Submitted to WPL and others on behalf of the HHPTF …
The American Library Association provides guidelines for developing library policies, including access privileges. Founded on the Library Bill of Rights, the guidelines state that public libraries “should avoid arbitrary distinctions between individuals or classes of users,” policies “should not target specific users or groups of users,” and policies “must be communicated clearly and made available in an effective manner.”
An ALA document on economic barriers to information access notes, “Resources that are provided directly or indirectly by the library … should be readily, equally and equitably accessible to all library users.” ALA Policy 61 (Library Services for the Poor) calls for direct representation of poor people and their advocates in policymaking and for cooperation between libraries and social-service agencies.
Within these ALA parameters, and as reported by various media sources, Worcester Public Library is choosing to ignore its obligations to disadvantaged citizens. WPL’s two-book borrowing limit fails to provide equal access for low-income people. And bearing an air of classism, its incomplete “agency blacklist” brands them as thieves.
According to the U.S. Census, the percentage of people living below the poverty line in Worcester is higher than the national average. Is WPL attentive to this fact and responsive to those who struggle with poverty and social exclusion?
I am hopeful that WPL will rescind its prejudicial borrowing policy, and I am confident that there are more thoughtful ways to exercise “fiduciary responsibility.” In support of these necessary changes, I invite WPL staff, board members, and others to consult the resources available at www.hhptf.org.
Respectfully,
John Gehner, Coordinator
Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force (HHPTF)
Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT)
of the American Library Association (ALA)
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During her recent guest-blogging stint with FreeGovInfo.info, Jessamyn West posted some great information about policies and programs for making use of unwanted or unused food.
The most common methods of food recovery are field gleaning, perishable food rescue or salvage (from wholesale and retail food sellers), food rescue (for prepared foods) and nonperishable food collection (food with long shelf lives). Some of these tactics are familiar to Food Not Bombs workers, food shelf volunteers or dumpster divers.
She points to the USDA’s A Citizen’s Guide to Food Recovery and the Food Recovery State Resource List, among other resources.
The complete post, with links, is available at http://freegovinfo.info/node/517.
On a similar note, FoodFirst has posted “12 Myths About Hunger,” to help people “unlearn” fictions and false impressions. For example:
Myth 1: Not Enough Food to Go Around
Reality: Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world’s food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,200 calories a day. That doesn’t even count many other commonly eaten foods – vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide … enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most “hungry countries” have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.
For the complete list of hunger mythbusters, visit www.foodfirst.org/node/1480.
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The Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts, in conjunction with the ACLU of Massachusetts, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of homeless citizens against the Worcester Public Library.
The library restricts borrowing privileges for homeless residents, limiting them to two books—versus 40 books for everyone else.
The Boston Globe reports (7/9/06),
[T]hree homeless patrons of the library filed a class action lawsuit in US District Court, alleging that the policy violates their constitutional right to equal access to public services. The plaintiffs include a homeless couple whose 8-year-old daughter seeks out the latest Lemony Snicket adventures, and a woman who fled a home where she was the victim of domestic violence …
The seeds of Worcester’s battle were sewn two years ago, when a city librarian noticed that many of the library’s missing books had been loaned to people staying in the city’s shelters. Unable to find the offenders, the librarian proposed the two-book limit to the board of trustees, which approved the policy. [Head librarian Penelope] Johnson said she did not have data on how many books had been lost over the years to homeless patrons, but said the policy had helped curb the problem.
According to Kate Fitzpatrick, an attorney with LACCM, “We tried to work with the library for over a year to modify or rescind the policy, but felt we had no choice to file the lawsuit when we realized the extent of the city’s inflexibility and its lack of good faith to truly understand the policy’s effects.”
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette found that “the public library system lacks any firm criteria it can use to determine who is subject to a two-item borrowing limit at Worcester’s three library branches.”
Rather than restricting the borrowing privileges of individuals, the library reportedly maintains a list of social service agencies and limits anyone that is a client of these agencies. The Telegram & Gazette says that the list is incomplete and that not all agencies are “aware of their status at the library.”
