The Library: Defender of Freedom of Speech and Expression?

Abstract

Over the years, I have tried mostly in vain to get libraries to subscribe to the 501(c)(3) nonprofit journal I have been publishing on literature, democracy, and dissidence since 1998. To date, I've managed to obtain 15 institutional subscriptions. Compare that to the well over 500 obtained by Agni and Poetry magazine. As a result of one attempt, Watertown Free Public Library ended up issuing a three-month trespass order without warning or due process. That was the only time I have ever been to that library. One would suspect I must have had done something terrible like issue violent threats, swear belligerently, or make sexual jokes. But none of that occurred. Hard to believe? Perhaps not.More recently, on June 19, 2012, I was sitting in Sturgis Library (Barnstable, MA), described by former library trustee Kurt Vonnegut as a clapboard tomb. There I was in a corner alone in a room quietly working on my laptop, something I had been doing there about five times per week for a year and a half. The director and no less than three police officers suddenly entered. When I asked what I had done, the director said: You've been critical of me, you don't like it here, so now you can't come here anymore. Actually, I did like the library, though I did not like the director's egregious violation of her own policy.One of the officers the trespass announcement. I asked for how long. He asked the director, who responded, permanently. I asked for a written document. The director there was none. It was verbal. I asked why three officers were necessary and mentioned I did not carry a weapon. At that point, one of the other officers grabbed my arm, twisted it around my back, then frisked me. I was not resisting arrest. I was not put under arrest. Days later, I would discover that officer was a training officer who was training one of the other officers present, using me as a live training dummy. And that was that. For me, what happened was unbelievable. No warning at all! And no due process whatsoever. So, what was my crime?Outside, one of the officers told me to go to Town Hall, when I asked where I could go to lodge a complaint. A day later, that is what I did. But Town Hall informed me it had no jurisdiction over the library and that I should go to the police station or contact the president of the library committee. Unsurprisingly, the president would not respond to my correspondence. She was, after all, a good friend of the library director. At the police station, I was able to obtain a written record of the police action. But on it, there was no mention at all of the duration of the trespass order. The officer, who had taken the director's phone call, told me the director had I made her feel uncomfortable, had said inappropriate things, and that it had been an ongoing concern. And that was all. The director had not mentioned I was critical.If politically-correct proponents one day have their way, making someone feel uncomfortable might indeed become a criminal offense. Fortunately, it is not yet thus. Besides, shouldn't a library director have a little spine? Was her remark not a bit childish? After all, I do not have a criminal record, have no tattoos or visible scars, and do not walk around naked. In fact, over the year and a half I had been going to Sturgis Library I rarely ever spoke to the director, though in the beginning of that period I had asked her to consider subscribing. She had no, arguing the library was a friendly place and that there was too much negativity. So, is democracy now family unfriendly and negativity? And what about all the sex and violence DVDs the director had been periodically purchasing for the library? Well, people in power positions can often be impervious to logic and reason.During that earlier period, I had placed one flyer on a car windshield in the library lot because that car had a bumper sticker: Everything I Learned Was from Reading Banned Books. …