarian publish online and are more accessible for those with access to the Internet,  than their print counterparts.  A handful of electronic discussion groups now exist as forums for librarians to critically debate social issues and librarianship.   SRRT-L is the discussion list for the ALA's Social Responsibility Roundtable. PLGnet-L is the  Progressive Librarians Guild email discussion list.  The Anarchist List also provides a forum for "anarchist or anti-authoritarian librarians, activists, and library workers".  Other initiatives like Street Librarian bring together alternative information available on the web.

Demonstrating how librarians are not distanced and neutral professionals is still a popular and powerful activity in socially responsible librarianship.   Bias in collection development remains a vital current issue amongst activists.  According to Charles Willet, editor of Counterpoise,  "librarians know alternative literature exists, but they don't want it. Preoccupied with sophisticated, biased technology which bleeds their budgets, they hide behind the barrier of book selection which disguise self censorship"(Willet 1994 86). The Alternative Press is still roundly neglected, as are locally produced materials.  Collections across the board reflect the concerns of a middle class clientele.  The concerns of advocates in the Sixties echo throughout these contemporary issues. Just as West and Eubanks had criticized the conservative nature of the collection development process in the past, activists continue to make similar accusations today. Zines and other locally published material are neglected while bestsellers and business materials consume ever increasing amounts of library budgets.  Our professional 'choices' are heavily circumscribed by an information industry dominated by mass media conglomerates. These are concerns that arose in the Sixties that are just as relevant today.

One area where a great deal of writing is taking place is around zines.  Zines are independently published magazines that, for the most part, express a gamut of views that are nearly always on the margins. They are "self-edited, self-financed, and self published serials" that are created "from a passion and a need to write or communicate ideas" (Zobel 1).  Factsheet Five, a major reviewer of zines, defines a zine as "a small handmade amateur publication done purely out of passion, rarely make a profit or breaking even" (from Zobel). Few libraries collect zines. The failure to collect zines is a provoking example of the mainstream slant of most library collections that extends into a wide range of other publishing.   While librarians have become quite proficient at serving mainstream needs, they are found to be lacking elsewhere.  In 1997 James Danky, editor of Alternative Library Literature, described a trip to a branch of the Miami public library were he found none of the publications of the surrounding Haitian American community being collected (Danky 1997 5). This scenario is played out in public libraries across North America. As Willett pointed out, most librarians seem to "turn a 'tin ear and jaundiced eye' to ideas outside the commercial mainstream"(Dodge 64). Defending the freedom to read is perhaps the most visible role that librarians play in society. However the failure to collect alternative publications like zines or other locally published material still stands as evidence of the failure on the part of librarians to fully comply with the Library Bill of Rights and intellectual freedom in collection development.  

Librarians vociferously defend our 'right to read' yet still allow these kinds of omissions to pervade library practices. Perhaps the most visible role of librarians today is in the fight against censorship.  Many social responsibility advocates are critical of this and argue that mainstream discussions of censorship are naive and superficial.  Berman remarks that  "to be a little melodramatic, while we're agonizing over Of Mice and Men being dropped from a school reading list in Peru, Illinois, Ted Turner, Disney, Viacom, and Bertelsmann are walking away with the whole store"(Berman 1997 8). The overemphasis is on singular books, usually 'the classics'. This obscures that these emerging 'giants' "decide what's okay to, what's fit to be read, or seen, or heard.  And like well-bred sheep, we buy right into it" (Berman 1997 8). While we hotly debate the place of holocaust denial literature and revisionist histories librarians continue to overlook this disturbing trend in publishing.  As

Peter MacDonald describes,  "the greatest threat to our experiencing the fullness of our First Amendment rights comes not from noisy cabals of incensed zealots bent on banning books, but rather from corporate America "(MacDonald).  Free choice is an oxymoron when choices are being so severely limited by an information industry dominated by mass media conglomerates.

Many socially responsible librarians have found this ambivalence a disturbing part of a larger trend in librarianship to an overall entrepreneurial model.  According the Henry T. Blanke, librarians are unable to take a critical stance against the corporate domination of publishing because "prominent professional representatives are advocating an entrepreneurial model of librarianship" (Blanke 1996 13).   The model is pervasive and promotes affiliation with big business, the commodification of information, and outsourcing.  In Blanke's opinion the trend "contradicts traditional ideals of free and equal access to information...such a model threatens the future of the public library as a vital public sphere of democratic culture"(Blanke 1996 13).  Information as a commodity is overtaking information as a public good and many librarians, concerned with elevating their own status, are hitching their wagon to the star (Blanke 13).  In this shift librarians become information specialists and our users become our customers.  It is widely argued that this trend has a deleterious effect on the original purpose of the profession as stated in the Library Bill of Rights to provide equal access to all people.

