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John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Sure, I just lost track of them.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Nope, that's not it. Sorry.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Parents.
Julie Edwards: Awesome. Okay. I am going to start letting everybody in.
Julie Edwards: Hello, everyone! I see many of you starting to join us.
Julie Edwards: We'll get started in just a couple of minutes here, but feel free to come in to our zoom room. Get settled. Hop over to the chat if you would like, and say, Hi, let us know where you're from. We do publish the Chat Transcript, because often, you know, when you get
Julie Edwards: several 100 librarians in a room, there's a lot of great information that goes back and forth in the chat. If you don't want to participate in the chat, you do not have to, but you are welcome to hop over there and let us know where you're from.
Julie Edwards: I see West Virginia. Hello, one of my favorite states, hey? California, North Carolina.
Julie Edwards: Everybody's coming in now. New York, Indiana. Hi, Delaware. Connecticut, Colorado. Welcome, welcome, I those of you who've been in webinars with me before. II always say this is one of my favorite little parts of the webinar. It's like
Julie Edwards: the nerdy librarian. License plate game for me. I love to see where everybody's from.
Julie Edwards: Hey, Washington State, hey, Canada! See you, some of our Canadian colleagues welcome high Salt Lake.
Julie Edwards: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Tennessee. The last time I counted we had 46 of 50 States in a webinar. So.
Julie Edwards: looking to beat that one of these days. Hi, Tennessee.
Julie Edwards: in New Jersey and Arkansas, Nevada. Welcome! Well, I am joining you from Missoula, Montana, and it is the top of the hour, so we will go ahead and get started. Welcome to all of you.
Julie Edwards: I am Julie Edwards. I am a librarian and instructional designer with niche Academy. and you are in this webinar
Julie Edwards: fighting for the first. So let me briefly introduce Niche Academy, and we'll get started. We are an easy to use all-in-one learning platform to help libraries create and deliver effective training and measure success.
Julie Edwards: Our platform is a perfect tool for libraries. If you're looking to increase your E resour usage. Move your programming, including your story times online and deliver on track staff development. So if you're interested in learning more about what we do talking with a member of our team, or hearing what your colleagues have to say, I will drop some links in the chat, so you'll have access to that throughout the webinar.
Julie Edwards: We are recording this webinar and I will make the recording, the slides and the Chat Transcript available to everyone after the presentation. I will email that to you, and it will be available also on our blog. So keep an eye out for that. You're welcome to use closed captioning at the bottom of your screen if you would like to do that, and please feel free to keep chatting with each other in the chat. There are over 300 of us and growing in here now, so questions for the presenter do tend to get lost.
Julie Edwards: If you have a question for John, please put that in the question and answer box, and I will do my best to moderate that at the end of the presentation
Julie Edwards: this webinar
Julie Edwards: is a part of a series part of our commitment to solving bigger problems together. I'm so happy to see so many of you here today. I'll drop a link in the chat to our upcoming Webinars as well. So without further ado, our presenter today is John Kraske. John is a founder and executive director of every library. The National Political Action Committee for Libraries, and the every library institute a public policy and tax policy. Think tank for libraries
Julie Edwards: mit Ctl. And since 2,012 every library has provided pro bono support to 131 library communities with ballot measures and tax referendums, helping win more than 400 million dollars in stable tax funding. He has a long list of experience and kudos to which I want to mention. He was recognized by Library Journal in 2,014 as a mover and Shaker, and recognized just last year
Julie Edwards: by publishers weekly as one of the people of the year. I am thrilled to have John with us today, and with that I will turn the webinar over to him. Small libraries conference
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: we've been not only on a bunch of niche Academy webinars. We've also used them as a a partner of ours to trip to share our training.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: It's nice to be here in this context to to share with you all some things that we've learned in this big conversation happening in the country. The big challenges in fights having country around censorship book Bans the challenges of the day. So the experience that we have is really mentioned comes from 2 areas. One is our political Action Committee side 4 are weird.
C. Four's are are technically super Pacs. So if you've listened to Npr, you've watched Fox news you've heard about Super Pacs. They can raise and expend unlimited money to events there to various special interests.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: You folks are, mind, a very special interest. Congratulations we do not have unlimited money. As Julie mentioned, we do all of our work pro bono, and we're donor supported as an organization. So we have humans around the country who care about libraries and these issues. We have corporate partners and sponsors like our our friends here at Niche Academy, who enable us to do this work
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and then our our side. It is a traditional 5, one c. 3. Nonprofit public policy text policy education policy
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: across both organizations were in the mix on not only the funding opportunities for libraries. Some of the the legislative opportunities that exist for these big challenges, these big issues of the day. We didn't do intellectual freedom. Before, about 2 years ago. The the thing that changed was not the principles around the first amendment, or or how policy should be done. What changed is that? Things became very politicized
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and performative. We've all been paying attention to the history, I'm sure some of you are in the trenches right now.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Some of you are waiting, perhaps, for something to happen, or the other shoe to drop. Some of you are looking to inoculate yourselves against problems. And I wanna address all 3 of you all 3 types of libraries on on this on this presentation. The. The. The fact that things have gotten so out of hand in so many places is is extremely important of knowledge from the beginning.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: What what else I want to acknowledge from the beginning is that I'm not talking in anything that we're doing today
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: about what I would label as a legitimate challenge request to review materials. I think there's a significant difference between someone who has concerns. Someone has
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: questions, somebody who who has a
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: a perspective of coming into the library and saying, I have a first amendment right to ask you about these books I want. I want my. I have a grievance about these books. I'd like to see what the redress looks like.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and the difference between that legitimate, difficult process and these performative, politicized, weaponized attacks on the structure of library. These are different conversations. I have a great deal of respect for anyone who has the courage to come to their governments and you libraries are government. By the way, to come to their government. Say, I got, I got problems.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: How can we fix this problem? What we want to talk about today is is is a situation that basically is a weaponization of the first amendment against itself.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: There's some vectors of attack here that I want to get into. They're coming in from these sensors, the book banners.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: But fundamentally, the reason we're having as much difficulty as we are. And I'd like to pause it as we move through this conversation today, we need to figure out a way to break
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: this, this, not that the first amendment is in. It's tied up amongst itself. If you go back to your High School civics lessons with me for a moment. The First Amendment has 5 freedoms in it, freedom of speech, which is where the right to read comes in
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: freedom of religion, which we need to have a very strong conversation
