What FFL Truly IS and IS NOT
What FFL Truly IS And IS NOT
FFL IS -- FFL is a national grassroots network of concerned citizens, librarians and library trustees who:
* Agree with the American Library Association assertion that parents are ultimately responsible for what their children read and that only parents can determine what is age appropriate for their child
* Understand that the American Library Association asserts that local public and school librarians are unable and/or unwilling to make judgments regarding what content is and is not age-appropriate for any particular child based on age
* Realize that the American Library Association long ago called on librarians nationwide to abdicate responsibility for making any value judgments about content for children
* Understand that parents now shoulder 100% of the burden of determining for their children the age-appropriateness of all material in public and school libraries
* Understand that parents, as local taxpayers, must assure that school and public libraries have common sense policies to protect children from exposure to age-inappropriate materials without parental consent
* Realize that citizens can only fulfill this responsibility when they have decision making authority in library policy, collection, and programming decisions
* Believe that local school and public libraries are ultimately accountable to the taxpaying citizens who support them
* Believe that only through local control can libraries truly be responsive and accountable to local citizens
* Support local citizens everywhere in their efforts to gain more control over the contents, policies, and programming at their school and public libraries
* Support all means by which library users may readily gain more information about the content of printed material, including a rating system similar to those presently used by the movie, television, music, and video game industries
* Support all means by which parents can be informed about what their minor children see and hear in the library, including access to their minor children's library records
* Encourage open communication between library board trustees, library staff, and the public.
* Encourage community participation in local library board meetings
* Encourage citizens to maintain a good rapport and open communication with elected officials
* who appoint library board trustees Encourage concerned citizens to campaign for appointments to local library boards via the elected officials who make such appointments
Therefore:
Let it be determined that FFL supports local control of public and school libraries and an acknowledgement by local libraries that the wishes of local citizens should be given absolute deference over the policies, positions and/or direction of the American Library Association.
FFL Does NOT --
* Advocate the removal of any specific materials from local or school libraries
* Support censorship
* Believe that the lawful and necessary acts of materials selection and weeding at local and school libraries in accordance with the wishes of the local citizens and community standards and can be reasonably construed as censorship or banning
At FFL, we believe that school and public libraries should be free from political activism via materials collection, policies, and programming. We believe that some libraries have used tax dollars for the purpose of political activism against the will of the local citizens. We believe that this is because The American Library Association has taken definite positions on a host of social and political issues ranging from The Patriot Act to gender identity. We at FFL believe that tax-paid librarians must honor the wishes, laws, and community standards of the citizens they serve even when these conflict with ALA positions. We believe that local citizens benefit from understanding that the ALA is a private national organization with no legal authority to impose its doctrines on an unwilling public.
We support libraries in their efforts to sever financial ties with the ALA and remove documents such as the "ALA Bill of Rights" from their local library policies. We encourage local citizens to review their state laws and know what formal ties exist, if any, between their local library and the ALA. We support local citizens in their efforts to change legislation they believe is interfering with local control of their libraries. We believe that local citizens have the ultimate authority to decide how public and school libraries should be run, what materials belong on the shelves, and what sort of programming is appropriate. We support the efforts of local citizens to play the leading role in their community libraries.
We encourage citizens to establish a good rapport with their library directors and materials management staff. We encourage citizens to actively participate in library board meetings and to know their rights regarding access to library related records.
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