The social responsibility movement has changed and reworked itself since its appearance in the Sixties, however the core interests remain constant.  The overarching concern is still with exposing the biases of librarians and making libraries socially relevant.  As with the activism in the Sixties the movement is still "a direct response to social needs, to social and economic inequities, and to other social injustices" (Bundy & Stielow 6).   The criticisms of the movement have also reworked themselves but retain a remarkable core consistency. The debates that thrived in the professional literature between 1967 and 1973 are resurfacing. The antithesis between social responsibility and intellectual freedom remains a flashpoint, albeit problematic, against which a variety of issues are still debated.  While incorporating the needs of groups traditionally neglected by libraries has become an acceptable discourse in mainstream librarianship, taking a professional stance on certain issues is still highly volatile.  While librarians can be socially conscious, the debate is now over where to set limits on that consciousness. I will now outline two recent instances where the contraversy has played out.

The reassertion of the movement in the Nineties has sparked a backlash similar to that seen in the early Seventies. The controversy surfaced once again in 1992 when the cover photo of American Libraries (AL) depicted a group from the Gay and Lesbian Task Force.  The photo sparked a heated debate in AL, reminiscent of the Berninghausen debate, and "it became a catalyst through which the still festering social responsibilities debate of the early 1970s was reopened and reexamined"(3).   It was again argued that librarians should concern themselves with 'library issues' in the interest of retaining a stance of professional neutrality. Librarians should strictly enforce intellectual freedom but remain absolutely neutral on 'non-library issues'. In the past Berninghausen found that many of the issues social responsibility advocates engaged with, for example homophobia and racism, are non-library topics and thus "such issues are outside their professional competence"(3679). The appearance of the Gay and Lesbian Task force on the cover of American Libraries provoked a remarkably similar argument.  There was a gamut of responses, many of which were concerned with the same issues that were seen three decades earlier.  The extreme positions rang through with homophobia and intolerance; the more liberal criticisms insinuated another form of intolerance (Joyce).  Instead of speaking directly against gays and lesbians on the cover of American Libraries they argued that the cover was inappropriate because it simply had nothing to do with libraries.

As a result of the social responsibility movement the discourses of the removed, objective professional librarian strictly adhering to an ethic of intellectual freedom have been put under scrutiny. but only in a limited sense.  Articles on addressing the needs of marginalized groups have become a familiar sight in library literature. Yet as the debate around the AL cover photo was to demonstrate, the ethic of neutrality was far from gone. It remained to serve a distinctly similar end that it had in the past: to silence librarians from speaking out on 'controversial issues'. In response to the controversy AL published two articles. The first by William J. Uriccho, head of the bibliographic control department at the Homer Bainbridge Library, University of Connecticut/Storrs, supported the criticism that librarians need to stick with 'library issues' in a professional context. The co-published perspective, written by members of the Progressive Librarians Guild, argued against this.

Uricchio takes a somewhat sympathetic stance towards the social responsibility movement in librarianship. "Legitimate social awareness" he believes, is a good thing for the profession,  while "telescopic philanthropy" is not.  Certain topics are legitimate, such as acknowledging the political and educational components of the  "the collections we build, the information we dispense, and the referrals we make"(574).  Taking a position against the destruction of libraries in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina or clearing the profession of gender bias he also considers 'legitimate' concerns.  Yet Uricchio also argues that along with these "worthy topics" social responsibility advocates also bring to the table "a host of debates concerning subjects that suggest to this writer that certain Council members would rather tackle the world' social ill than solve our professions own serious problems"(574). For Uriccho "our involvement with social responsibility should be limited to that which allows us to achieve our pressing service goals and objectives"(576). Taking action on wider social issues, such as opposing Operation Desert Storm, is inappropriate and leads to what he names "telescopic philanthropy". The author was careful not to oppose these actions on the basis of his personal opinions; instead he is arguing that consideration of social issues should only exist insofar as they directly relate to the profession. Discussions on wider social issues, he asserts, should be left to the 'experts'.

