Helen R. Adams has a new book out, Ensuring Intellectual Freedom and Access to Information in the School Library Media Program (Libraries Unlimted: 2008).
Helen and I coauthored a chapter and a chart with Helen on First Amendment and school libraries which you can download:
Chapter2 The First Amendment in School Library Media Programs.doc
Table of Court Cases on Intellectual Freedom Involving Minors' Rights.doc
Tags: court cases, first amendment, school libraries, school media centers
Helen Adams, co-author of Privacy in the 21st Century: Issues for Public, School, and Academic Libraries, Libraries Unlimited and Privacy Matters columnist for School Library Media Activities Monthly and Peg Burington, assistant library director and teen coordinator in the Waupaca Area Public Library, Waupaca Wisconsin have some advice for librarians faced with this difficult situation.
Minow: Helen, what do you advise school librarians when they are faced with a student who they think is deeply troubled and who they notice checking out or downloading information on something like bomb-making or how to commit suicide?
Adams: While we know that school librarians should extend the maximum amount of privacy to students, there are times when one is concerned by a student’s demeanor, sudden change in personality, dramatic switch in friends, a move toward isolation, or a fixation with information on risky or criminal activity. When this occurs, my first act would be to talk to the student casually but confidentially. If, after a period of time, I was still concerned, I would advise seeking out the school’s guidance counselor. The guidance counselor is already bound by confidentiality, so it is not the same as revealing the information to a teacher or the principal. The counselor may already know the child, may have obtained from other sources similar reports, and has training and experience on how to proceed in such a situation. The principal, on the other hand, may feel compelled to call the parents right away, fearing liability for the school. That is, if it’s found that s/he knew about this and didn’t take action, someone might sue. In the case of rumors of possible violence toward teachers or other students, the principal may feel a call to the police is required to protect the safely of all students.
It’s unlikely a school library would have a book on bomb-making; however, substitute any topic for “bomb-making” [war, weaponry, homosexuality, abortion, etc.]. Minors have the right to receive ideas and information from their school’s library as part of their First Amendment rights, and they should not be subjected to undue scrutiny while using library resources. School librarians should be extending maximum privacy to patrons who are minors. Only parents have the right to limit or restrict their own children’s choice of reading – whether in a public or school library setting.
The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires that educators monitor students’ Internet use. Observing a student looking at a page on bomb-making or guns could elicit several possible reactions. One could consider that the student accidentally found that information, or it is research for a presentation for how easy it is to find weapons-type information on the Internet. One should not jump to the conclusion that a student is planning to use directions to actually build a bomb or use a weapon for criminal purposes. On the other hand, with the school shootings in this country in recent years, keeping one’s eyes open for information seeking and other “clues” is very important.
Minow: Let's take the hard situation. You feel in your gut that there are clues, and you decide to talk to the guidance counselor. Have you ever faced this situation? What might the guidance counselor do?
Adams: A guidance counselor may look at a student’s grades, record of absences, recent disciplinary actions involving the student, and casually talk to the teachers of the student to see if any changes have been noticed. At times, friends of the student who may be talking about suicide may confide in a teacher, and the information is reported to the counselor. With the collective background information, very importantly the counselor will likely create an opportunity to speak directly with the student.
As a former teacher and high school librarian, occasionally I would notice changes in behavior or personality of a student and just have a feeling that something is wrong. I would approach the student and begin a casual conversation to try to draw the student out a bit. If after a short time, I was still uneasy, I would call the guidance counselor for an appointment and lay out my concerns. Because of the degree of confidentiality involved in counseling, it was likely that I would never learn the reasons but always felt confident that someone with resources at hand was taking my concerns seriously.
