Guest Post: James LaRue for ALA President

I have a keen interest in issues of intellectual freedom – and am the author of “The New Inquisition: Understanding the Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges” (Libraries Unlimited, 2007. That interest probably traces back to a fourth grade teacher seizing my copy of Mad Magazine. (To compensate, I later bought it for every library I have ever managed.) But I cut my administrative teeth on issues related to gay rights.

For many years, I was the director of the Douglas County Libraries. It is headquartered in Castle Rock, CO, just north of Colorado Springs’ Focus on the Family. Focus on the Family targeted my library, and launched a series of challenges. Most of the book related to children’s book featuring positive portrayals of gay characters (“Daddy’s Roommate,” “Daddy’s Wedding,” “And Tango Makes Three,” etc.). My process for responding was to join Focus on the Family, and attend their training for people trying to seize political control of public institutions.

What this taught me was how to talk to them. I listened to their concerns, and learned not only to see them as people, but to get them to see librarians as people, too — not demons intent on destroying the fabric of society. I worked with them to explain that the library is both common and neutral ground: a place where all are welcome, where the only agenda is access. I assured them that I would not only defend the works on the opposite side of their views, but I would defend theirs, too.

While I’m sure I didn’t change anyone’s fundamental views or values, I did learn to do two things, even in stressful and challenging times: first, to treat others with respect, and require the same of them; and second, to articulate the purpose of a public institution in a way that also earned respect. The ability to listen, and the ability to clearly communicate purpose are the defining characteristics of my leadership style.

That approach was on display again in my blog posting, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” (http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2008/07/uncle-bobbys-wedding.html), which was widely distributed. It was, I believe, the first library challenge to that work. It also generated surprising public commentary.

After 24 years of leading a public library (Douglas County Libraries in Colorado), I became a full time writer, speaker, and consultant on the future of libraries. Most of my work focuses on three issues. I believe they are transformative not only for our profession, but for society. There are also the core planks of my platform as candidate for ALA president.We need to move from gatekeeper to gardener. The digital publishing revolution has resulted in an explosion of intellectual content, particularly among midlist, independent, and self-publishers. Yet for academic and public libraries alike, ebooks have mostly been a disaster: we gave up ownership, discounts, and integration with our catalogs. As ALA president, I would work to focus our professional attention on these emerging streams of content, whose creators are far more interested in working with us, and whom I believe represent the future of content creation.

We need to move from embedded librarians to community leaders. By “community” I mean “our authorizing environment.” For academic librarians, it’s the whole university; for school librarians, that would be the school district; for public librarians, it’s the town or county. I’ve written about this elsewhere (see http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2014/10/from-community-reference-to-library-as.html): the idea is that we must leave the library, identify and interview community leaders about the larger issues and aspirations of their constituents, help facilitate a discussion about larger community agendas, and finally pick a project in which we can make a high impact contribution to that agenda. Finally, we need to tell everyone about it: demonstrating our value not just as passive responders to individual questions someone brings to us, but as community leaders actively seeking to add value.

We must move from book deserts to book abundance. In this study (http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2013/01/500-books-in-home.html), we learned that getting 500 books in the home of a child between the ages of 0-5 is as powerful as having two parents with Master’s degrees. Reading readiness leads to reading proficiency, and reading proficiency is linked to freedom from jail, healthier childhoods and longer lives, greater educational achievement, and greater earning capacity. We have it within our capacity to eliminate half of the social ills of our society. We know it. Some teachers know it. But the rest of our community decision-makers do not. As ALA president, I would use every available communication channel to carry this vital message to our larger society.

I am a passionate believer in the power and importance of libraries. As ALA president, I would focus on breaking out the echo chamber of librarians talking to each other, and work to connect with the larger authorizing environment of our society. As a longtime newspaper columnist, host of both an Internet radio program and a cable TV show, as the past president of many local and statewide boards of all kinds, I believe I bring the unique ability and experience to bridge that gap. I ask for your vote.