Members of the Progressive Librarians Guild who responded to Uricchio describe a 'backlash' occurring in the ALA against socially responsible librarianship. They feel that the profession is currently engaging unwarranted self-censorship when actions are taken to curtail social responsibility discussions justified by 'it is not a library issue'.  They find "calls for ALA to purge social issues from its substantial and varied agenda are unhealthy for the profession, destructive of internal democracy, fundamentally hypocritical, and intellectually unsound"(Buschman et al 575).  Members of their guild have "never aimed to divert ALA, but rather to center it around the professional values of librarianship: opposition to censorship, the creation of libraries that serve a diversity of needs" (Buschman et al 575).   As these are all firmly entrenched values seen in the Library Bill of Rights, the guild is interested in "putting these values into practice' (Buschman et al 575). The authors express concern over how what is and is not a library issue would be decided and who would make that decision.  Curtailing discussions by engaging in this kind of subtle self-censorship, they believe, threatens librarianship as an intellectually stimulating and engaged profession.  While it is being argued that the SRRT has 'hijacked' and diverted the ALA's attention from more 'pressing' issues, yet the authors worry that "if open debate of principled positions on controversial matters cannot be supported within our professional association, how can we expect it to be supported on the staffs and shelves of thousands of libraries" ? (Buschman et al 575).

This debate in AL was followed up between pages of Libri with Blaise Cronin's "Shibboleth and substance in North American library and Information Science Education".  Cronin argued that Library and Information Science is threatened by the intrusion of competing 'pseudo-theories', two of these are social responsibility and feminism, many others are named. He argues that "the politicization of librarianship is an unremittingly misguided step"(Cronin 50). Cronin reasons that the field "lacks the necessary intellectual apparatus to be a player....it does not have access to a meaningful power base...[and] it does not have any kind of public (or negotiated) mandate to undertake such a role" (Cronin 50).  While Cronin's position is far more extreme than Uricchio's it is based the similar premise that there is a line between what is and is not a library issue. In his view politics nothing to do with librarianship "as traditionally or reasonably conceived"(Cronin 50).  He finds it "perplexing that librarians should feel the need to politicize their principal professional association, in the process displacing precious time and effort from tasks which are presumably central to both the mission of the organization and the field"(Cronin 50). He asserts that the credibility of the discipline is in peril as a result of these intrusions. Cronin is calling for "demonstrable evidence of theoretical underpinnings, technical substance, analytical rigor, critical analysis, and informed, tolerant debate in the way we conduct our affairs and define our sphere(s) of intellectual activity"(52).  While the image of the activist librarian is 'seductive' he maintains "it does not give us the right to deviate from accepted standards"(Cronin 52). He is interested in an increasingly substantive, rigorous, and positivist approach if the discipline is to retain a respected place in academia.

Cronin's outright disparaging of the social responsibility movement did not go unnoticed. Later that year Progressive Librarian published an editorial response to Cronin's attack on social responsibility in librarianship.  In the tradition of the Berninghausen debate Buschman finds that Cronin has woefully misconstrued social responsibility in librarianship. For instance, no one has ever argued that all social issues are central to librarianship.  Moreover, Buschman insists that much of the 'rampant liberalism' that Cronin is attacking is based on policies currently held by ALA. "He is attacking those within the profession who are simply holding ALA to its own policy statements and acting on those policies. Apparently, he is quite comfortable for ALA to state such policies, but for librarians to actually do something about them is quite a different matter".   By attacking the people involved in this kind of action and overlooking these first principles Buschman believes that Cronin obscures that fact that he is really attacking ALA's commitments to oppose discrimination in all its forms. This is particularly interesting for Buschman who finds that actions within ALA based on these first principles often encounter barriers and backlash. Buschman argues that in Cronin's strong attack on anything 'liberal' in librarianship, while misguided, could have the unintended benefit of provoking discussion and reflection about ALA's 'first principles'.

The following year Libri  also published a response to Cronin's article by Atton.  Atton, like Buschman, finds Cronin's portrayal of social responsibility far off the mark.  He also takes issue with the neutral position Cronin promotes, explaining  that he ignores that "librarianship, like most of civil society, is already politicized. Decisions are being made every day by librarians, their administrators, their government, multinational corporations, that affect the nature or our work. Decisions that restrict access to information in all its forms; intellectual, physical, social, economic, spatio-temporal"(102). Atton argues that an access based perspective can best be achieved through acknowledging the disparate power relations that exist in society.   Yet a "recognition of the place (and power) of the professional librarian...has still to be instituted in our practice in a thoroughgoing way (something that cannot be said, to our shame, for many other professions)"(103).

