I am a librarian. I have been reading with horror about book bans and other attacks on the expertise that libraries offer their schools and communities. Now I read that libraries are seeing a sharp increase in bomb threats. Just this month it’s happened in Illinois, Iowa, Oklahoma, and California. These threats are, of course, connected to right-wing rhetoric around libraries and librarians. Each of the threats is a federal crime, and each is horrific.
I want to know what Congress is going to do about this. Our libraries—and those who work in them, such as myself and many of my former library school students, now librarians themselves —need to be protected. The community too must be protected.
Those making these threats need to be stopped. The incendiary rhetoric regarding libraries is a threat to my first amendment rights as a librarian, and it is also obviously a threat to our children and others simply trying to use libraries for books and information.
Thank you for your continued strong support for libraries.
