Local libraries of my distant childhood housed their books in a single, small room. Besides books, today's Greeley libraries have maps, audiotapes, videos, computers, classes, and more. They even have soda and candy machines now. That would have been scandalous in the libraries of my youth. The changes are arbitrary, made more for convenience than from research and serious logic.
Centennial Park Library is part of the High Plains Library District (HPLD). While a library can operate independently of the American Library Association (ALA), most librarians believe a library is automatically enhanced by that association. I am sad that after 3,000 Americans died, HPLD chose to destroy records that would be helpful in apprehending terrorists, pederasts and other felons. Some librarians tried and failed to identify any virtues in deleting records. Have you ever wondered, "What was that book I read that in?" or "Where is that book? I wasn't done with it." Librarians used to tell what books you had read, even give you a print-out of titles. Not now. And do you know why? Listen to this nonsense by the ALA: "Privacy is essential to the exercise of free speech, free thought, and free association." How in God's name are free speech and free association dependent on" privacy"? If our speech is "private," we need no protection because no one can hear us! Whether our "association" is private or not, libraries lack the jurisdiction and power to protect and enforce it. Is there a jack-booted Library Police Corps? And how can any library guarantee "free thought?" And then hide our thoughtful past reading from us? That sounds like 1984 doublethink. Why is the library so eager to get involved in our private thought processes? - To enter our minds?
The ALA continues, "In a library, the subject of users' interests should not be examined or scrutinized by others." How did they reach that stupid conclusion? They don't follow it. Here's a library secret: They may pretend they "can't" tell you - or Homeland Security - what you read last week. But they sure can tell you how many books you turned in late, and how much you paid in fines for late, damaged, or lost books over the past year. Now where's their sense of privacy? These self-appointed protectors of "their" patrons want to trade American lives for a cheap bowl of feel-good faux "privacy," that library patrons themselves say they don't need. Listen to the patrons for a change. Oh, right, you can't. You know more about what's right for them than they do. Patrons do not like your anti-American policy!
Contrary to ALA's pompous assertions, some users' interests certainly should be scrutinized. How many lives could have been saved if authorities had examined library records about Jeffrey Dahmer's unusual tastes, for example, or Ted Bundy's bumpy sexual affairs, or Harris' and Klebold's anti-godly anger in their school's gun-free zone, or Shawna Nelson's breakdown over unrequited love, or Thomas Hamilton's frustration at being told to stop sleeping with and taking photos of semi-naked boys. So many lives could be saved if the ALA, HPLD, and Centennial Library would stop thwarting murder and other criminal investigations. Or closer to home, how many might have escaped injury, had librarian staff Dylan Quick's interest in stabbing people been open to examination by police? The ALA sees murder as a "private" matter.
Further, "The ALA believes certain sections of the USA Patriot Act endanger constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users." The ALA is not competent to adjudicate on constitutional rights, much less Centennial Library staff. What supreme arrogance. Nor is HPLD an enforcement agency of the federal government. If the ALA believes a constitutional right has been violated, what the unnamed, unelected policy-makers of the ALA should do is report that to the authorities. Same for the HPLD. If they see a patron planning a murder, are they going to keep that "private," too? If someone fires a gun in the library, will Centennial staff respect her "privacy?" Or will they continue playing the role of hypocrite?
ALA policy-makers arrogantly overstep the bounds of propriety. If Centennial Library goes along with these irrational, anti-social notions, HPLD and Centennial are just as guilty of American deaths, and flights from justice by perpetrators, as any other aider and abettor of a crime. I strongly object to Centennial Park Library, the other district libraries, and especially HPLD and ALA, as they purposefully hinder the efforts of law enforcement in the collection of data needed to resolve criminal cases of mass murder, acts of terror, and sexual predation.
The books are pretty good. Some of the videos are okay, some pornographic. The computers are very useful for a lot of people. The educational material is greatly appreciated. The loony political policies are overdone, unneeded, counterproductive, arrogant, and virtually criminal in their effect. read more