The appearance of the Urricho and Cronin articles indicate that the debate over neutrality had returned. Neutrality as a stance expressed in the Sixties was still prevalent in the profession, although it was far less explicit.  Mark Rosenzweig believes that those who believe neutrality is possible  "are presently railing against the intrusion of  'politics'... in the ALA" (Rosenzweig 1991).  While many again argue that social issues do not belong in the profession, social responsibility advocates scathingly criticize what they see as a passive stance that bolsters the status quo.  Controversial ideas are labeled 'political' and thus, 'political' acts as a damning statement against unpopular ideas. Many social responsibility advocates within the profession see a 'backlash' occurring.  Much like in the Sixties and Seventies it seems that the more active and persistent the movement is, the more it is treated as disruptive and even vexatious to the standard workings of ALA.  

Many social responsibility advocates have also found that the movement is consistently misrepresented in mainstream library literature. This can be found most in the August 1999 edition of American Libraries.  The theme of the issue was Against All Odds: The special needs of diverse populations. Articles included address helping refugees cope and documenting homelessness. The AL issue stands as evidence of the successes of the SRRT.  While the profession has been slow to move, 'the special needs of diverse populations' is a topic that has finally arrived in librarianship.   Yet the approval of the idea and its practice remain at variance with one another.  Michael Winter aptly points out that  "librarians are mainly liberal...and generally support open access and services to disadvantaged populations" (101).  However when we look closely at this benevolence there is some question about if " this is really an attempt to empower the excluded, or is it simply a desire to allow them equal access to the mainstream canon? Are the classification systems we favor politically neutral, or do they actually reinforce a certain power world view that we simply do not care to challenge?" (Winter 101).  Furthermore, while the 'needs of diverse populations' are widely discussed, many important other issues brought to the floor by the SRRT are still being deemed unimportant, unnecessary and irrelevant.  

Librarians' own right to free speech is of continuing concern. Two particularly unpopular activities at the 1999 ALA conference perpetrated by the SRRT were actively disapproving of the keynote speaker General Colin Powell and the issue of library workers rights to intellectual freedom. I will now give some background to both of these SRRT initiative and go on do discuss their reception both by the ALA Council and their subsequent portrayal in AL.

On June 6, 1999 the SRRT passed a Resolution on the Militarization of ALA and General Powell's Keynote Speech (see Appendix 2).  In it, the SRRT outlines Powell's questionable involvement in the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, his support for the Contra War against Nicaragua, and his key involvement in the destruction of civilian life and infrastructure in both Iraq and Yugoslavia. These are just a sampling of the reasons they give for affirming that General Colin Powell is an unacceptable choice for the 1999 ALA Keynote Speaker. Based on the concerns outlined in the resolution, SRRT members protested the event at the New Orleans conference.  

Members also pressed the issue of librarians right to free speech at work. This was prompted by the recent forced resignation of Sanford Berman from his position as head cataloguer at Hennepin County Library on April 23,1999. The resignation was prompted by a reprimand he received for the "counter productive behavior" of consulting with Bill DeJohn at Mintex on the Library's choice to use OCLC and AACR2 as primary tools for cataloging materials. In the reprimand, Charles Brown and Elizabeth Feinberg,  have the view that "you have the right as a citizen to express your opinion. You may not initiate discussion of that opinion on work time not route that opinion to staff at work" (1999).  Brown both refused to rescind the reprimand and 'reassigned' Berman to write a cataloguing practice manual. This reassignment led to Berman's resignation. He called the reassignment a familiar tactic for dealing with 'troublemakers' and urged ALA colleagues to "view it as another instance of squelching workplace speech and imposing a ruthless 'business model' on a public institution ostensibly dedicated to openness, service, and equity" (Berman 1999).  The SRRT saw the dismissal of Berman as in opportunity to address the long-standing ambivalence in ALA over the rights of library workers.  At one of the ALA Council meetings Berman called for amendments to the Library Bill of Rights to make its applicability to library workers clearer (see Appendix 3).

AL portrayed those interested in both the protest of Colin Powell and rights for library workers as "a handful of attendees" (74) who devolved important meetings into "gripe sessions" replete with  "prolonged grumbling" (73).   The Council sessions where the free speech of library workers was called to the table by SRRT member were, according to AL, marked by the "bringing forth of a series of resolutions that the majority saw as 'inappropriate' attempts at 'micromanagement'"(92). Those interested in bring library worker's rights to Council's attention were simply 'angry Berman supporters'. One apparently "exasperated" councilor pleaded that  "we should not be micromanaging minor things...like personnel decisions" (Karen Schneider AL 94). She then urged the Council "to defeat this and get on with the real work of the Council of the American Library Association" (Schneider AL 94).