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: about not, I think this. I think our industry is exemplar. We we are, we are non sectarian to a fault, but we might have lost our ability to talk about the the role of religion and public society and the separation issues between Church and State. Again, your state, your government.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the weaponization of of religious perspectives in this censorship situation should not be under appreciated.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And we are not doing anything wrong by talking about the difference between someone's religious perspective, and and what civil society is which is not sectarian.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Again, the 5 freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. I'm sorry for religion, freedom of the press. We are seeing situations around the country where the the transparency the freedom of access, the freedom of information, the the first amendment audits that are going on that are utilizing the freedom of the press concepts within the first amendment. So basically come in and try and and injure the library in.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Get in front of people with these first amendment audits where they're they're coming in with video cameras. They're coming in with their their camera phones, and they're trying to trap
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: people into into doing something that that they say is a violation of their transparency rights.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I mean the conflicts within freedom of assembly.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Freedom of assembly is is a core element of the first amendment. It's why we have associations to begin with where we can get together and talk about the big ideas. It's why we have boards and commissions that run our our libraries.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And yet we are in a situation now where the freedom of assembly for people to participate in governments. I know some people out there, some of whom in the American West, some of whom the American south.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: where one once we're in particular out West, where
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the library board had to move their meeting their regular meeting to the Federal Building, because it's an open carry. State, and people were coming to that library board meeting in very threatening ways with an open Carry agenda.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and they were utilizing the freedom of Assembly to fight against the freedom of speech.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and again, the right to petition your Government for the redress of grievances. I have a grievance about a book. I think this book is smart.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I think this book is offensive.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Well, sometimes the weaponization of that comes on the religious side where I'm going to negate the people whose stories are being told. There's a significant and important anti Lgbtq agenda that's being advanced for that religious perspective. But fundamentally, if you're in a position where somebody's putting in 100 200 346 different cut and paste
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: challenge petitions. There's no interest in in resolving those things. It's an interest in utilizing the first amendment
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: against the freedom of speech, against the right to read, against the the right of people and their stories told. One of the things I'm looking to do with this conversation today and in some other places around the country right now
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: is to see whether or not
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: well, the the first amendment is deeply conflicted. It's weaponized against itself. How do we break that weaponization? How do we cut the knot? As I said a moment ago. and there has to be a framework. And maybe as we get through this today, thinking this thing through together, there might be, I think there is a framework that would not necessarily look
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: at just the first amendment as a reason to have something in the library.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I'd like to suggest, without constitutionalizing it too much, that there is an equal protection, maybe even a Fourteenth Amendment kind of approach to things where the rights of people who are not in the majority
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the rights of people who are are in a protected class under civil rights and human rights statutes
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: that we want to perhaps lean in on. Why do we bring the book into the library in the first place.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: as a way to cut the knot around? Do we keep the book in the library.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: But I'm gonna come back to that in a few minutes.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: As we go through this today, I want to. I want to make sure that we're we're thinking through again the difference between a legitimate. And I'm using that word in a very loaded way. This is my word, John Graska. Hi! Nice to see you.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The legitimate challenge that comes from a place of of authenticity and sincerely help belief for concern.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And these weaponized challenges and book bans the the number of attacks that are happening have 5 different vectors to them as we're seeing around the country.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The 5 vectors fundamentally are are coming from a a political perspective, a religious perspective, a social perspective that doesn't necessarily want to see the the a progressive tax policy to fund the common good
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and a matrix around civil liberties and civil rights.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: These base building crusaders were initially at the end of 2021, when this whole thing kind of started to blow up for libraries. It was the fact that politicians discovered again that they could use book bans and challenges
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: to build their base.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: It's crass. It's true, though. What's the big issue of the day that we can talk about to motivate people as a dog whistle?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And how can we motivate those those people to join our our, our cause, our campaign.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: How can we get them to donate
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the base building that goes on because of this is a key motivator. For why? Book bans and challenges are done in performative and politicized wastes.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: There is another group out there that is certainly anti people.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: It's anti Lgbtq, it's anti community color. They have an agenda that is about erasure or minimization of the dignity of those individuals. And book bans are a proxy for fighting. It's much easier to ban a book than it is to be on record as being a bigot.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Another vector is, of course, the the classic anti tax anti government groups. These groups are very interested in in closing down parts of government sidelining, reducing taxes, and they're riding along
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the anti Public Education anti Union vectors around book bans and challenges should not be under appreciated. And it's not just in K. 12. So that's the primary place. If we can discredit educators, we can discredit educ public education.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the the movement to do private education vouchers some kinds of charters folks. The reason I'm bringing this up, and especially this, concerns around spiritual warfare, moral panic, parental control. Parental concern is that if you are fighting against one of these groups
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in your community. And you know who they are. You can answer
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the challenge
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: based on the vector it's coming from rather than assuming that these are people app operating in a particular kind of of bad faith, that we have to get out of our assumptions and really analyze the the source of the attacks, because
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: none of them
