Librarians are awesome. Librarians are Great Americans. The librarian cliché of kindly, moderate, reasonable older women (a trope that is probably exceedingly annoying) is mixed with an implacable dedication to the right to privacy and the right to access information. Librarians are activists that people pay attention to. Librarian resistance to the PATRIOT Act is well-documented, often witty, and steadfast.
One of the articles I read dealt with a law that would require libraries to install porn-blocking software on their computers to receive federal funding. Part of the evidence was a black binder filled with printed color images from sites that could be potentially be accessed from libraries without the software. Part of the librarian's argument rested on the fact that books and magazines about sex were standard parts of their library collections anyway. To quote the article:
When the Justice Department's Zick showed her the black smut-binder and asked if those items would be included in the library's collection, Morgan replied that some of the images were "similar" to items already owned by Fort Vancouver.
Zick wondered: "What are they similar to?"
Replied Morgan, with no sign of a blush: "Different ways of having sex. The hot teen pussy one. We have books on lesbian sex that might be similar... We do have books that show sex acts similar to that."
Enough said.
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