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South Dakotans Speak Out about Library Website ReviewSouth Dakota Library Association President Dennis W. Nath has written Gov. Mike Rounds urging him to allow state library trustees to “supervise the completion of the process that has begun” with the governor’s ordering the shutdown of the state library’s Teen Center website. The July 16 letter came four days after Rounds’ reaction to Teen Center’s links to Planned Parenthood’s Teenwire.com and Columbia University’s Go Ask Alice health site. In the letter, Nath asked that librarians be included on the review panel Rounds plans to name to reexamine the website policies and procedures of all state agencies.Noting that challenges to library materials are “to be expected in a free and democratic society,” Nath explained that excluding the “capable and conscientious people” on the state library board from the review process “could have unintended negative effects on the credibility and authority of all types of library governance bodies.” The controversy began in the spring when a Huron, South Dakota, middle school librarian challenged the Teen Center link to Planned Parenthood’s Teenwire.com. After the state library board declined to remove the link, Sioux Falls Catholic Bishop Robert Carlson wrote asking the governor to intervene, characterizing Teenwire.com as an abortion advocacy site. “It’s my responsibility as a clergyman and as a moral leader in the community to bring moral convictions into public play,” Bishop Carlson said in the July 24 Sioux Falls Argus Leader, “Separation of church and state does not require separation between belief and public action.” Posted July 30, 2004. |
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