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in the end are interested in resolving the challenge in a way that has equanimity to it has due process embedded in it, or respects the outcome.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Where is it coming from? Matters a great deal for us to fight it properly?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And it's not just about book bans and in in libraries, as we are hopefully at this point in in in the season
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: 2023. Very clear about this is hitting legislation. We saw 17 different criminalization bills this last legislative session. Every library worked very hard in coalition with State library associations on 12 to a post, 12 of them. Directly
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: there were 2 that were lost around the country, Arkansas and Indiana. The Arkansas legislation was actually brought to court by Arkansas library advocates to to have an injunction against the criminalization provisions as well as some of the book ban provisions that were in in that. In that legislation, folks. This is a systematic approach
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: to move the believers of society to a place that might be
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: well, maybe it's from the 1950 s. Maybe it's 19 thirties, maybe the 18 seventies. And I'm bringing this all up because
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: there's a comprehensive, I mean, if we look simply at the the groups that want to eliminate sex. Ed.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in K, 12.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: If we wanna look at folks who want to get rid of sex, Ed and gender studies in education, they're utilizing these book bans in a way, and this legislation around criminalization of the profession to say that that the county prosecutor somewhere, some da somewhere, can go after a a school librarian or a public librarian.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: because the books that they have are somehow or another, obscenity, obscenity.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the the hope in that group is to see the end of sex. Ed. By criminalizing the professions that are teaching
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: or collecting on topics that they feel are sexualized.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Now that doesn't ring true to me personally or professionally, which is one of the reasons that we're engaged in this fight so deeply.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: One of the problems that we see around the country.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: With book ban and censorship campaigns is a disconnect, not just about the the structure of law, but about the way that the language of politics is, is operationalized.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and I think that it's important for us, as a professional community, to to look at the way the political conversation happens in our communities, not just the first amendment, not just the the civil liberties, conversations.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And I'm bringing this up because the way that we choose to tax ourselves, the way that we do our policies, our budgets and our programs are political in nature. Fundamentally.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the the politics is where we see our value system expressed.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Most clearly, it's not a consumer conversation, it's not transactional. It's not retail that you're doing as part of government. Public libraries are an expression of the value system of the voters and the politicians and the elected officials.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So, having a having an understanding that these book, ban and challenges, whether they're legitimate or or or politicized are in a context that is fundamentally political.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: There's 3 languages of politics that are when we go back one side. There's 3 languages of politics that I'm inspired by a book called
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: of the same name by a phone. Arnold Cling. He's a fellow at the Libertarian Cato Institute. He says that the that every political perspective has a hero narrative
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in a villain narrative.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: They're internally cohesive, and the villain is not the other party or the other political perspective. It's it's a set of characteristics. Likewise. The hero is always about us.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: His mode of thinking is that progressives progressives are heroes are people who've stood up for the underprivileged
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and a lot of our idioms and libraries I got to be honest with. You are very progressive, because our villains are people, the people we cannot stand as progressives are folks who are indifferent to oppression of women, minorities in the poor.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the initiatives that we have in libraries, that are very progressive, I think, are are fairly easy to identify, but also the the framework around our language in as library, as like library workers, librarians.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So if you look at the national voter file, and you look at at the the people who donate, who donate to politics, you have to. When you donate to Presidential campaigns, declare where you work.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And Bloomberg news took a look at the people who who donated to the Biden Trump campaign in 2020,
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and determined very clearly that of the people who have the word library attached to their their file, which you have to disclose to the Federal election Commission. As a donor, 9 out of 10 of them donated to biden.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: That's more than capstone into trump.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and in the National voter file, where you can look at at states that have partisan primaries. You have to pull a ballot for a particular party 70, somewhere around 78% of people who get the word library attached to their voter file are pulling Democrat or independent balance.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We have a lot of comfort in
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: talking about progressive issues in our industry. And as an industry. And let's think about any of you individually, you might fall to other camps.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: But if we're looking at a conversation where the audience is different than a progressive audience. And we're having a conversation about something as important as the first Amendment or civil rights protections for minorities.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We need to look at our own vocabulary
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in 3 languages, politics, Mister Kling talks about Conservatives as well as progressives and libertarians. Congress conservatives have a hero narrative. The people who stood for Western values.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and I can't think of a more conservative institution than libraries. In fact, a lot of our work in libraries is to try and decolonize our collections. Decolonize Dewey. I mean, my goodness, we're we're trying to move away from that that strict conservative approach whose hero narrative says, we stand up. There's villain narrative, says the people, I cannot stand as a Conservative are the people who are indifferent to the assault on the moral virtues and traditions that it's foundation of our civilization.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And we've had campaigns around the country.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and some of you have experienced them personally where the yard signs in the front lawn. Say, Defund the library, get rid of the groomers and pedophiles.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: folks, how do we get to the point where we are the barbarians of the gate.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And yet our civic institution, our community anchor institution. The work that we do is fundamentally as a conservator of local and and and societal memory
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: of identity.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Now as progressives, we're trying to expand the number of identities that are conserved. But fundamentally. how do we get back to a point where we are not seen as the ones who are assaulting moral virtues.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: then the final language of politics that he talks about in his book.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and if you like politics, by the way, you should totally pick this up, it's a free ebook. If you don't like politics, you should totally pick it up. Just don't read it before bed. All right.