The activities at the 1999 conference and its subsequent portrayal in AL provoked an engaging discussion on the SRRTAC-L.  Mark Rosenzweig, one of the Councilors who brought workers rights to the table, described what he saw as an "overriding attitude of contempt for dissent" both at the conference and in AL's coverage of the event. He points out that "they chalk this up to the work of a 'small group of councilors' who proposed 'micromanaging' librarians, not as affirming librarians' need to have on the job rights necessary for them to defend rights for our patrons"(Rosenzweig Aug 99, SRRT-L).  The inability of the ALA council or AL to address the free speech rights of its members is, he argues, unbefitting for an organization of "free speech advocates" (Rosenzweig Aug 7 99, SRRTAC-L). For example he describes his involvement in the protest at the Colin Powell speech in a letter to the editor of AL, where "with no regard for our First Amendment rights to protest militarism"  conference leadership  endeavored to block protesters from demonstrating.  The police were called in to move the protesters, also conference attendees, off the premises. According to Rosenzweig "I was personally threatened by police with arrest and told that if I didn't get my colleagues to leave the hall we would all be arrested. The police vans were called and were on their way. Nice, at a librarians convention to have such a display of the limits of free speech in 1999" (Rosenzweig Aug 4, 1999). Clearly while intellectual freedom for our diverse users has become part of the mainstream rhetoric of the profession, the same privileged is not extended to librarians themselves. Dissenting voices continue to be suppressed.

I will now shift from outlining the chronological development of social responsibility to reflecting on the character of its reception in librarianship.  The social responsibility movement has been a persistent, although marginalized, voice in professional librarianship for nearly forty years. The social responsibility debate in the Sixties began with the argument there was an antithesis between social responsibility and intellectual freedom. Now the debate against social responsibility is less explicit. The arguments contra revolve around what is and is not a library issue.  This way of speaking against social responsibility is a more discrete form of the overt antithesis Berninghausen outlined in 1972. In its new forms the polemical structure is harder to trace. 'Micromanagement' is now being used to euphemistically encompass the concerns of social responsibility advocates. It is clearly derogative, demonstrating that "the intellectual freedom versus social responsibility debate raised by David Berninghausen...is still alive and polarized -- just waiting for deconstruction"(Olson 195).

Reviewing the history of social responsibility in librarianship reveals a persistent set of binary oppositions. The initial antithesis between intellectual freedom and social responsibility forms part, but not all, of the oppositions at work.   The following outlines the layers of duality that have structured criticisms of social responsibility in librarianship:

From Berninghausen through to the AL coverage of the 1999 ALA conference in New Orleans, this system of binary oppositions has structured disapproval of the social responsibility movement. It has relegated the movement to the margins of the profession and hindered "both formal investigation and professional practice through their tacit acceptance and application" (Olson 181).  

The dichotomy leads to a kind of self fulfilling prophecy.  It is not meant to establish dialogue and debate but to silence it. Social responsibility advocates are treated as troublemakers indulging in 'emotional' pleas.  Critics accuse that their 'political' interests as 'citizens' overtake their 'professional duties'. Their activism is seen as a threat to librarianship's professional integrity. This 'minority' is disruptive and detracts from 'library issues'.  While the profession is interested in 'reasonable' problems, social responsibility advocates loudly 'micromanage', detracting from 'legitimate social awareness'.   This polemical discourse masks the political differences at work. Instead of engaging the political interests of social responsibility advocates discussion is simply silenced.  As a result the dominant political values in the profession retain supremacy.

Social responsibly advocates have argued, since the Berninghausen debate, that social responsibility and intellectual freedom are not at odds. Social responsibility in fact is aimed at moving toward intellectual freedom for all people.  Some of what social responsibility supporters in the Sixties and Seventies were arguing for is now filtering into accepted library practice. Despite this critics of the movement continue to argue that activists are overly interested in personal or political issues that are not relevant to library practice.  