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Peg Burington, assistant library director and teen coordinator in the Waupaca Area Public Library, Waupaca Wisconsin agreed to answer similar questions from the perspective of a public librarian. The library serves a population of 17,000 within the city of Waupaca and four rural townships set in the heart of the Chain of Lakes in central Wisconsin. The Waupaca Area Public Library has an active Student Library Advisory Group (SLAG). The library’s website has photos and information about SLAG at http://www.waupacalibrary.org/yaserv/slag.htm/. More detailed information about the library’s youth program can be found in an article written by Peg, “The New Improved Best Cellar,” Voice of Youth Advocates, v. 29, no. 4 (October 2006), p. 316-317.
Minow: What actions might a youth services librarian take in a public library if they felt a student patron was in trouble? How would they figure out what school to approach? Is there a risk?
Burington: The state privacy laws protect all library records, and legally I could not disclose what books a teen has checked out. However, if I felt that the student was in danger, I would talk to him or her; and if I was not satisfied that he or she was not at risk, I would start by asking friends if the teen was ok. If I were still unsatisfied, I would contact the school guidance counselor. Our library is located in a very small community, and I know almost all of the teens who come to the library on a regular basis. Also being from a small community where there is only one high school or middle school is an advantage, because I know who to contact at the schools.
One of our goals is to develop relationships with kids. We believe in addressing the 40 assets, and our responsibility goes beyond making library materials available. The 40 developmental assets were developed by the Search Institute. After extensive research they identified "40 building blocks of healthy development that help young people grow up healthy, caring, and responsible." (http://www.search-institute.org/assets/forty.html)
Libraries can help develop these assets by providing a nurturing environment with caring adults.
Minow: What if you feel that time is of the essence?
Burington: If I felt that the student was in immediate danger, I may try to detain the student from leaving the library. I believe that the safety of an individual would come before confidentiality. Depending on the situation, I would contact the student's parents or the authorities if I felt there was true risk.
Tags: "public libraries", "school libraries", dangerous information, dilemna, ethical, guidance counselors, librarians, libraries, privacy, schools, suicide
As I suspected, it's much easier and more flexible. So if any of you are looking for new posts based on categories, you may not find them. Use the technorati tags at the bottom of a post instead. If it works like I think it will, I'll probably stop using categories altogether.
Update: It looks as if users who click on a technorati tag below will get everyone in the world's posts with those tags. That's useful, but it would be nice to have an option to limit it to this blog, the way flickr does. Well, there's always the search button in the blog...
Tags: "tags v categories", tags, technorati
Just discovered a website on the Law of Libraries and Archives, by Bryan M. Carson. It's an adjunct to his book published in December 2006 by Scarecrow Press, which I just ordered :>
Richard K. Moore, infamous InfoSherpa, gives us the backstory on how California school libraries landed a spot on the California state tax form, which made it very easy for taxpapers to donate to school libraries.
Minow: Richard - Inquiring minds want to know. How did California school libraries go about landing a line on the state tax form, making it easy for taxpayers to donate money?
Moore: During Pete Wilson's tenure as Governor, we (school librarians) got tired of watching our legislation move through both houses with near unanimous support only to land on the Governor's desk and get vetoed (as had happened all through Deukmeijian's tenure as well). (For you young'uns W & D were Republicans who preceded Grey Davis) So we asked for a meeting with Governor Wilson's education secretary.
We asked him, "What would it take for the Governor to sign a piece of legislation?" He replied, "The legislation could neither spend money nor mandate programs." (Clever -- since that's what most legislation does.)
So I asked what it would take to place a line on the state tax form for taxpayers to donate to school libraries. (These lines already existed for other charitable causes.) He said legislation would do it. “Would the Governor sign it?” we asked. He'd look at it, we were told.
So we asked then Democrat Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin to carry the bill, she asked then Republican Senator Bill Craven to cosponsor, and we ran it by the Governor' office and incorporated his suggestions. Then we got it passed in both houses of the legislature and it landed on Pete Wilson's desk. He signed it. The School Library Protection Act. You could look it up http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/lb/liblaws.asp
Minow: That's great! How much funding was raised? Why did it go away?