My heroes as a libertarian, according to Mr. Kling, are people who stood for individual rights.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The people I cannot stand as a libertarian are. People are indifferent to the Government taking away people's ability to make their own choices folks a book ban
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: government imposed speech is the single biggest civil liberties violation that a library can do.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and we are not having successful conversations right now with the libertarians.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The the this is not just a right to read issue. This is the structure of our civil society
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in a democratic republic. and the libertarians should be with us more than they are right now. and I'd like to suggest that we have a big big problem with libertarians is that we are not willing to have a conversation first about taxes.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Libertarians want to have a conversation about, you know, the smallest part, the smallest kind of government.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and I would suggest that public libraries in this country are the most efficient part of government anywhere.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and we are hesitant as a profession to talk about our money.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Where does where does tax money go? How do we use it? What what do we do with it? I mean, when when your tax bill at home the public library is maximum leverage for a de minimis amount of cash.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The libertarians should already be with us, in fact, so it's it's not. It's not a continuum. It's a progressive, conservative libertarian. It's a horseshoe.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and I think that our first bridge building around, resetting this conversation about book bans and censorship, the attacks on the the library and the librarians and the library workers is not to try and reset everything the Conservatives are going through. It's got to be in a context, where we build new relationships with the other political voice, which is that libertarian voice.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: not just about the civil rights side of being a progressive for the civil liberties core fundamental civil liberties about defending and fighting for the first.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And I think that we can get there then with the Conservatives. because they don't want to see us like this, because it's not a true conservative. In my opinion, it's a problem. It's this fourth way of politics that Mr. Kling starts to talk about in this book, but he wrote it really before the present moment.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The fourth way of politics that is not interested in in progressive, conservative or libertarian ideals. It's interested in something around like burning the whole place down.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and I'm not even sure if they're disrupting or dismantling it in order to save it.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The the the hero narrative there is inconsistent as a progressive myself, I mean Hi, I'm John. I run a political action Committee for libraries. I'm in suburban Chicago, you know. Like I'm I might be a Democrat.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Okay, like. put that all aside. I don't understand where this comes from, because I'd like to live in a society.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I'd like to live in a place where there's a progressive tax policy that funds the common good that we can. We can do some things together to take care of our neighbors.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So remember who we are and develop, you know, with with a low barrier. who we want to be.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We have to have these political conversations across political lines in order to get to a point again where the folks who are trying to burn society down
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: these, these politicized and performative attacks on people and on institutions and on your profession.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: These folks who are trying to burn society down should be really seen for what they are, which is, in in my opinion, in a conservative milieu. the barbarians of the game.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: How do we get to a point team where we can honestly, loudly say they have gone too far.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: you know, if somebody else agree with us.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Alright. let's talk about activism for a few minutes. Because that's how we translate our value system into action. whether it's a progressive value system, a libertarian value system or a true conservative value system.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Activism is the core of of what we do at every library when we're not working on ballot measures and fighting for school librarian positions.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: When we get involved in one of these politicized or performative fights for the first amendment, for the structure of libraries, for the stories that are being told and attempting to be erased. We have 3 principles that we bring to the discussion number one.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We always wanna try and identify who the legitimate local stakeholders are in the fight because it sometimes isn't the library any more. Some of our libraries have been lost to us because the board has been taken over.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: or some of our libraries have been lost, because the librarians themselves aren't necessarily in alignment with the the ethical framework of librarianship
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: where the board has been taken over the the legitimate local stakeholders, quite frankly, are often the populations whose stories are being erased
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the principles of librarianship. I'm not trying to pull out straws here, folks. These are. Those are the legitimate stakeholders in a process like this.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: then what we always want to do is center the people who are affected most in the campaign.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So if it is an attack on Lgbtq is attack on communities of color, but it's an attack on
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: people are new to the community who are different color or ethnic origin or religious perspective.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: who is being most impinged by this fight because it's not just the first amendment as a set of principles. There's human beings in this.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And then can we work as an organizational partner to amplify their agenda?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We're not setting agendas, we we we're not an agenda setting organization in every library. If we help you on your on your election day. I'm not coming in telling your board that they need to build a new building. You all have figured out that you needed to build a new building. Let me help you amplify to the voters
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the same here about your value system and your identity as people who care about populations. This place you call home
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: alright. I'm not gonna talk about challenges. Across the top, which is like when there's a bad thing that happens. Then we have policies that are able to be applied. There's a process that goes through. Look! It goes from red challenge to to green. There's a good outcome.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: They're difficult. they're hard. they're uncomfortable.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: But there's an agreement on the part of progressives, conservatives, and libertarians, about civil society, civil rights and civil liberties, stakeholders that we're going to go through the process.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: What I'm talking about is on the bottom. When when there's this disruptive or dismantling kind of force, the politicized and performative group that wants to exercise power or political agenda.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and when, in the in the absence of organizing, banning happens. Reading happens, books disappear.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: What I want to talk about today for for a little bit is, how do you get organized for a fight. That's not just about the first amendment, but it's about these different principles.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And it starts with that inventory we did earlier about, where is it coming from? It starts with the centering of those populations that are affected. But I wanna I wanna wanna get in this with you here. Where? How do you get organized properly, either inside the library to defend or from outside of the library? To correct.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: we do a 4 dogs metaphor
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: on these campaigns, and I like the 4 dogs metaphor. You know, I'm not much of a dog person myself, because a lot of you are. I wanna I wanna spin this up? There's 4 dogs in the fight when you're fighting for the first amendment or the people who's
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: stories are being erased otherwise before dogs are organizing principles that are, you know. Really, you can do it on the inside to defend. You can do it on the outside to correct.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: There's a watchdog approach where you set up a group that wants to function as a Shadow Board
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: to either affirm what a good board is doing or correct, what a bad board is is proposing or following.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: There's a guard dog methodology there where you. You need more guard dogs because of the people who show up for the fight. There's a bird dog. When somebody says to you, John, I want to take an action, and I don't know what to do. The bird dog says, Well, you go here and you do that, and we'll fix the problem together.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And then, as a guide dog, which is fundamentally about? How do we help each other? Especially from positions of strength or positions where we're not under attack? How do we help folks who are under attack
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: spinning it up a little bit more, and
