By MERILEE DANNEMANN
Triple Spaced Again
© 2023 New Mexico News Services
Communities cherish their local libraries. We count on them not only for books but for music, movies, access to computers and other services. We are so used to them that we often take them for granted.
But recently, libraries have become embroiled in the so-called culture war.
There’s no controversy about the small rural libraries throughout New Mexico. There are more than 50 such libraries, from Chama and Questa to Glenwood and Lordsburg, and including several pueblos. Many are located outside any municipality, with no municipal government to support them. They are nonprofits, sustained primarily by community members and functioning as multipurpose community centers. They are linked through the New Mexico Rural Library Initiative.
A new documentary film celebrates these libraries. It’s titled “Library Stories: Books on the Backroads,” by filmmakers Ben Daitz and Mary Lance, and was recently aired on New Mexico PBS. It shows how central these libraries are to their communities.
The state now has an endowment fund for them. According to Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, who sponsored some of the legislation, the goal is to reach $52 million, so each library will have access to the income from about $1 million – maybe $40,000 to $50,000 each year – and therefore can count on a base of funding. The fund is more than halfway there, with $28 million at the last count.
The controversy has arisen at a couple of our larger urban libraries. A movement started in other states has reached New Mexico.
In Los Alamos and Rio Rancho, individuals have made public objections to the presence of specific books in public libraries. The targeted books were primarily related to LGBTQ or gender diversity.
In Rio Rancho, instead of following the customary procedure, the book challengers skipped the library board and went straight to the City Council. One speaker claimed he had tried to approach the library board, but a meeting was canceled.
Many more local residents were present to oppose the book ban than the four who requested it. The council did not support the book ban request.
The significance of these events was explained in a recent presentation to New Mexico Press Women by librarian Deirdre Caparoso. She is a research librarian at the UNM Health Sciences Center Library and chair of the Intellectual Freedom Committee for the New Mexico Library Association.
As Caparoso explained, librarians are aware and prepared for challenges to books. Libraries have policies, committees and formal procedures to address challenges or complaints about specific books or other media.
The American Library Association’s website says, “Under the best professional standards, reconsideration policies ask those charged with reviewing a challenged book to set aside their personal beliefs and evaluate the work in light of the objective standards outlined in the library’s materials selection policy.”
Caparoso said challenges to books are coming almost exclusively from the political right and, as in other states, are largely directed at LGBTQ and race-related subjects. It may be frustrating for some conservatives, but the reality is that gender-diverse individuals have the same right to relevant literary materials as everyone else.
A new report by the Anti-Defamation League and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation documents that incidents of harassment and assault against LGBTQ and other marginalized groups are on the rise in most states. Fortunately, the numbers for these reports are low in New Mexico.
I’m reminded as I look at this report that books in a library are a gentle way to introduce sympathetic awareness of marginalized groups to those who might never meet members of those groups in person. It’s one of the reasons we value our libraries.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
