Dear Editor:
In responding to public complaints about a library display in Bernardsville of an exhibit denouncing adoption, the chair of the Intellectual Freedom Subcommittee of the New Jersey Library Association states that an important purpose is that the library offers “a valuable forum for the exchange of ideas and information from the widest possible spectrum.”
Oh, if only this were true!
The strong hand of political expediency prevents much public information from finding its way onto the shelves of local libraries and the local librarian caves in or joins the jobless ranks.
Try to find the following public records in your library: 1. municipal ordinances or just an index of them; 2. copies of the annual municipal budget; 3. copies of the non-confidential portion of municipal and for that matter, school payrolls; 4. copies of municipal minutes; 5. details of any end-of-career severance payments.
All of this information qualifies as public information. Of course, if you try to get it, you will probably be stonewalled and forced to file a Verified Complaint in Superior Court, $175 and up, and face stiff town counsel resistance in an attempt to wear you down.
In the township of North Bergen, where I resided for some 34 years, I assembled all of the above in a nice binder, labeled it, assigned the proper Dewey Decimal number and placed it on the library shelves; I did this after being told by a library staffer that the library could not provide this information because the township officials were against it. Of course, state budgets and federal budgets were on file (I only read them when I’m suffering from insomnia). I checked back in a week; the binder was gone!
Perhaps I should have labeled it a Work of Art, then it would have been protected!
The NJLA should remove its organizational head from the sand and see if the “purposes” are served without the stigma of political interference!
Frank X. Landrigan