The Liberated Librarians Newsletter

We have received a number of letters asking us why we are writing a newsletter, what we expect to achieve by our efforts, and just what are liberated librarians?

To begin with, this newsletter is in response to what we see and feel around us in our fellow library science students. The majority of library science students are complacent and impervious to the injustice that reigns supreme in our society. They are so, unconsciously. We abhor that attitude for it is the attitude that blocks all possible solutions for the changes that are necessary in our society and all societies, if mankind is to survive in any sort of familiar form. However, we honestly believe that librarians are able and willing to see all sides of any situation if they are given the chance to see and read and learn of the injustices around us.

Therefore, our purpose in writing this newsletter is to provide librarians with the information that they do not get in the routines of their daily lives. We want you to be aware, too, that we consider the war in Vietnam as a crisis situation. Innocent villagers are being killed for no better reason than to "save" them from communism. The invasion of Cambodia - a neutral nation - somewhat parallels Hitler's invasion of Poland. If German youth had taken to the streets then....

Our ultimate hope is that by reading our little newsletter, our readers will be compelled to go out and read further for themselves. We hope that they will question what we print and seek answers for themselves. And finally, we hope that the answers will spur action against the hypocritical and cruel injustices this country is committing under the non-leadership of a shallow and frightening man.

Before we get thousands of letters in protest, let me make it perfectly clear (sound too familiar?) that we are not advocating that librarians have only leftist books, periodicals, and newspapers in their libraries. That is insane; it is contrary to all intellectual freedom policies; and it is just as in-human and unjust as some of the policies existing under our present government.

All we are saying, is we are also library students and we realize that the role of a librarian is to remain objective in the selection of materials for her library; but we are also people with intense feelings about the injustice which runs rampant in our country. Since you are the people we come in contact with daily, we are doing what our knowledge requires that we do: we are informing you of our findings, in the hopes that you will use this information to persuade others to take a more active part in the struggle.

Secondly, we intend to force you through your increased knowledge to take a stand as you feel you should. A political stand. One which expresses your feelings - for or against ours. That is our greatest wish. Because even if you disagree with us, not only will you have come up with sound arguments to dispute ours, but you will have to think. You will have to take a stand; you will have to stop saying that my vote out of millions has no effect on the results of an election. You will have to out of fear: fear that the likes of us will soon take over or fear that the likes of us will not soon take over. But in any case, we will have done what has to be done and what is being done by other brothers and sisters across the land. We will have returned POWER TO THE PEOPLE.