I’ve just seen a number of news stories come across my professional blog RSS feed about the case of a resident of Salem, Missouri (Anaka Hunter) who (supported . . . → Read More: Wicca, censorship, and the library]]> [So, one of my goals this year is to update this blog weekly on average. I did not quite expect to start with this topic, though.]

I’ve just seen a number of news stories come across my professional blog RSS feed about the case of a resident of Salem, Missouri (Anaka Hunter) who (supported by the ACLU) has sued both the library and various other named parties (including the library director) for blocking reasonable access to material – namely information about Wicca and Native American religious practices, among other topics.

 Ars Technica has an excellent overview, and links to the PDF of the complaint.

Reading the stories I’ve seen so far, I have both a few questions – and the thought that a lot of people don’t know how libraries are supposed to handle this sort of thing, or what the common considerations around filtering/etc. are in public libraries and schools.

 Some context for the Salem, Missouri library:

(Given what I can tell via the web… If you, dear reader, happen to have more specific data, I’d love to include it.)

It’s a small-town library: about 5,000 people live in Salem, though it is the county seat. Only one person is listed as a contact person for the library (and the ‘email the library’ address is clearly a personal one, not an institutional one.) The library is only open 40 hours a week.

Here’s where I pause for something complicated in the profession: the idea of ‘professional’ librarians, which is the most commonly used term for people who hold a Master’s in Library Science or Library and Information Science degree. (I hold a MLIS, for the curious.)

The degree is designed to focus not on the day to day running of a library as much as the larger issues and considerations of providing appropriate service to all users of a library (not just ones whose tastes/interests/politics/religion/etc. you share) and there is a shared general agreement about the Library Code of Ethics and the Library Bill of Rights. (Now, librarians reasonably disagree with specific parts of this, but the emphasis on intellectual freedom and access to information is not there by accident.)

And just to be really clear, this library’s actions are not seen positively by other librarians. (The LSW or Library Society of the World is an ad hoc group of librarians who hang out, support one another, and make commentary. It’s awesome. I hang out there under my professional username.)

Back to Salem.

According to survey data from the State Library of Missouri, there were 2.86 staff in 2010 (but it’s not clear whether that’s people with the MLIS/etc. degree, pages, or what.) Since no other staff are listed on the website, I am guessing this might be the director, a children’s librarian or library assistant, plus some part time help (pages, programming/outreach assistance, etc.)

It’s quite common for libraries in a small town to have no one on the library staff who holds an MLIS. At my current job, one of the other library staff was director of a small town library in a town of about the same size, without the Master’s degree, and that’s quite common in other parts of rural and small-town America.

Even if the director has the degree, generally no one else in the library will. This is realistic, given the size, but it means that there’s no one else to discuss policy with (besides the library board, who may or may not be well versed in all areas of library concern.) and it means that whatever the librarian’s biases are (and we all have them; librarians are still human) can be magnified substantially if the director and board are not careful.

Ok. So what actually happened here? Below, I talk about filtering, filtering software, library policies, and the question of freedom of access.

More about filtering and filtering software:

Why do libraries filter? Some of it is financial: there are laws tying funding for internet connections for public libraries and schools to filtering (e-rate). But also, there are some legitimate things you probably don’t want showing up on public computers, like porn in your children’s section computers.

What’s required? Generally, when filtering is required, it is to prevent minors from accessing obscene or pornographic material (either deliberately or accidentally). However, the laws in question do not require filtering of religious content, and generally people can both choose their filtering software and make specific choices about what is filtered beyond the legal mandate.

That said, many – most, I hope – librarians and libraries recognise that the filtering tools are deeply flawed (the classic example is sites about breast cancer or cooking chicken being blocked) and that there are times when even those limits might reasonably be removed. I’ve been aware of this issue since, oh, about 1996 and the foundation of Peacefire, one of the first orgs to seriously take on the issue of filtering on the ‘Net and free speech. (Filters have gotten better since then, but many of them are still as imperfect as they were.)

So how does this work elsewhere? Since the issue is access by minors, many libraries thus have a fairly simple policy: if an adult requests the filtering be turned off, they have a method of turning off the filtering for that session. (Sometimes this ability is limited to adult-area computers, rather than, say, computers that face the children’s section of the library, though.)

Many libraries also have a better way of dealing with concerns about it – but I’ll get to that in a minute. (The Saint Paul Public library has a particularly nice clear policy, with methods for requesting filtering be removed that do not require the library user to justify their request or for asking larger questions about categories of content.)

This software: The software chosen in this case (Netsweeper) is not one I’m familiar with but it explicitly says that you can have granular control over what’s blocked, which categories are filtered, etc. This information is restated (and expanded) in the legal filing. It also states that removing filtering for a single computer session is possible and reasonably efficient.