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: we're very happy to talk this through with you. If you need some help from every library we want to help you pro bono for free
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the watchdog group. Usually in a community, we help set up a watchdog group where. if the board is about to do something bad. How do we correct them?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And so it's a group of of humans in the community who might have some stature might have some experience. Couple of retired librarians, sure, but I also like to have other folks with gray hair education, stakeholders, arts and culture, business, civil society.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: civil liberties, sure affected populations absolutely.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: They provide a moral compass and act as a watchdog group by saying, This is how it should be going.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We either want to affirm how it's going, or want to correct it, and that this watchdog group then defines what the proper outcome is. We need to restore those books to the shelf. What that does is it sets up a situation where it's not. It's not just the opinion of some of some activists going into a library Board meeting. It's the opinion of a of a Shadow Board of Trustees.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: or in education, the Shadow Board of of Directors for that library or school district. We come together and caucus the big ideas.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: then the guard dogs in town. They these are the people who show up. These are the activists.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: They help identify other activists. They do the work. They're the ones who are really in the trenches. Some of you are these people. I know that already they defend, they defend the integrity of the process. They say the watchdogs are right.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: they defend the competency and integrity of of the truth of librarianship. They look at the affected populations and allies, and they bring in more guard dogs.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: It's very important
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: to meet these performative and politicized challenges
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in the similar venue.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Sometimes it's at board meetings. Sometimes it's a community meeting groups, sometimes it's in social media.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: These are the groups that the the guard dogs are where sometimes you have to go to court.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: because the only recourse is to go talk to the Federal judge about restoring rights.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and this is usually where a plaintiff comes from. and this takes tremendous courage.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So part of our work at every library is to try and help build that courageous group of of guard dogs to do effective
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: activism. This is not an advocacy campaign. This is activism.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: likewise bird dogs. That's another component of the group between watchdog guard dog.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The third group is the bird, the Bird Dog Group. They're within the structure of the advocacy organization of the the activism organization. When again somebody comes to me and says, John, I'm not paying a lot of attention.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: but my moral compass seems like it's variant from this book challenge. This doesn't look right. What do I need to know what I need to do real fast, because I'm not going to pay a lot of attention.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I'm a nice person. I'll help if I'm able to, and asked to.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So the Bird Dog group manages social media. It manages the the, the digital tools. It makes it easy for people to put their their moral compass to work their value system work to identify as somebody who cares enough about.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Let's say, the library. Maybe the first amendment definitely, the humans whose stories are being erased. Otherwise
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: they are focused on direct action. And the digital pathways here means that we know
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: as the organizing group
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: who they are with their email addresses. And maybe we've got our cell number, too.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: because when things break. these are long campaigns.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the Bird Dog group of of every day activists are not going to be involved the same way the guard dog is. we have to help not only identify who they are, we have to cultivate them and empower them with the right tools.
And then, finally, the fourth dog I speak of. Empowerment is us, not every library exclusively, by any means. It's the all y'all, as they say down in Texas.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the whole the whole bunch of us standing together as as a library community, and sitting together and standing up for what's right and appropriate.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The the solidarity that we need to have with each other, especially those folks who are under attack. Nationally, we've we've got some pathways to help build that. But what we want to be able to do is is show up
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in authentic ways.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: One of the ways we do it. Every library. And I appreciate Nisha Academy for giving me a moment here to to showcase some things that we're doing specifically and not just in theory.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We help build library alliances and education coalitions freedom to read groups
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: parents, alliances and things like that. The the fight for the first tool that we have on every library, from every library and the other library institute is that digital
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: platform for bird dogs? Somebody says, John, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to what I do. You go here, you do this.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We've got a whole set of tools that help support first amendment, civil rights, civil liberties and civil disobedience campaigns. Because some of you are in a civil disobedience mode would love to get back to civil liberties and civil rights.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: People want to take an action. They want to put some of their, their, their budget to work as activists. They they have, they have money. Sometimes they want to donate to a cause. They have
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: time, and they want to become part of the the steering committee, the Guard Dog group, but they have their good name. So petitions and direct mail tools email tools, event management. So we could do like positive events for the library. Negative events and rallies.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: providing places on fight for the first.org, so that these groups can get together and learn from each other, and we provide some support directly from every library other groups come in and help as well.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: we provide fundraising tools. So again, if somebody's got money as an activist, they want to put it to work doing donations through our C 3 side, which is charitable. C. 4. Side, which is political.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We bring on fight for the first org support for media outreach and every single campaign that goes up there, whether it's the new one, this last couple of days in Lano, Texas, to support the the first amendment issues there and then directly support the plaintiffs in that lawsuit. Whether it's Sparta Township
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: New Jersey, where the school district is, is is going through some real trauma right now. About the right to reading the school libraries, but it's Glenridge, New Jersey, with the public library I got. We have 49 of them up right now. I'd love to have as many as are necessary.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We always put our budget behind advertising. because everything else, unless you put advertising dollars behind this stuff. Everything else is just awareness building. and the world is too noisy to expect an awareness building campaign to to get anywhere. Quite frankly.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: here's some examples you can review these at your leisure later on. We also provide a lot of support for our association partners in these Bad bill fights, and I'm very proud of our association partnerships as well. Again. Fight for the first.org.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Julie. Thank you for the time to do a commercial. But our sincere hope is that these pro bono competent tools can be utilized
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: alright. I'm gonna turn the corner here got a few more minutes of of content for you. I wanna remind you to put questions, comments, concerns in the Q&A.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I want to get to him in a few minutes. There are my alarm sets. We can have a few minutes on the QAII I'm very interested in what you have to think. What would you think about this next little section here?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: these are some big issues about, how do we? How do we not only address and mitigate crisis, but how do we inoculate us as our libraries and our industry against future problems?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: How do we allow our value system
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: on our identity as people who care enough about reading and access and and equity
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: to be represented in our local state and Federal policies and budgets.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Alright! Let me talk about boards and staff for a minute from the context of being unprepared, and the emotional life of going through a a censorship challenge. But that's performative and politicized.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Very much a situation where we know from hand holding, coaching, standing alongside, standing along with that these are emotionally draining situations, and we have to talk about the emotional life of our boards and our staffs
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: when labeling is being done