Moore: The 1993 law said that if we failed to raise $300,000 in any year, the line on the tax form would go away. So we publicized it and met our goal each year. But, the biggest advantage we gained was public relations. The new law required that in order to qualify for five and ten thousand dollar grants, the schools would have to create School Library Plans. That means most of our 9000 schools submitted grant applications based on Plans they took time to create. The process made them very aware of what they had, and required them to decide how they would use the money. Very small schools especially liked the program because it came in grant sizes they rarely saw ($5,000 and $10,000).
This process was superseded by the California Public School Library Act of 1998.
In 1998, with the economy doing well, Governor Wilson went to Delaine Eastin (who with our support had been elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1994) with some surplus money and asked her where she wanted it to go. She said school libraries -- and the California Public School Library Act of 1998 was born -- with $158.5 million as a line item in the Governor's budget. It was to be distributed statewide on a per student basis at about 28 dollars per student.
That money lasted 4 years, fully funded, and provided about 700 million dollars over six years for the renewal of K-12 school libraries. It was promised that the legislature would leave the line item alone and revisit the process after ten years. But after Governor Davis was elected, he began to leave it out of his budgets. Governor Schwarzenegger began to put it back in with a promise of $99 million his first year, but used that money instead to settle a textbook lawsuit.
Minow: What's the next step, then, for school libraries?
Moore: We are back at step one as far as direct funding of school libraries is concerned. We still have no state standards for the staffing of school libraries, no standards for funding, facilities, technology, etc. We did get put into the old School Improvement Program, which is now called the School and Library Improvement Block Grant. Theoretically, each school will have someone on its Site Council who will speak up for the library when the school budget is discussed. But, in reality, with only 1400 or so credentialed school librarians out there in 9000 schools, most of that money will go to other needs.
When I visited schools in other states I discovered that they have high quality school library staffing and standards either because it is state law, or they have regional accreditation standards they have to meet. California is the only state with neither. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges accredits California, Hawaii and Guam. Hawaii is one school system which until recently had high standards for their school libraries. Guam and California tied for the worst reading scores in 1994. WASC brags about having “qualitative standards” which translates to, “How do you feel about your school?”
What we are doing now is what we did last year. We are pushing the legislature to adopt state standards for school libraries and to fund statewide database access for all K-12 students. The database bill has been introduced as AB 33 by Loni Hancock. [Correction: AB 333 - see Pamela Oehlman below. Also, you can search the bill's current status here - mm]
But NO ONE in government has ever challenged the wimpy guidelines suggested by WASC. The most we ever got was a list of 17 items to take a look at in your school library. It is the elephant in the room that no one will acknowledge. When I confronted them 20 years ago with the fact that they have quantitative standards for the CSU and UC systems, the head of WASC, Don Halverson, said, “Well, they wouldn't let us get away with qualitative standards.”
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Richard wrote to me in an email (reprinted with permission):
"I need to remind you that Barbara Jeffus did a superlative job on school library history in the Fall 2002 issue of CSLA Journal at Jeffus, Barbara, "What's past is Prologue: A Timely Look at School Libraries," CSLA. Journal 26/1 (Fall, 2002): 11-14. JeffusHistSchoolLibs.doc"
Really informative behind-the-scenes look at why the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) died "on the vine" last session, by Andy Carvin at PBS TeacherSource Dec. 29, 2006. Hat tip to Jonathan Kelley for directing me to it.
A comment there by Don Wood points to lots of good resources on MySpace, Libraries, DOPA et al. such as an ALA Wiki and Podcast.
I just read in ALA News that Iowa has a new bill tying state funding to library filters. Does your state have a library filtering law? According to Pam Greenberg's chart at the National Conference of State Legislatures, 15 states do. She posts an easy to read chart with summaries of the state law requirements, and links to the statutes themselves.
For example, California requires public libraries that receive state funds to adopt a policy regarding access by minors to the Internet, but there aren't any prescriptions on what the policy must say.