In other words, if the librarian doesn’t think it’s customisable (as stated in the legal brief), that’s wrong. (Missouri has been using this software since 2009, per a press release from Netsweeper. And MORENet, the relevant Missouri group handling the software on a state level says clearly that it’s the member library’s responsibility to define what’s filtered.)

One final note about filtering here: while the NetSweeper software filters a wide range of esoteric-related sites (including Witchvox, Wikipedia’s entry on Wicca, and a variety of others – there’s a list in the filing), it does not filter Christian-related sites that can provide misleading or heavily biased views of the topic.

(One of the permitted sites, for example, is the Catholic Encyclopedia, which comes from a 1911 edition, and thus ignores pretty much all of modern Pagan thought and practice, even before you get to any question of viewpoint or potential bias.)

Finally, a word from the Salem, Missouri Public Library’s mission statement:

“The Salem Public Library will be a reliable resource center and an advocate of intellectual freedom for the community by providing free and equal access to information, materials, services, and programs. It will acquire, organize, and circulate books, non-print materials and services that help educate, enrich, entertain, and inform individuals of all ages. It will promote and encourage the maximum use of its services and materials by the greatest number of people in its service area.” (as found at the library website.)

Which, yeah. They failed.

How are they doing on other issues? Or with print? Writing all of this got me wondering about what their print collection looked like, and how they did with other titles that are commonly challenged (sexuality, GLBTQ issues, etc.) I have not had time for an exhaustive search, but titles do appear light for a collection that size (the high school library I used to work in, approximately half that size, had 5 to 10 times more titles on all three subjects than I’m seeing there.)

However, the print collection does include  Starhawk’s Spiral Dance and Grimassi’s Wiccan Mysteries. Along with various fiction titles – mostly Cate Tiernan.

Larger freedom of access issues:

All right. Having covered the problems of filtering, I want to turn to some larger issues of access, freedom of access, and so on.

The question of what you filter: First, the obvious problem of filter categories and limitations not required by law, which I’ve already largely covered (though in what universe are sites about religion, astrology, or related topics “criminal skills”. Though, technically, divination is illegal in more places than you’d think.)

There’s also the problem of allowing someone else to decide your filtering for you. There is a history of filtering companies being far more on the socially-conservative side than not, and that having implications for what content they decide is appropriate or not appropriate – even for communities where meeting the demonstrated or likely needs of the community would suggest other solutions.

But there’s some more chilling stuff out there:

“I would have to notify authorities of attempts to avoid the filters”

This is an absolutely chilling statement from anyone in a position to control access to information. There are certainly times when librarians need to make use of or cooperate with law enforcement. But at the same time, this is both a “Huh, who would you tell?” (Trying to evade a filter – if you’re an adult – is not generally a crime, though it might be a violation of library behaviour policies)

But it’s also a “I’m going to say stuff to make you go away”. Which is not how one should handle these kinds of issues at all.

(Compare, on the other hand, the signs common in many library offices – including at my current place of work – since the passing of the Patriot Act, which say in large print “The FBI has not requested any records from this library” (and in smaller print “Watch for removal of this sign”) as quiet note about that law’s gag order on libraries commenting on request of information.)

Demands for detailed information to remove a restriction:

One of the first things I learned about libraries – long, long before I ever really thought about working in one myself – was that people come to them for information they’re not sure they can ask about. That has only become more and more obvious as I’ve gotten older.

(I used to smile whenever I found Our Bodies, Ourselves taken from the shelf in the previous job, and tucked in some back corner of the library – it meant people were finding information they didn’t want to ask about and maybe really needed, from a widely recommended and reliable source.)

Anyway: any requirement that makes people talk to a figure in authority (which includes librarians) and explain why they want certain information will tend to discourage them from seeking that information. Which is not what most people in the library profession are there for. One of the real dangers of librarianship, in terms of mental approach, is thinking that you know better than the people you’re serving about what they want. The best librarians are those who can set aside their own biases, at least for the space of a reference conversation, and look at what really serves the person they’re helping.

Yes, it’s hard – just like it’s hard for doctors and nurses, and therapists, and clergy, and lawyers and all sorts of other professions. But that’s why we study how to do it better, and have professional guidelines to remind us what’s most important, and – when we’ve got the time and space to think through it carefully – create policies and practices that support what we should do, not what we might find easiest.

Response to reasonable questions about policy, access, and changes to same.