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and pejoratives are being used part of our solidarity with each other is is to support each other and to address the emotional life of being in a context that we did not sign up, for
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I don't know any librarian who signed up to do this work.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The the frontline staff who are getting these challenges folks. We have to be in a position about supporting each other in that emotional context.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The other situation is that a lot of us are working and serving on boards. All of us are serving on boards based on the jurisdiction. We live in. A lot of a lot of you are working in libraries where you live, or you're just over the you know the next town over
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The fact that we've been nudged or shoved from being nice neighbors, neighbors or beloved librarians into something as pejorative as a groomer
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: folks. That's terrifying.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The the people who are supposed to be in a position to fight for the first amendment at your library to defend the principles of of free speech and free expression, to defend the fact that we're collecting materials about people who are not part of the majority population.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: When someone is unprepared for these kind of fights, someone is unprepared for the fundamentals of this people react in one of 2 ways, and this is boards and staff.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: They ran to either fear or shame.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And I'm not being hyperbolic here. This happens day to day all the time in in library settings, where you know. Nobody told me that this was the decision that we were gonna do. And now I'm gonna fight you
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: on a on a board when they have to make a decision about money, and they haven't been paying attention. How do they react? It's either through fear. And they're gonna put their head down and they're gonna flee
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: that fight you over this because they're unprepared for or
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: with shame.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And a lot of these challenges are about issues that we maybe have never talked about previously.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We've maybe never considered as individuals. I mean, there's some things in some of these books that I'm like, Wow! I am a so early middle aged, early, middle aged white guy cisgendered, heteronormative. And I'd be like, Wow, the panoply of of of human sexual and gender identity expression. I really need to educate myself
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and be a little bit more compassionate. And I'm I'm one of the good guys. Maybe
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I'm not suggesting anybody's a bad guy who's on a library board or library staff. But if we have not thought this stuff through together.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We know from our polling here at every library
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: that 92% of Americans oppose book bans. And yet 41% of that, 92%
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: are soft.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: They're soft in their opposition for book bands because of either fear or shame. Now a lot of it has to do with shame. I think. the the idea that
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: if you introduce a book about race and about our uncomfortable history of race in this country, support for book bans increases by 18 to 25%. If you introduce the fact that these are books about sex or sexuality or gender stuff I've never considered. I don't even know a gay person. Well, I do. I just don't know. I know a gay person.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: It goes up to 42% of people are like, well, maybe we should ban the book. Maybe it's a little too much for those kids.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I want to go past that internally, so that when the fight comes to us. We can address it for what it is
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: from the beginning, with strength and integrity.
The 5 freedoms I came I mentioned those about I don't know 50 min ago.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The 5 freedoms, freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, Orient petition, are fighting with each other.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: They're fighting with each other. They always have in America.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: If you're watching from Canada. This is a whole other mode. I I'm not suggesting that you should be doing anything I'm about to. I'm about to talk about in Canada your charter of freedom and rights is entirely different. It was. It was built in the progressive era. It centers people in it. Your charter of freedom and rights, our rights and freedoms is, is is not
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: what I'm talking about here at all. What I'm talking about here is a document that was written in the 1790 S.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: It's an enlightenment era
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: framework. It says that Congress shall make no law that abridges these rights and freedoms
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and and and by extension.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: well, it's not a first the first amendment is not a collection of development rubric at all.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The first moment is not a collection development rubric. It's a collection of retention rubric.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And the big thing in the first Amendment is whether or not the book is illegal or not. If it's legal, we keep it, it's illegal. We get rid of it. and illegality is defined in several different ways, mostly around obscenity.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: What I want to do is try and break this, not for for the United States of America, and get to a point where we can look at equal protection, perhaps, and the rights of minorities to have their stories told that are represented the rights of minorities, race ethnicity, gender, sexual identity.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: religion. I mean. I didn't even love to extend it to something that's not a particular place which is political.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Those public library folks on the on the Webinar today.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: we have a lesson to learn, I think, from our our colleagues in schools.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Th th there's one of 3 reasons to bring a book into into a school. It's either relevant to the curriculum. It's relevant to the standards or it's relevant to the unique role of a school library
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: relevance to the curriculum or standards. Let's say it's about it's a sex. Ed. Course. it's a hard book for Ap. It's a book about art. And so it's gonna have maybe naked pictures of people in it, because that's kind of art.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the relevance of those books to that curriculum and that standard, the relevance of the books so that every kid can have self determination and not just study time. The relevance of those books is not based on appropriate or inappropriate.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: because all of our fights right now on these weaponized and politicized challenges are about who gets to define what is appropriate, and who gets to define what is inappropriate. And right now
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in the United States of America, based on the first amendment, is our only recourse. It's always a fight about whether it's seen or not.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So we're trying to define identities, people, populations, as somehow or another, criminal or obscene. That's what that's what obscenity is this criminal code.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: It tends to be a fight between people. And I'm gonna be really frank with you here, based on a lot of experience out there in the field right now, a bunch of bigots who have an opinion about inappropriate, and a bunch of good librarians who have an opinion
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: about appropriate.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: because we need to root in some significant ways. Our DEI. Initiatives
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: in something
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: more than just our ethical framework. We have to put our Dei initiatives into a place where we are really, truly working to defend protected classes, because all we have otherwise is this
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: with a Miller test, which says, is the book of scene.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: whether the person, if you don't know the Miller test. Please look it up. It's it's the operative part of the first amendment law case law from 1,973. It's the standard by which almost every collection development policy that hasn't been taken over by the wrong side, every standard collection development policy. I'm sorry. Every every
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: challenge policy challenge policy because it's about retention. It's first amendment
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: whether the average person applying contemporary community standards would fund the work taken as a whole.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: appealing to the period interests. So we always have these things to justify. The book is appropriate, because it's only a small part of the book that you've taken as a whole. Otherwise that little part, if you cherry, pick that little part out. Yeah, it's difficult
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: whether the work depicts or describes an apparently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable State law.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: There's a whole. I'll come back to this a second. Whether the work team is a whole like serious, literary, artistic, political, scientific value. It's why we say, thank goodness for Kirkus cause they've done a a a review of it saying, this book is worth having in the library.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: but then applicable State law component here