This is not to say that social responsibility is a priori access enhancing and liberatory.  In Atton's view, while improving access to library collections is generally the goal of socially responsible approaches,  "philosophical differences in librarianship can give rise to divergent practices, which will have very different results"(Atton 1997 103).  For instance, it could also hinder access "by limiting the availability of materials that are deemed deceitful or harmful" (Atton 1997 104)

Social responsibility does indeed contain the possibility to censor and  "it is here that we might valuably find objections to certain aspects of social responsibility librarianship" (Atton 103).  This 'paradox of access' remains a complex issue in social responsibility librarianship that may not be resolvable.  But to portray this as social responsibility's 'fatal flaw' as both Berninghausen and Cronin did would be misguided. Practices and interpretations are necessarily diverse, in both intellectual freedom and social responsibility librarianship.   Indeed, as social responsibility advocates have been insisting, intellectual freedom has its own 'paradox of access'.  When based on a 'neutral' position it has more often than not served the dual purpose of maintaining the status quo and convincing librarians that they were taking a superior professional position.  Neither one of these aspects of intellectual freedom increases access for users. Nonetheless these subtle censorious possibilities of intellectual freedom are woefully underrepresented and treated with animosity.

Delving into the censorious possibilities of both intellectual freedom and social resposibility is instructive because it is a reminder that pure ethical stances are simply difficult, if not impossible, to put into practice.  The social responsibility movement has, since the Sixties, made its greatest profession-wide gains in providing practical ways librarians can live up to the Library Bill of Rights. As Berman notes, "the challenge remains to get our actual practice in better sync with our professed principles"(Berman 1997 9).  Both intellectual freedom and social responsibility are based on a shared focus: the Library Bill of Rights. This results in a peculiar situation.  It is a favored interpretation of the Bill of Rights that is persistently at the base of criticisms of social responsibility.  Yet the fact persists that social responsibility advocates also take the Bill very seriously, closely basing actions on their own interpretation. In that sense, they are not acting out of step with the profession, instead they are pushing the profession to meet the demands of its own ideals.

Yet, as library historian Wayne A. Wiegand remarks,  "nowhere are the unquestioned absolutes more evident than in the discourse surrounding the Library Bill of Rights" (Wiegand 2). The quest to challenge and push the limits of the Bill is often met with hostility. Social responsibility therefore, is often shunted to the margins and portrayed as the opposite of intellectual freedom and thus, working against the Library Bill of Rights.  The result of is that, in the Nineties, the discourse surrounding the Bill has "evolved a reality of its own that declines to engage the powerful ideas being debated in a broader intellectual world" (Wiegand 2).  Challenges are treated like a crack in the foundation and dealt with accordingly.  Rarely do we see dialogue emerging from the confrontations between social responsibility and intellectual freedom. The institutional response has persistently been to stop up the cracks and reinforce the walls. And it is behind these wall that librarians can hide from their own value systems and how these systems frame all aspects of their professional practice (Wiegand 2).

The SRRT's reception at the 1999 ALA conference in New Orleans is discouraging.  Instead of understanding the benefits wrought by this relatively small group of librarians throughout the last forty years, the SRRT was treated with suspicion and contempt.  This is disappointing for a movement that has brought so much positive change to the profession.  Instead of allowing for dissent, discussion are still shut down with arguments strikingly similar to those seen in the Sixties.  By outlining the layers of binary oppositions that have persistently underscored the resistance met by social responsibility advocates in the profession I hope to make them more explicit and hence, less innate. By making the structure of the debate explicit we might move beyond the polemical equation of social responsibility 'versus' intellectual freedom. Intellectual freedom advocates could then begin to reconcile the concerns of the social responsibility movement.

I would argue that the social responsibility versus intellectual freedom debate may never be 'solved'. A profession centered on the ideal of free speech will continue to have these problems. Moreover, there is a great deal of danger in resolving what the limits will be on our involvement in social responsibility.  I would agree with Rosenzweig in that "any stifling of political debate in the name of an ahistorical notion of professionalism would mean not the suppression of divisive politics, but only the unthinking acceptance of a particular politics"(Rosenzwieg 1991). Many, like Uricchio, when arguing for limitations have only ambiguous ways to set the terms.  Offering only that it is outside of 'our area of expertise', or 'detracts' from more serious problems.  As social responsibility advocates point out, who will decide what are our 'serious' issues and what will be deemed superfluous?  

Living up to our univocal support of free speech is more difficult than a 'freedom to read' poster might have us believe.  The developments around librarians rights to free speech at the ALA New Orleans conference demonstrates the persistence of this quandary. The achievements of social reposnsibility activists from the Sixties stands as a testament to the importance of having the limits and boundaries implicitly set around freedom of speech tested and pushed.  Social responsiblity is a pocket of 'makeshift creativity' in librarianship (Pawley 139).  It is emminently valuable because activists refuse to accept librarianship's taken for granted assumptions at face value. They challenge our closely held ideals and insist that we must live up to them.  This vanguard work is imperative in a profession committed to intellectual freedom.