The final issue I want to talk about here is the comments about the response to Ms. Hunter’s concerns about the filtering policy and decisions – which, if you haven’t read the brief, are basically that she was brushed off, and told that her concerns were not important or serious. Apparently, at no time was she offered a standard formal method of having the category reconsidered, and the library board also gave very short attention to her concerns.

When I was talking about this elsewhere online, someone asked about how library boards work. This is definitely one of those “it varies from library to library” things, but in general, in small town libraries, the library board is a collection of people who do care about the library – but who often don’t have a terribly strong background in all of the many and varied areas any public library (even very small ones) necessarily touches on.

Commonly, library boards are encouraged to focus on things they do know (helping with fundraising, capitol expense planning, marketing and publicity, supporting a diverse range of programs, making sure the library has resources to meet the needs of the community) rather than being involved in either day to day decisions, or with policies relating to freedom of access, etc.

That said, this is not the world everyone lives in. Some library boards do a great job – others can be prone to micromanagement, or to overruling the library director in cases where the director is, in fact, doing their best to make professionally appropriate and consistent decisions.

I can’t tell which it is in this case, mind you – there’s no minutes readily posted that would make that a bit easier to spot. But it’s worth keeping in mind.

What can you do?

1) Support the many librarians out there who are fiercely committed to freedom of access.

If you know one (or more) tell them you appreciate that. Be a listening ear when they have one of those days where that passion comes into conflict with someone who wants to limit access. Often, simply knowing that these things matter to other people makes it much easier to go on doing the necessary right thing.

Do what you can to support the awesome libraries you know about – support funding requests, consider running for the library board, volunteer, whatever else makes sense for you and that library. Funding can be particularly powerful: it’s much easier to have time and energy to reach out to underserved parts of the community, or deal with requests that may upset your library board when the library is not struggling with a painfully dismal budget.

2) Know your local library.

If necessary, ask questions.

• Are policies about appropriate computer behavior, filtering, or other related topics posted somewhere anyone can access? Or do you have to ask them?
• If they filter, are policies about how to request a change in filtering, or temporary removal of the filters readily available? If not, why not?
• Is there a way to suggest purchase of an item? How often does that result in the item being purchased? (There’s no one ‘right’ answer here – it depends a lot on the library’s budget and number of actual requests they get. But good libraries will have some kind of idea how often they turn down requests, and why.)
• How about donations? (How libraries handle donations can be complicated – lots of people like to donate stuff the library truly can’t use. But ask about donating titles or funds specifically to support a particular area or interest. It might cost less than you’d think, or could be a great project for a specific religious or interest group.)

3) Be aware of the issues.

Access to information is complicated – it’s not just about the obvious stuff, like filtering. It’s about larger questions of what titles a library buys, how welcoming they are to people who walk in, what the posters and signs and information implies about the people who use the library.

And it’s also about any number of things online: we live in a world where our search engines try to predict what we’re looking for for us (the ‘search bubble’), where people may make assumptions about what we want from not-so-relevant information, and where there’s a lot of information out there, much of it lacking or piecemeal.

Consider doing what you can to support conversations in your various communities about all of these issues, not just in schools, but in religious groups and volunteer organisations. Bring it up if you hear someone talking about only ever seeing the same kinds of comments or conversations. Do your best to read – at least sometimes – outside your preferred viewpoints or interests, as a way to broaden your mind.

All of this helps, eventually.

Thanksgiving has never been a big family holiday. First, my parents were English and raised in the UK, respectively (Christmas was always the . . . → Read More: Cycle on cycle]]> This weekend – the US Thanksgiving holiday weekend, whatever days it actually falls on – always reminds me of how cycles begin to stack, once you’ve gone through enough of them.

Thanksgiving has never been a big family holiday. First, my parents were English and raised in the UK, respectively (Christmas was always the big holiday). Second, my father generally took advantage of the long weekend in the US to lecture and perform in Canada without missing classes. And third, we just didn’t have extended family.

(My parents are both only children: from the time I was born until my father’s death when I was 15, the people in the world I knew I was related to were my parents, my sister and brother, and my mother’s mother in England. My sister married shortly after that, but it was a while longer before there was a nephew, sister-in-law, or nieces.)

But in my adult life, it’s picked up a lot of associations. It’s almost the time my ex-husband and I got married. And it’s the weekend he fully moved out when we separated.

However, it’s also the weekend of my 2nd and 3rd degree initiations (which is what happens when you work for a school that gives you almost no discretionary vacation time, and you want a couple of days of preparation and recovery, and waiting for spring break is not desireable for various reasons.)

And of course, there are lots of memories of good times with friends, at various tables over the years.

