Every now and again, librarians struggle with some group's strong gut feeling that we should restrict access to a category of information because it upsets them. These groups are convinced that the public availability of this information will cause them harm. This is often (but not always) based in a religious belief or cultural taboo. Wanting to be fair, many librarians will try to be open-minded and seek a compromise position. Anyone who has attended a session put on by a group like Camden, Maine's Institute for Global Ethics has probably heard about how we are often confronted by ethical dilemmas, or a clash between different ethical systems. However, compromise isn't always possible; in some cases, it can be damaging.
Take, for instance, an episode of Law & Order where a priest was presented with a dilemma: either break a central and sacred trust (sanctity of the confessional), or let a criminal go free.
The way that this ethical dilemma was presented, the priest had only two choices:
1. Break the sanctity of the confessional (thereby violating something so central to the priesthood that he would lose his job)
2. Continue to keep confidential a criminal's confession, which would constitute such a violation of his own personal ethics that he couldn't live with himself.
There was no middle ground. There was no third way. There was no compromise position. He had to choose between his professional ethics, or his personal ethics; he had to choose between disclosing the information, or not.
This is the sort of position that censorship places us in. There is no "little bit of censorship" any more than there is any "little bit of confidentiality of the confessional." Either one censors, or one does not. Either one breaks confidentiality, or one doesn't.
The very first thing that the American Library Association Handbook says about its Intellectual Freedom Committee is that it shall: " . . . recommend such steps as may be necessary to safeguard the rights of library users, libraries, and librarians, in accordance with the First Amendment to the United States Consitution and the Library Bill of Rights as adopted by the ALA Council."
In safeguarding the Library Bill of Rights, the IFC protects the very existence of a crucial professional statement that supports any librarian seeking to uphold the First Amendment and the Library Bill of Rights. A librarian facing a censorship challenge can say "Look, my professional association has this central, profession-defining standard; I am committed to upholding it."
The librarian who is placed in a position where s/he believes it's necessary to place a restriction on content almost certainly doesn't need any particular support from ALA in order to do so. S/he is probably conforming to some local, unique condition. The librarian will not be disbarred, have his/her professional credentials suspended, etc. In other words, unlike our situation with the Law & Order priest, there are no definite negative consequences for violating a librarian's professional ethic to fight censorship; there are arguably more often negative consequences for refusing to give in to the pressure to do so.
There may not be many outside of our profession who understand this committee's work well--but everyone in this country benefits from it in ways that are not always apparent. There are so many factors working to restrict information, and relatively few working to maintain openness and democracy. We very much need the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee to unequivocally and with clear focus safeguard the Library Bill of Rights.
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