American Library Association's  Library Bill of Rights

1.Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest,  information and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

2.Libraries should provide materials and information representing all current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

3.Libraries should challenge censorship in fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

4.Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

5.A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background or views.

6.Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

and General Powell's Keynote Speech

Whereas, General Colin Powell has been selected as the 1999 ALA Keynote

Speaker; and

Whereas, Powell, as Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations at a

base in Vietnam, had a key role in trying to cover up the My Lai Massacre;

and

Whereas, Powell, as President Reagan's National Security Advisor, was of

key importance in supporting the Contra War against the people of

Nicaragua; and

Whereas, Powell, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, illegally

invaded Panama and bombed thousands of civilians; and

Whereas, Powell presided over the Persian Gulf War killing thousands of

civilians as well as thousands of retreating soldiers on what was called

"The Highway of Death"; and

Whereas, the continuing bombing of the civilian infrastructure of Iraq and

continuing sanctions have reduced a moderately affluent quality of like to

poverty for most people in that country; and

Whereas, the recent bombing of the civilian infrastructure of Yugoslavia

parallels the Iraq experience; and

Whereas, the United States has bombed four countries within the last year,

including a crucial pharmaceutical factory in Sudan;

Therefore be it resolved, that the Social Responsibilities Round Table of

the American Library Association deplores the decision to hire General

Powell to give the 1999 Keynote Speech; and be it further

Resolved, that the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American

Library Association demands that future Keynote Speakers be associated with

life-enhancing work; and be it further

Resolved, that this resolution be distributed to the ALA President, ALA

Executive Board, and the library press.

Passed by SRRT Action Council, 6/28/99

Sanford Berman's proposed amendment to the Library Bill of Rights

    WHEREAS the American Library Association is firmly committed to human

    rights and freedom of expression (Policies 53 and 58.4.1); and

    WHEREAS candid, robust debate is essential to the making of sound policy;

    and

    WHEREAS library staff do not universally enjoy the right to openly

    discuss library professional issues without fear of reprisal;

    THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that ALA Council amends the Library Bill of

    Rights (53.1) by adding:  7) Libraries should permit and encourage a full

    and free expression of views by staff on professional and policy matters.

Moved by Sanford Berman,  At-Large

June 29, 1999, at the ALA Council meeting E.J. Josey, Maurice J. Freedman, Tamara Miller and Gretchen Wronka seconded the resolution.

The Council then voted to refer the amendment to its Committee on Professional Ethics.

American Library Association, Office for Intellectual Freedom.  Intellectual Freedom Manual, Fifth edition. Chicago: ALA, 1996.

Atton, Chris. Against Blaise Cronin's 'strategic pragmatism' and in defense of social responsibility in librarianship. Libri 47 June 1997: 101-106.

Barber, Gary D. Book Review: Alternative Library Literature, 1984/1985.  The Journal of Academic Librarianship 13 July 1987: 13.

Berman, Sanford. Book Review: Activism in American Librarianship. Library Journal 113 June 1 1988: 88.

Berman, Sanford. Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk: What Libraries Say the   do but Frequently Don't. Alternative Library Literature 1996/1997.  London: McFarland & Company, 1997: 7-9.

Berman, Sanford. A message to ALA colleagues. Librarians at Liberty 7(1&2) June 1999: 8.

Berninghausen, David. Social responsibility vs. the Library Bill of Rights. Library Journal November 15, 1972: 365-81.

Berry, John III . Culturally Competent Service:  A new mandate to serve a new majority.  Library Journal Sep 1, 1999.

Blanke, Henry T. Librarianship and Public Culture in the Age of Information Capitalism.  Alternative Library Literature 1996/1997.  London: McFarland & Company, 1997: 13-20.

Brown, Charles & Elizabeth Feinberg . Memo: Written Reprimand. February 8, 1999. Librarians at Liberty, June 1999.

Bundy, Mary L. & Stielow, Frederick J. (Eds.).  Activism in American Librarianship, 1962-1973.  New York, NY: Greenwood Press, 1987.

Buschman, John. Editorial: A Blaise with Indignation. Progressive Librarian 1995/6.

Buschman, John, Mark Rosenzweig and Elaine Harger. The clear imperative for involvement: Librarians must address social issues. American Libraries 25 June 1993: 575.

Buschman, John. "Information Technology, Power Structures, and the Fate of Librarianship" Progressive Librarian 6/7 Winter/Spring 1993: 15 29.