So, one little span of time stands there, holding a whole lot of different memories and ideas – and yet, simultaneously, not holding the weight and history and complicated stuff it does for most people I know, who have much larger families, long-term traditions, etc. (I am very aware of the originating history, mind you – I grew up close enough to Plymouth Rock and Plimoth Plantation that it was a regular school trip, and Mom and I went every year or three.)

And I’ve got my own harvest cycles to celebrate, too, of course.

When I start talking about cycles in ritual practice, this is one of the things I’ve made vague handwaving gestures about for years, though.

You can stand there and say “Thanksgiving” to the end of days.

And yet, unless you get a lot more specific, you will have some people for whom that word evokes family (for good or bad), specific tastes and smells. But you’ll have people who have a dread of it because they had to deal with a difficult family situation. Or the people who come from places that don’t celebrate Thanksgiving like that. And the people for whom the word evokes a painful period in history of appropriation and loss.

When you can build a harvest gathering that brings everyone in that room to the same place about what you’re celebrating, then you’ve got a good ritual.

(This, by the way, is why I’ve preferred to celebrate with friends in an ‘orphans Thanksgiving’ mode, rather than tag along to a friend’s family: there’s a lot more conscious discussion about how this meal, this approach, this ritual serves the people who will be there this year, both physically and emotionally.

With family traditions, that doesn’t always happen so well. People and families change over time, so what worked 20 years ago or 10 or even 5 may no longer create a space of thankfulness and grace and community in the ways you want. Doesn’t mean you throw out the traditions – but that all good ritual should look at what those practices serve.)

So, what I wish this Thanksgiving, is that you have one (if you celebrate it) that leaves you and everyone there feeling included, well-fed, and grateful for the wonderful things in your world. There are lots of ways to answer those questions, and you don’t need to get there by the same roads as anyone else.

And if for some reason that doesn’t happen this year – well, the good thing about cycles is that we get another one next year.

Today, some celebrate Mabon, the second harvest festival. So do I, though I prefer the name Harvest Home, these days. A day of bringing in the fruit of our work, of celebrating our labor.

Today is also the second in my personal string of new years. There is the beginning . . . → Read More: Today]]> Today, I am thirty-four.

Today, some celebrate Mabon, the second harvest festival. So do I, though I prefer the name Harvest Home, these days. A day of bringing in the fruit of our work, of celebrating our labor.

Today is also the second in my personal string of new years. There is the beginning of school: the beginning of a cycle every year of my life since I was born in some way: as the child of a professor, as a student myself, or as someone working in education.

Today is my birthday: the day when night and day balance, when the days truly seem shorter, when my desire to come home and nest and reflect in the quiet competes with the growing work of the school year. They are both good, both necessary, and they continue to dance in their own helix until June. And following that, there comes Samhain (the pause before the dawning sun of Midwinter and a new cycle of potential) and the calendar’s New Year.

And I am reminded, always, of my birthday’s place, falling as it sometimes does between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Neither are my celebrations, but they were the celebrations of some of my ancestors, in the not too distant past. A time to reflect on the things I’ve regretted, as well as walking forward into the new year of blessing and potential.

Today, I came home from work, and had a long bath, with the particularly decadent bath salts, and excellent soap, and read by candlelight for long enough for my neck to untangle and my body to relax.

And now, I sit here, hair drying down my back, and I think about this past year. This past decade, in fact, for ten years ago this past summer, I picked up and moved to Minnesota. Nine years and a week or two ago, I started working at the school I’ve been at ever since. Just under ten years ago, I adopted my Athene, the small cat who makes my life a delight, and who is always a warm friendly presence.

This year has been a year of many changes. Not of ritual initiations and elevations, mind you – the changes I’ve volunteered for in more than one way, worked deliberately for, and plunged into, knowing that there were many other changes yet to come I could not predict.

But this year’s brought other changes.

Most importantly, there is the job. After seeking a professional library position for over two years as I finished my Master’s degree, I got hired last spring (as many readers here know) to become the teacher librarian. Last spring was a flurry of setting longer-term plans in place. This summer, we rearranged the library, handling every single book on the shelves (some 11,000)  in the space of ten days. And this fall, work has eaten my brain, as I challenge myself to improve some skills, and to juggle administrative tasks (less fun) with helping people find information (what I’d rather spend all my time doing.)

This job has brought stability of all kinds for the first time in years. I wake up in the morning not needing to job hunt. Knowing that my salary not only lets me survive, but thrive. That I can use that stability to help out a friend, or support an independent artist.

But more than anything, not needing to endlessly contingency plan. Not knowing if this would be the week when the perfect job ad would appear, and need to be responded to quickly and brillantly. Not knowing if I’d still be in the state in three months, or six months, or a year, and thus not ever being able to make a firm promise to help with something.