[L]ibrary officials were resistant to disclosing information about the policy. They still have not publicly disclosed exact losses from items checked out and not returned by what the library calls transient residents.
Worcester PL’s policy clearly contradicts the values outlined in ALA Policy 61, Library Services for the Poor and the Library Bill of Rights.
If you would like to write a letter in support of the Worcester area’s homeless citizens and their right to equal services, contact:
Michael V. O’Brien
City Manager
City of Worcester
455 Main Street, Room 309
Worcester, MA 01608
Jay Scully
President, Board of Directors
Worcester Public Library
3 Salem Square
Worcester, MA 01608
Penelope Johnson
Head Librarian
Worcester Public Library
3 Salem Square
Worcester, MA 01608
Letters to the Editor
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Worcester, MA 01615-0012
letters@telegram.com (in subject line write “Letter”; the email must include a mailing address)
Fax: 508-793-9313
Additional information is available via ALA and via Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s journal at LISNews.org.
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A letter to the editor submitted on behalf of the HHPTF…
James Kelly’s “Barefoot in Columbus”—published in Public Libraries, May/June 2006—is a useful and well-written contribution to the literature on library risk management. Library directors can now sleep more easily at night. But not so the nine million low-income working families who struggle to get by.
The national discourse on library service to poor people is inordinately dominated by the specter of Richard Kreimer, concern with the “unruly homeless,” and attempts to police odor. Frustration and fear inform the ongoing conversation about homeless patrons, whose presence mortifies us like so many decomposing B-movie monsters.
ALA’s new president, Leslie Burger, maintains that “libraries transform communities.” Yet few librarians quoted in the news mention partnerships with social service providers, advocate for affordable housing and living wages, or express much interest in people who never come to the library—due to a lack of transportation, the burden of multiple jobs, inadequate child care, language barriers, unreasonable fees and fines, or simply because no one has ever invited them.
This is a far cry from the near-decade British information professionals have invested to study social exclusion, the systems and policy decisions that produce disparities, and the benefits thoughtful remedies deliver to all social classes. See The Network, for example: www.seapn.org.uk. While our colleagues across the pond engage poverty’s causes, we remain fixated on punishing those who display its symptoms.
Sociologists Dale Parent and Bonnie Lewis observe,
Social exclusion is not simply a result of “bad luck” or personal inadequacies, but rather a product of flaws in the system that create disadvantages for certain segments of the population. Therefore, the unequal distribution of power in society from which social exclusion is derived should be the primary focus of attention for researchers and policy makers. Everybody does not start the race at the same place.
Libraries may be operating within the law when wielding appearance and hygiene policies. But without a simultaneous effort to engage poverty—to reach out to men, women, and (increasingly) children who suffer it daily—librarians deliberately perpetuate inequality by withholding the knowledge, resources, and power they possess.
John Gehner, Coordinator
Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force (HHPTF)
Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT)
of the American Library Association (ALA)
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The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law offers two important new tools for advocates of low-income people.
“Rebuilding America’s Lower Ninth” is a campaign to frame a national dialogue on poverty in late summer:
When Katrina devastated the Gulf States last year, the hurricane alerted the nation to a state without borders, a state whose geography extends beyond the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans—it is the State of Poverty, America’s undeclared disaster area. As part of our State of Poverty initiative, the Shriver Center is coordinating media outreach events between August 21 – September 1, 2006 in a campaign called Rebuilding America’s Lower Ninth …
Our efforts are improving the lives of low-wage workers, helping families advance toward economic security, and preserving communities of opportunity throughout our country. However, we know that we are not alone. As we look to constructive policies that move people from poverty to prosperity, we are asking you to lend your voice and your solutions to this week of outreach and public education.
The newest issue of Clearinghouse Review “focuses on what the federal government must do to end poverty in America.”
The jam-packed May/June 2006 edition features topics ranging from arguments against a “small and passive federal government” to ways to combat adult illiteracy and improve public housing.
For more information about these and other Shriver Center projects, visit www.povertylaw.org.
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