Cronin, B. Shibboleth and substance in North American library and Information Science Education. Libri 45 (1995) 1: 45-63.

Charmichael, James V ed. Daring to find our names : the search for lesbigay library history. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1998.

Danky, James P. Change is Necessary for America's Libraries.  Alternative Library Literature 1992/93.  London: McFarland & Company, 1994 : 3-4.

Danky, James P. Libraries: They Would Have Been a Good Idea. Alternative Library Literature 1996/1997.  London: McFarland & Company, 1997: 3-6.

DeJohn, Bill. Social Responsibility: What it's all about. Library Journal March 1971: 300-302.

DeLoach, Marva L. Book Review: Activism in American Librarianship. RQ 28 Fall 1988: 127.

Dodge, Chris. (1998) Taking libraries to the street: Infoshops and alternative reading rooms. American Libraries May 1998.

Dwyer, James R. Book Review: Alternative Library Literature, 1984/1985. Library Journal 112 May 15 1987: 56.

Joyce, Stephen. (1998) A Few Gates: An examination of the social responsibilities debate in the early 1970s and 90s. Progressive Librarian 15 (Winter 98/99).

Kagan, Al. Social Responsiblity Around the World. IFLA Newsletter.  September 1998: 7.

MacCann, Donnarae ed. Social Reponsibility in Librarianship: Essays in Equality. London: McFarland & Company, 1989.

MacDonald, Peter. Corporate Inroads and Librarianship: The fight for the soul of the profession in the new millennium. Progressive Librarian 1997.

Ney, Neal J. Book Review: Social Responsibility and Librarianship. The Library Quarterly 60 October 1990: 380-1.

Olson, Hope A.  The Feminist and the Empoere's New Clothes: Feminist Deconstruction as a Critical Methodology for Library and Information Studies. Library and Information Science Research 19 1997: 181-189.

Pawley, Christine. Hegemony's Handmaiden?: The library and information studies curriculum from a class perspective. Library Quarterly 68(2) 1998: 123-144.

Peattie, Noel & John Swan.  The Freedom to Lie: A Debate about Democracy. London: McFarland & Company, 1989.

Peterson, Lorna.(1996) Alternative perspectives in library and information science: Issues of race. Journal of Education for Library and Information science 37 Spring: 163-74.

Progressive Librarians Guild Homepage, http://www.libr.org/PLG/.

Rosenzweig, Mark. Editorial: Politics And Anti-Politics In Librarianship, Progressive Librarian 1991.

Rosenzweig, Mark. Letter sent to the editor of American Libraries, August 4, 1999.

Rosenzweig, Mark. Letter to the SRRT Action Council, August 7, 1999.

Samek, Toni. The Library Bill of Rights in the 1960s: On profession, One Ethic. Library Trends 45(1) Summer 1996: 50-60.

Samek, Toni. (1998) Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility: An Ethos of American Librarianship,1967-1973. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998. [Dissertation]

Sanders, Lou. Book Review: Social Responsibility and Librarianship. RQ 30 Fall 1990: 152.

Stevens, Norman J. Book Review: Alternative Library Literature, 1984/1985. Wilson Library Bulletin 61 May 1987: 59-60.

Social Responsibility Round Table Homepage,  http://www.jessamyn.com/srrt/.

Smith Eldred R. Book Review: Activism in American Librarianship. The Journal of Academic Librarianship 14 September 1988: 240.

Stielow, Frederick J. The Library Press and Eric Moon: An Interview. Activism in American Librarianship, 1962-1973. .  Bundy, Mary L. & Stielow, Frederick J. (Eds.).   New York, NY: Greenwood Press, 1987: 99-111.

Uricchio, William J. (1994) Telescopic Philanthropy: How much social responsibility is too much? American Libraries 25 June: 574.

Wedgeworth et al. Social Responsibility and the Library Bill of Rights: The Berninghausen Debate. Library Journal 98(1) Jan 1 1973: 25-41.

Wiegand, Wayne. Introduction: the Library Bill of Rights. Library Trends 45(1) Summer 1996: 1-6.

Winter, Michael. Book Review: Postmodern Education: Politics, Culture and Social Criticism, Stanely Aronowitx and Henry A. Giroux. Library Quarterly 62 January 1992: 100-101.

Zobel, Cheryl. (1998) Zines in Public libraries: Considerations and suggestions,

http://slisweb.lis.wisc.edu/czobel/Zine4Web.html.