It’s amazing how helpful that is. But it’s also new, and I’m still getting used to what it feels like to live this way: to live in joy and potential, rather than scarcity and uncertainty.

Let me count my blessings:

I adore my job. Oh, I gripe about bits of it. But I adore my job. I work with amazing, intelligent, thoughtful people. They’re not perfect (good thing, because I’m sure not.) But I know they care deeply about teaching, about students, about learning – and even when we disagree or bump heads, that’s always there. It makes everything better, and there’s almost never a day I come home from work feeling useless or invisible or pointless. (Exhausted,  yes, like not enough butter over too much bread, yes. But never useless.)

And the students are fabulous, too. I can never get complacent, and yet every day brings me some question, some curiousity that delights me and gets me going off in a brand new direction. (It’s part of why I like working with high school students: I get to do a little of everything.)

I’ve had my first for-pay writing published, and submitted another contracted piece. I’ve continued to develop connections and ties within my community. (Both pieces are in Llewellyn’s Witch’s Companion Almanac: I write under the name Jenett Silver. The 2010 piece is about music in personal practice, the 2011 pieces are for September, and an article on online tools and Pagan community.)

This was also the year that my tradition, the religious community I look to first, recognised me as an elder. I’m still blinking a bit at that one, and working on figuring out how I want to – need to – live up to that honor. (This is, I think, a lifetime process, or should be.)

I got to see the last of the students in my parent group who I had a substantial hand in working with become an initiate. I wasn’t at her initiation, but I did get to talk to her a lot before and after, and watching the changes in her has been delightful, amazing, and a great reminder of why I want so much to help make that happen for more people. I hope for many more such joys in the years to come.

And I spent a good chunk of the summer helping a dear friend after surgery. While it did challenging things to my energy levels and ability to get other things done, I don’t regret a moment of the experience: many wonderful conversations, thoughts, gentle pushes in the best direction, and amazing other things.

Integration: I’ve made major steps towards integrating all parts of my life. I’m now quietly but easily out at work as Pagan, and as a priestess, to boot. I’ve gotten some great questions, a lot of quiet support, and no blowback at all. (I did say that where I work has a lot of wonderful qualities, didn’t I?) This, too, is a big change for me, and one I’m still learning to dance with fully.

Oh, yes. And I helped run a convention (learning bunches of fascinating new skills), continued to volunteer as Programming Chair and webmistress for Twin Cities Pagan Pride , and did various other and sundry things. I also grew my first vegetables ever. (Tomatoes in an Earth Box.)

Not a bad year, when you put it that way.

There are things I regret in this year, too.

Not enough music. I continue to struggle with how to make it my own in ways that truly fit into my life. Work is one thing, but this has been a back and forth struggle with my own expectations, built from decades of formal music training. Slow steps, this year, but not enough.

Not enough time with friends. I know I’ve also let friends down a few times (and I have the best friends, ever.) Being stretched thin, having to cancel on short notice because I just couldn’t keep going. Of over-estimating what I wanted to do and what I could actually manage. Of a few communication glitches. Of not remembering to reach out and check in with people as much as the ideal me, the one who has the best of all the mentors I know who do that as a matter of course, wants to.

Not enough writing. There’s the book on better Pagan research techniques I desperately want to revise and finish – but I need a brain that is not eaten by very similar discussions at work first, to be able to work on some of it.

Not enough ritual work: Not enough group work, though for very good reasons. Not enough personal work, either. That part needs to change, because lack of ritual makes my hindbrain cranky. (In both cases, it’s not ‘none’. There’s been some. Just … not enough.)

And all those other plans: all sorts of other things I wanted to get done, to improve. Better housekeeping, so my home is always the refuge and quiet place I want it to be. (I was not a tidy child, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more easily distracted by disorder, without having the orderly habits intuitively in place to keep that true. This is not a combination I recommend.) All sorts of desires – to spin more yarn, to knit more, to create other art and beauty, to write more about books I read.

These things I haven’t done aren’t good.

They all matter to me, and I want to do them more. But I also know that the world changes, the river flows on – and this year, I will have new choices, new possibilities, new joys and opportunities, especially now that work is settling into a known foundation.

And so, now, I listen to this track (“Tam Lin” from Tricky Pixie’s first album Mythcreants) to finish. And I will go forward into eating wonderful food (chicken wild rice stew, homemade rolls, and tomatoes from my garden) and some ritual work to celebrate the season. When that is done, I intend to tune my harp, and play for at least a few minutes.

Happy Harvest Home to you. Happy harvest. Happy fall. Happy bringing in the things that bring you joy, and thinking about the things that will.