Moment of truth for U.S. librarians

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The leadership of the American Library Association - the world's largest organization of librarians - continues to shame its rank-and-file members. The ALA refuses to join library associations and human-rights groups worldwide to demand the immediate release of Cuba's independent librarians imprisoned, and their book collections burned, by the Communist dictatorship. A key policy of the American Library Association is its adoption of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers."

It was members of the ALA that galvanized opposition from library patrons and other Americans to the Bush administration's Patriot Act, which allowed the FBI to inspect the records of entire collections of libraries. That took courage - and true First Amendment patriotism when opponents of the Patriot Act were being denounced as "unAmerican."

I greatly admire the continued, active support by these librarians of the freedom to read. As a reporter, I continue to cover individual librarians' successful resistance to local censorship of books by Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" (because of certain "improper" language) and many other books.

When I was a kid in Boston, I learned much more in my neighborhood public library that has stayed with me than I did in school. Librarians encouraged me to go far beyond my home and savor the continually surprising world of ideas and imagination.

For years, I have been involved in trying to get today's students, from elementary school upward, to know much more about why they are Americans - bringing the words of the Constitution and the freedom stories of our history into their lives. The growing number of organizations deeply involved in that mission invariably cites reading lists that send students to our public libraries. This is important, especially since school civics classes have all-but-disappeared, mostly due to the results-driven mandates of the No Child Left Behind curriculum.

I was proud to have one of my novels for young readers, "The Day They Came to Arrest the Book" (Delacorte Press, 1983), included in the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee's pamphlet "Kids Know Your Rights!: A Young Person's Guide to Intellectual Freedom."

Also in the pamphlet's "Suggestions for Further Reading" is Russell Freeman's "In Defense of Liberty: The Story of America's Bill of Rights," (Holiday House, 2003). There is no Bill of Rights in Cuba. There are, however, lists of books that you are forbidden to read - and the independent librarian who gave you even one of them can be arrested and sent away for a long, hellish prison term.

It is my hope - and indeed, my expectation, knowing many librarians - that ALA members may begin to organize locally and regionally to bring to the governing council of American Library Association and the Fidelistas among the council's members this proposed resolution: "Resolved, That the American Library Association joins with Amnesty International, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, International PEN, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Organization of American States, the European Union Council and Presidency, the German Bundestag Commission of Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, the French Communist Party, and the national library associations of Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic and Slovakia and Poland" (the latter four know communist dictatorships firsthand) "in calling for the immediate and unconditional release of those persons involved in the operation of independent libraries and the release of all Cubans arrested in March 2003 and imprisoned following one-day summary trials in April 2003 for the nonviolent exercise of their freedoms of expression, association and the freedom to read."

This proposed resolution, which should be so natural and fundamental for the currently clueless governing council of the American Library Association, ends with: "Resolved, That the American Library Association call on the Cuban government authorities to return any materials confiscated from independent library collections which have not been burned or destroyed."

When I told Ray Bradbury about the persecution of these independent librarians, he authorized me to quote him as also demanding their immediate release. Any of our libraries that have "Fahrenheit 451" on their shelves should surely demand no less.

And if the nation's librarians make that demand to ALA's leadership, what a lasting, vivid lesson this would be for students who come to our libraries - and for the governing council of the American Library Association - on the freedom to read.