If your state doesn't have a library filtering law, how likely is it, do you think, that you will have one soon?
I asked Pam what she sees as the current trend, and she replied (reprinted with permission):
Several years ago, state legislatures were responding to citizen concerns by introducing and enacting legislation relating to Internet filtering or access policies in schools and libraries. But since Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act in 2000 and the Supreme Court upheld the law in 2003, fewer states have seen the need for legislation in this area.
Pam Greenberg NCSL
Helen Adams, The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, coauthor with Bob Bocher, Carol A. Gordon and Liza Barry-Kessler of Privacy in the 21st Century: Issues for Public, School, and Academic Libraries (hot off the press), explains why post-secondary librarians argue that FERPA protects library records while school librarians argue that FERPA does not even cover library records. Both sets of librarians want privacy for their users, but come to opposite interpretations of FERPA.
Here is Helen's blog post, written for LibraryLaw Blog:
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974 has protected the confidentiality of student “education records” in K-12 and post-secondary schools in any school receiving federal funds for over twenty years. It gives parents the right to inspect and review the minor student’s education records and request changes where inaccuracies are found.. While the application of the law to various situations has continued to evolve through case law, one area critical to student privacy remains unclear. Are K-12 school library records considered “education records,” and do they fall under the jurisdiction of FERPA? Library records are not specifically listed either in the definition of “education records” within the law or its explanatory materials.
I sent this entry by Raizel on school library censorship to UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh and he responded by email (reprinted with permission) ...
Monday April 18, 2005
Eugene Volokh: Got it, thanks! But the characterization of Justice White's views here, I think, is mistaken. I copy Justice White's opinion below; it seems to me that his specifical disclaimer of any need to "address the First Amendment issues" (or have "a dissertation on the extent to which the First Amendment limits the discretion of the school board to remove books from the school library") means that he can't be seen as espousing any views on the First Amendment issues. (Note also his favorable quote of the Silas Mason opinion, a quote that ends with "Without intimitating any conclusion on the merits, [we remand].") Finally, he specifically said "We should not decide constitutional questions until it is necessary to do so, or at least until there is better reason to address them than are evident here."
So it's not correct, I think, to say that "Although Justice White refused to explicitly address constitutional limits on school board discretion, his concurrence with the plurality to remand the case only makes sense if there are are First Amendement limits on school board discretion in library book removal." Rather, it makes sense to take him at his word -- he isn't addressing the First Amendment issues, deciding any constitutional questions, or intimitating any conclusion on the merits, but he's supporting a remand *because the remand might make it unnecessary to make any constitutional decision* (for instance, if the facts are such that they will uncontroversially "end the case").
That makes perfect sense given what he says, and given the traditional principle that indeed the Court tries to avoid deciding hard constitutional questions unless it's necessary to do so (a principle that isn't always adhered to, but that many Justices do view as important). And it's consistent with the text of the opinion, which never intimates that he's finding some First Amendment limits here, and in fact basically says the contrary. (At most, his opinion intimates that the issues are hard, since if they were easy then the Court might well foreclose any trial by simply saying that there's no constitutional problem no matter what the facts are.)
Eugene
Update: For Prof. Volokh's response, see April 19 entry - Mary
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A UNC law professor father is upset about a library book, Journey to Japan, in his daughter's public school library being used for extra credit and asks for the book's removal. He is disturbed by the book's religious perspective, which can be viewed as proselytizing Christianity or as anti-Buddhist and anti-Shinto. He argues:
How could it not violate the Constitution for a public elementary school to single out and recommend a book series whose overt lesson is that conversion to Christianity is desirable and that safety resides in a decision "to follow only Jesus?"
What is interesting about the surrounding debate is the focus on the Establishment Clause at the expense of discussing Pico, the Supreme Court case which discusses the standard for removing public school library materials. Despite the active comment thread, there seems to be a lack of comments from librarians or teachers.
Continue reading "Different perspective on school library book removal" »