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the the contemporary community standards. Here, folks, we live in a society where gay marriage is legal.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We live in a society where civil rights have been in place. as as as a core component of of
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Federal law and State laws since the 1960 s.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: That someone has dignity under the law and protection under the law, if the even if they're not part of the majority.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and I'd like to suggest that we've got a place to go with this as public libraries, school libraries. It's a different webinar. Julia, come back and do a school library webinar. It's a different set of law. It's related
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires places of public accommodation
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: to not discriminate. There's an anti discriminatory requirement on places of public accommodation, and I'd like to suggest that public libraries are not just a limited public forum under the first amendment or a place of public accommodation under civil rights law. Why should we be discriminating at the front door over race, color, religion, national origin?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We shouldn't be discriminating in our collection development policies.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: our display policies, our meeting room policies, either. Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1 64. Where was discrimination on a number of different classes. This is Federal
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: on programs that receive Federal financial assistance. Thank you. I, Mls and Lsta.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: thank you. NEAN. Thank you. The Infrastructure and Jobs Act and the Digital Equity Act
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: folks we're already required in as as whether we're government library, municipal library or for nonprofits operating under contract with municipalities.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Likewise title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, and religion by state and local government employers.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Every every single one of these fights. It says, well, our local control says that we should be able to to to talk about what books we want here.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Local control doesn't exist about employment protections, civil rights, employment protections, local control. If your Local Library board says, I don't want to hire gay people.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and they're going to say, no gay people need apply for this job. That's a Federal law suit.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Now, I'm not suggesting that we can get all the way there with civil rights protections for collection development. But I'd like to see if we can't get somewhere closer to that.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: because these local control issues object the fact that we live in a society, for example, that has gay marriage.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So why don't we have books that are relevant to families with 2 same-sex partners.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: We, we noticed Post Bostock. Bostock was a ruling a couple of months, couple couple years ago from the Supreme Court that says, transgender people have a right to to have their, their, their gender expression as they so desire or so feel recognized in their workplace.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Why don't we have those extended like we've been talking about race in this country for the entire biography of our of our nation.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And yet the anti discrimination requirements that are there, and I guarantee that your State's requirements on anti-discrimination are more robust than the Federal framework. And again, as I mentioned before, in the in the K 12 environment. There's a title, 9, framework. It's a little different part of law. Title 6 title nine's gender and sex. That's why we have this big conversation about about girls sports in K. 12 and title 6, of course, is race and national origin is also religion. In there
the Us. Department of Education
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: is starting to look at civil rights protections and the civil rights climate, the discriminatory climate in schools
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: about book bans
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: that they found recently, very recently in Forsyth County, Georgia.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Forsyth County, Georgia School district. Banned some books, and every library was very proud to work with the forset, county education, coalition, some brave parents and and residents
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: said, we wanna oppose these book bands, and and within that watch, dog, guard, dog, bird, dog.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: guide, dog framework.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Some parents said, our kids are being discriminated against our kids are being discriminated against, not by them pulling the books, but by exclusively, but by all of the other things going on that are bigoted
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: from the the board of our school district to our administration. The Us. Department of Education came in and did an investigation.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and they they they agree with us parents.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and they published A what's called a resolution agreement. If it wasn't K. 12, it would be a consent decree where the board and the administration of that school district has to get back to good
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: partially by putting the books back on the shelf partially by de-escalating the bigotry.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the civil rights violations getting these kids back to an environment there where they can learn with dignity as individuals.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I'd I'd like to suggest that we've got a place to go here where we we get away from the inappropriate and and appropriate conversation and get that relevance.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: If we have books that are relevant to a protected class
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: based on race or national origin, on gender or sexual identity on religion. then we have a good justification to put them in our collections, and a stronger justification not to remove them.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: because the First Amendment looks at obscenity. and we no longer allow
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: someone coming in with a performative or politicized book ban to define those human beings
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: as obscene when they are in fact protected.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I got one bit of advice for you here, and I'm about to go into QA. Mode, Julie.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: My alarm's about to go off. I have to turn it. Off. There we go. I got one more piece of advice for all the public Library folks in the room tonight. Today
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I need you to write a memo. Well, not you. I need your lawyer to write a memo.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I need your your lawyer to write a memo before you need it.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and maybe retrospectively, if you're already in the in the thick of it.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: The policies of your library and and of School boards are the most local expression of Federal and State law in the constitutional, and states
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: those policies that you've got
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: are not unique to the library. Free expression is is not unique to the library. Privacy? Is it unique to the library hipaa, you know, on the health side.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: these these
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: virtues of our profession, this ethical, firm profession, exists not just because we've got a code of ethics. It's because
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the first amendment in human rights and civil rights
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: protections under law guarantee it.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I need a memo
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: from your lawyer that goes through the first amendment.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the differences between public libraries and school libraries.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: It puts those good people, those good neighbors that we've had, those nice people who are governing your library, those nice humans who you work with
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: on notice about the first amendment from civil liberties perspective. And then the memo goes a little further, perhaps, than you've. You've thought it before. State statutes and court cases
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: around the exemptions from prosecution, the defense from prosecution for our institutions and our and our professionals to remind people that A. Da. Cannot walk in county prosecutor and most States cannot walk in and put a target on your back
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: that really de-escalates things. And then a new place where we have to spend more time. What are the relevant State statutes about civil rights and human rights and discrimination and protections
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: that may be impinged. If a book ban happens not just the first amendment.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: relevant state statistics about libraries and the and the role of the board? Absolutely. because all these things are super local.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: But why did we bring the book into library? In the first place, not just a litmus test about while we can keep it.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Julie. I hope this has been interesting to you. I know that you serve on your own board. I'm wondering. what's up with you? What's up with the Q. And a.
Julie Edwards: Thank you, John. First let me say, thank you. This has been a lot of great content. We have a lot of questions. We'll try to get through as many as we can, but I will let you all know that they're really complicated and thoughtful, so it may take a bit.
