Comments: Give the people what they want
When you commented on people in TN not being able to spell the name of their state, I was reminded of a column by Will Manley, I think, several years ago.

He was expressing the view that public libraries should be required to reflect the categorization demographics of the community which the library serves. I think he was alluding to "lesbigay" rather than racial or ethnic identities and I wondered, "why, how would you ever be able to 1.) determine the demographics of lesbians, gays, bis, transgendered, transexuals, transvestites in the community without intruding people's privacy and 2.) how would you ever categorize your job applicants to reflect that diversity without intruding in their privacy and dignity?" Plus how could you ever categorize the confused or transitioning folks and those in denial without yourself (meaning the government in the form of the library) assigning them into a category?

My final conclusion was, "right, if we need to reflect the community then we need to determine how many residents are illiterate and high school drop-outs and we need to hire sufficient illiterate, drop-out librarians to reflect the reality of that community and make all feel welcome."

If 45% of the Tennesseans mispell Tennessee, then 45% of the librarians there should misspell it too! Dammit!


Posted by oldfox at June 24, 2004 07:27 PM