The comments here have got me thinking about neutrality in librarians. I would think that there would be some sort of code that they would follow. I don’t have any experience with libraries as political spaces. In college, they were just sources of raw information of every possible kind. Our nearest public libraries do not seem particularly political, either. I went through their schedule of programs, and it was mostly reading programs for kids and those who are learning to read, story time in English and Spanish, and meetings in the conference rooms for various clubs and organizations ( D&D for teens, and some book clubs). They teach free classes on beginning computer use, elder care for home caregivers, resume writing and job search skills, and offer tutoring after school.
If I went to the library to look for political books, I could find anything from "Das Kapital’ to “Mein Kampf”. I know that I have seen a copy of “Ecodefense” in there.
If I wanted to check out any of those, I am sure that the librarians would not comment one way or the other to me.
Religion and politics are similar in that way. I am reasonably sure that our librarians are Christian, because almost everyone is. They have books on all sorts of religion. If I checked out a book on Shintoism, I would not want the librarian to lecture me about “false Gods”, even if she had a personal relationship with Jesus, and wanted to share the Good News.
I personally see libraries as safe spaces, in the sense that they were always really magical and comforting places to me. I would be pretty unhappy to find myself being evangelized to in there, about religion or politics or ecology, or anything else.
It is desirable for librarians to be openly passionate and vocal about literacy and the opposition to censorship.
But we might be differing here on what sort of place we want our libraries to be.