Julie Edwards: Oh, boy, where to start. Okay, somebody's asking. I've heard about astroturfing disguising big money and influences grassroots movement. Is there a good way to pull up these behind the scenes agents? One main obstacle is charitable organizations, and Npos, not having to disclose financial records. So this was referring to your comments earlier about knowing where it's coming from.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: There are 1099 disclosures that charitable organizations need to make about their funders and about their their grantees political action committees do not have to and it's a part of being a 504 ourselves that we don't like. At every library we ask our donors to disclose. We talk about the programs that we're working on. But there is a bit of a black box here. But charitable groups you can. You can do discovery on
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: likewise, if there are behaviors on the part of 5, one or 5, one c. 4. Organizations, or other kind of political activities that are illegal.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Those are something that could be reported either to the Irs or to potentially to to an attorney. General.
Julie Edwards: Fantastic. Thank you.
Julie Edwards: Lot of people are asking about the specific work of every library in particular, the work around building watchdog groups. Can you speak a little bit more about that? People want to know, how do you manage potential attacks on watchdog group members who should be members of this group to begin with that kind of thing.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: So we we it's a voluntary arrangement for folks in the community who are offended by what's going on. We invite people. Well, the the first step is is to to find out whether or not the library staff, the director or the board can act in their own behalf if they can. There's a pathway to to working, if they cannot.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: the single biggest thing that you can do in your community to encourage more people to show up and fight for what they believe in is to give them permission to do it.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: This is very sincere on my part. There are a lot of humans out there who want to be part of a watchdog group or guard dog group want to be bird dogs for this thing?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Who wanna fight for for the principals who will not take an action until they're given permission to do it. and the single biggest thing that a library director or a board member can do when they're stuck
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: when they can't speak, is to have that private conversation that says, I trust you. I believe that you and I are on the same page, and I give you permission
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: is good. People do not want to screw it up worse by acting on their own. but, like there, there are plenty of people who say I would have helped if I had been asked.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: I would have helped if I had only known, is one thing that's marketing and outreach.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Help them know that's happening. But the people who are like. I would've helped you if I'd only been asked
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: giving your activists. your your allies, your your organizers, your your your different dogs, permission that might be the single biggest thing you can do. Now, how do we build their skills? How do we work in solidarity? How we ensure that their their integrity and their safety.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Each of those are bespoke campaigns. Some places. It's people of a certain age or demography who are in some way shape or form immune other times. It's about, how do we make sure that we're we're not gonna be subject to doxing and other issues like that folks. This is not a toolkit. There is no toolkit for this.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Every library is capable. There are times where we bring in other groups that might be better suited to it to help train, coach, guide, and support. This is not me doing 45 min in here, cut and paste this.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Give me a call if we can help legitimately will. If we're not the right fit, we're going to move you along to somebody else who is.
Julie Edwards: Thank you. Someone's asking any advice on what can be done to navigate and address bad faith, library, board appointments.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: That the the the political nature of library board appointments? We have to become comfortable. Talk. Well, 2 things, 3 things. One is that historically, library directors have wanted compliance boards, and we tend to find the most virtuous boards being the the board of trustees that shows up establishes a quorum and votes for we tell them to, we need to get away from that
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and we need to to be understanding that in these, in these kind of contexts for this conflict
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: that's democracy at play. So how do we get better at democracy.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: so helping to improve the skill sets of of the board members who are on the right side.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and then bad faith appointments the political.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Who else cares about a bad faith appointment? How do you build a broader coalition around good government around the integrity of of those board appointments?
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Again, it's bespoke. It's particular. It's peculiar to each community.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: but it has to be addressed.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and the library director is not often the the right person to do it sometimes it's the one or 2 remaining good members of the Board.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Sometimes it's a broader civil society conversation, but I'm happy to help think it through.
Julie Edwards: Thank you. Excuse me. I think we have a time for one more question.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Someone's asking, does every library offer consulting or help on creating rights, affirming policies. We've been revising our policies. We've made improvements, but it's difficult to get in wording that's inclusive. That won't come back to bite us in a lawsuit, library associations on a rights affirmative framework for legislation.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: As opposed to Banning book ban bills, Banning book ban bills. II like the idea of them, but they're difficult, because.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: you're weaponizing more, you're weaponizing parts of the first amendment, I guess itself. And I don't know if that's gonna survive a strict scrutiny, due process conversation. So we are working with several State Library associations right now on this more civil rights, human rights rights, affirmative framework with the idea, then, that that those State legislation would empower and require, like library boards, to follow those human rights civil rights? principles
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: on the local level. What we want to do is see whether or not you have an ordinance in your city county. If there's laws in the state that we could. Reference is you want to base it existing statutes or ordinances.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: and it's a little bit of forensic work.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: but yes, the the frameworks available. Please give me a call. And in effect, Julie, if I if I could, anyone's available or anyone's eligible to to give us a call, you know. My email addresses up here, phone numbers up here. If you want to text me, that's awesome. And if you wanna see more of what we're doing. These are the the different bird dog assets and some of the watchdog stuff that we've got. So
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: thank you, Julie, I appreciate the time today.
Julie Edwards: Thank you so much, John. We really appreciate it as well. You're getting some. Thank yous in the chat. And yes, to answer some questions that are coming up in the chat. I will be sending out the slides and the recording and the Chat Transcript and Audio Transcript. I was going to mention. There are so many more questions we didn't get to. I was going to mention to please contact John. There's a lot of of good work that's being done out there.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: And he is graciously offered his contact information. He's also really easy to find online. So
Julie Edwards: and for those of you who are interested. John is coming back on September sixth for a webinar with Niche Academy on future proofing your library. So there is more of this to come. This is such an important topic in libraries right now and in our community. Thank you all for attending. I'll get all this information out to you in a few days, and with that I hope you all have a great afternoon.
John Chrastka - EveryLibrary: Bye, team. Thank you.