Report: “In Georgia, a Bill to Cut All Ties with the American Library Association is Advancing”
From NPR:
A growing number of states and local libraries are cutting ties with the nation’s predominant library professional association, saying the ALA has become too radical. On Thursday, a bill that would go further than any other passed the Georgia state Senate in a 33-to-20 vote and now heads to the House.
Republican state Sen. Larry Walker says he sponsored the legislation after discovering his library had received a $20,000 grant from the American Library Association to diversify its collection, adding books dealing with LGBTQ and BIPOC themes. Walker says he became determined to stop what he calls that “radical” organization from being “political indoctrination centers … promoting aberrant sexual behavior and socialist anti-American rhetoric.”
“I feel this is kind of being forced on our children and kind of shoved down our throat,” Walker said. “I’m a pretty tolerant individual, but this has gone too far.”
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For its part, the ALA says it has seen a decline in membership in recent years, but attribute that more to a post-pandemic economy than any politically motivated defections. And the group denies any bias, insisting the organization is not defined by any single person’s ideology.
“We’ve had many different presidents with many different ranges of political beliefs, and they’re entitled to their beliefs as much as the individual who doesn’t like seeing an LGBTQ book on the shelf,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
More From the NPR Report
Additional Coverage From the Atlanta Journal Constitution
Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, a Democratic leader of the Senate, called SB 390 a “knee-jerk” embrace of cultural warfare and a distraction from problems like literacy: “How does this even matter when two-thirds of Georgia’s kids can’t read well anyway? Why are we not talking about that today, colleagues?”
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SB 390 initially threatened Valdosta State University’s graduate program for librarians with a prohibition on ALA accreditation, but Walker amended the bill to address those concerns. The version that will go to the state House of Representatives after a party line 33-20 vote would still prohibit the University System of Georgia from using taxpayer money to pursue accreditation. But it would allow the use of donations.
Read the Complete AJC Article
Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Funding, Libraries, News
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.