I am currently attending the 2019 Pacific Northwest Library Association Conference, and getting a lot of ideas for improving the programs I offer. The PNLA isn't just US libraries. The Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta are also members alongside the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
Among the good ideas, I can't help but notice a deep philosophical blind spot in the library culture. Libraries are funded by tax dollars in most cases, and that makes them a thorny subject when it comes to liberty. Several Washington State libraries are celebrating the passage of new tax levies, and other libraries are asking for more.
Do they not see how this is extortion? Libraries are too important to be funded by violence and subject to the whims of politicians. I am also probably the only one who sees the incongruity of weapon-free policies in libraries funded by taxes collected through the threat of weapons and violence for non-compliance.
Another oddity is the talk of "tolerance" that I guarantee would be set aside if I expressed the above thoughts out loud. It's easy to be tolerant when ideas don't stray too far from the mainstream, but directly confronting the status quo is perceived as a threat no matter what. But hey, at least our name tags let us declare our preferred pronouns, so there's that.
And lunch wasn't bad. Is this too late for a plate photo shoot?
