Walking Paper

(non-tech post)

I’ve been wanting to post about this for some time but the entire story was still unfolding. It is now over for the most part, so I can write a bit about it. In short, the library and people in our community were told how to think.

I run a film discussion group at the library. I have fun doing it, and it is a good for the community. My pal Gabe at the La Grange Park Public Library started a film discussion group years ago for that library. Being clever, we host our groups on alternate Fridays so that nearly every Friday, people in our area can see independent/art house/or otherwise important films close to home. Our FDGs groups have been well received. We’ve both been featured in the local papers, and we have a number of people who regularly attend our movies. Yay.

For those of you who might think it was naive of me to schedule “Fahrenheit 9/11” for the end of October, please understand that the decision wasn’t come to arbitrarily. When it came out on DVD, I exhibited Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” to the delight of many people in my FDG. Even better, there was a interesting, healthy, lively, and friendly discussion afterwards. The event was a stellar example of a public library qua community meeting place. People came together to listen, learn and reflect. When I mentioned its release on DVD, people in my group expressed interest in Moore’s latest offering. This wasn’t a surprise considering that the film has received plenty of attention in the media and is the highest grossing documentary of all time (about $100 million).

A number of weeks ago we received two emails objecting to the showing of the film. I was happy that someone was using the email submission form to the board’s email address, and didn’t think too much of it. We also received a number of positive comments about our showing of the film. People were looking foward to seeing it. The board was supportive of the department heads’ decision to continue with the showing of the film. The fact that we discussed the film at the board meeting was in the local paper. The next issue of the paper contained a lovely letter to the editor commending the library on its decision. People approached us and thanked us for not backing down.

Some time later, another public library in Illinois faced some controversy for their scheduled showing of the film. I started to get a bit nervous when they decided to cancel the film because of vitriolic telephone calls and the like. Last Thursday I joked with the director of our library, “Only 8 days to get through before I show this!”

It turned out to be a tough next few days for the library. Two days ago the showing of “Fahrenheit 9/11” at my library was a topic of discussion on a right-wing radio show broadcast in the Chicagoland area. Ouch. After the show, there were a number of negative phone calls to the library. When I arrived at the library Monday afternoon, there had been some more calls. They continuted in the evening.

Many of these people shared the same outrage, and thought it was inappropriate for the library to be showing the film. Many of these people were not even residents of our community, which invalidated any business they had phoning us. Regardless, the library’s director (best.director.ever) was harassed by a number of random people. At this point we decided to route all communication about the movie to email and letters. The telephone calls were too much to handle. Later on in the evening a man stopped in to tell me that if we didn’t agree to cancel the film, he was going to file a temporary retstraining order to stop us. He then told me that “Fahrenheit 9/11” wasn’t a documentary. I encouraged him to come to the FDG to share his views on cinema. Then another person called and also mentioned bringing an injunction against us. It was a tough day at the library.

Things didn’t get truly bad, however, until today when the library received some threatening phone calls. With this, the library’s director and I had a long conversation and decided to cancel the film. Neither of us wanted to, but we felt that there were staff and patron safety concerns that could be resolved by doing it.

After we put a sign on the doors to the library, four or five people approached me within the hour stating how terrible they thought it was that we were forced to cancel the film. One patron echoed my thoughts exactly when he stated that he didn’t understand what the big deal was. Just like we don’t force people to read any of our books, we don’t force them to come to my film discussion group.

I’m sad that those that wanted to come to watch and talk about the film won’t get the opportunity to do so. I’m also sad that the bully tactics of a few people were effective.

As for silver linings, I learned a number of things from this ordeal and it confirmed other thoughts I have had.

-The library does well under stress. Some of the people that called were so livid that they could hardly get the words out of their mouth. Think of your least favorite raving political radio pundit and multiply that by two. Even so, we all kept our cool and were very professional. The library board did a fantastic job letting us make our decisions and supporting them.

-Some people like to communicate, orthers like to rant. Early on in the taking of phone calls, I thought, “Okay, you’re right and they are wrong. If you calmly explain what is going on, perhaps you can diffuse the situation.” Trust me, I was mistaken about this.

-The current political climate is hindering free speech. Not wanting to participate in a conversation is one thing, but to prevent the conversation from taking place is another. There are many people who do not want conversations taking place in which criticisms of the current administration might be found.

Friday night from 6:45-7:00 I’ll be sitting on the bench outside of the library explaning to dissapointed patrons how their freedoms of speech and thought were violated.

Public libraries are one of the last potential public fora. Let’s do our best to keep them that way.