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Juneau Opens New Cases in Exhibits FlapAn ongoing controversy that erupted over a May–July 2002 gay-pride exhibit at Juneau (Alaska) Public Libraries ended in February when officials announced they were installing two new display cases away from the lobby area in which nonprofit groups could mount exhibits. The library also released a new policy that promises JPL “will not censor or remove a nonprofit group display because some members of the community disagree with its content” and recommends “any local group with an opposing viewpoint may book its own display.” The new rules no longer designate the library as exhibit cosponsor of displays appearing in cases at the downtown library entrance, as the discarded policy had. It also eliminates the clause bestowing “final aesthetic and content decisions regarding any exhibit” on library officials. Staff members had altered the gay-pride exhibit the day after it was assembled by Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, working with PFLAG volunteers. At the time, JPL Director Carol McCabe explained that workers removed images of people such as Florence Nightingale and John Nash—“Anyone where there was a discomfort level as to whether or not they were openly gay, we felt uncomfortable including.” By November, the library was holding a public hearing on a revised display policy that barred all exhibits except for ones the library assembled—a tack that Anchorage Mayor George Wuerch had unsuccessfully tried to take last summer. From the responses came the new policy, which earmarks the lobby display space for library use only. “We’re trying to balance two important freedoms. One is freedom of speech, one is the freedom of choice,” McCabe said in the February 10 Juneau Empire. Deemed experimental, the new policy expires May 1, 2004, unless renewed in writing. Posted February 17, 2003. |
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