The federal Institute of Museum and Library Services handed out awards to six libraries and museums for "Extraordinary Service to Communities" last week, and First Lady Laura Bush (MLS-University of Texas) was on hand. Here's part of what she said:
[C]ongratulations to this year's award winners. Everyone here knows how important libraries are to me. Some of my happiest memories from my childhood were the times I spent reading books with my mother that we'd checked out of the Midland Public Library. As an only child, I learned a long time ago that as long as you enjoy reading, you'll always have a friend by your side. So like many of you, I loved reading so much I decided to make a career of it.Museums take stories off the page and give people a three-dimensional image of our world. Museums feature everything from dinosaurs to Degas. Many children feel their heart flutter for the first time when they wander wide-eyed through a museum.
The libraries and museums we honor today fuel the imagination and the intellect. The Flint Public Library, the Mayaguez Children's Library, and the Medical Library of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio are using education and outreach to improve the lives of people in their communities. The Chicago Botanic Garden, the Western Folklife Center, and the Zoological Society of San Diego educate their visitors about how the world works and how it has evolved over time.
The young people who are here today, and countless others, are enriched by the libraries and the museums we honor. Children and adults are drawn to each of these institutions because, quite simply, they're fun.
Thank you all, each one of you, for opening eyes and minds to the wonders of reading and exploration. And congratulations on your success. Thank you all so much. Congratulations.
Very classy remarks. The nation's librarians are proud to have one of their own in the White House offering such recognition for their skills and service, right? Well, not so fast.
In a pleasantly benign scene at the Hotel Washington last week, first lady Laura Bush, in a cream-colored suit, was smiling and handing out awards to libraries of distinction.Her background as a teacher and librarian has proven a durable political asset for the president. During the last presidential campaign, he made frequent mention of it, and she tends to highlight that aspect of her long-ago professional life.
But what do some of the nation's librarians think of the first lady?
"She needs to give her husband the smack-down," said Andrea Mercado, a library consultant in Massachusetts in town for the librarians' conference. "She should have spoken up on the Patriot Act."
Many librarians believe provisions of the Patriot Act, which allow government access to library records, run counter to their views on privacy, and on this point, Laura Bush has let them down by not opposing the law.
Since coming to Washington, the first lady has helped secure federal funding for librarian training and curriculum, and her intervention saved a bill funding the expansion of Internet access at public libraries. In 2001, she created the Laura Bush Foundation for America's Libraries, a grant program to help libraries buy books.
Just the same, some librarians said they feel the first lady perpetuates an incomplete and outdated stereotype of their profession, which is increasingly high-tech and specialized.
Said Blake Carver, a New York librarian and Web site operator, "We are not all gentle creatures who read books to children."
But wait — aren't the stereotypical librarians buttoned-up shushers who let their hair down and get wild after-hours? Actually, the librarians agreed, that cliche is largely true.
Leaving aside for now the ongoing paranoia of the library community about the Patriot Act, this thought occurs: it takes a deep insecurity to single out reading books to children as an example of lack of status or professionalism. Perhaps Blake Carver is more comfortable being compared to peers among "Web site operators," like porn magnates or even, God forbid, bloggers.
Speaking as someone who earned a Masters degree in Library Science (although I am no longer truly a librarian), I'm proud to have a connection, however distant, to Mrs. Bush. Many children's librarians are among the most amazing of the profession.
In a related note, observe also what else she has to endure:
Even so, students of Bush's many moods can't help notice the president's sustained high spirits since beginning his second term. He's in big-time swagger, pitching his Social Security plan around the country and taking weekly mountain bike rides, his new favorite exercise.One recent Sunday in church, after standing to greet his neighbors in the traditional sign of peace [emphasis added], the president patted his wife's behind.
"She's obviously a patient woman, to be married to me," Bush said.
Anglicans know the significance of this. Gee whiz.
Posted by Alan at March 20, 2005 04:18 PM