Grassroots Report:

Commemorating 9/11
with Local Heroes

By Christine Watkins
American Libraries Columnist

Column for September 2002

The events of last September didn’t only happen in New York and Washington, D.C.: They happened in every state and in every community. The need to commemorate, to understand, to grapple with the tensions between freedom and security is a national one. While understanding needs to be global, local actions planned for this month and through the fall are among the most powerful responses, bringing something almost too huge to be imagined down to human scale.

Several libraries in Ohio have planned programs with ordinary heroes and some extraordinary ones:

The Ritter Public Library in Vermilion will feature local citizens Carl and Janyce Schmidt, who volunteered for the Red Cross at the World Trade Center site; the Poland branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County worked with a local fireman who also volunteered at the WTC site to present a program this summer.

The Stark County District Library plans to honor fire, police, and rescue workers throughout the county in the month of September with their “Read to Your Hero” special programs. “Kids need to heal, and we think that if they read to the police and fire personnel, it will give them a chance to say thanks and to view September 11 from a less dreadful perspective,” said Library Public Information Coordinator Thyra Marshall.

The Clark County Public Library in Springfield is hosting programs on world refugees in October and on Islam in November, with Nobel Peace Prize–winner Elie Wiesel speaking on October 15.

Web sites, bibliographies, and library discussion series on topics relating to September 11 have all been developed and will be showcased in several locations as the anniversary is commemorated.

• Jim Heckel, director of the Great Falls (Mont.) Public Library, will be featured in the Montana Humanities Commission speakers’ catalog this fall with the topic “Fear and the First: Personal Freedom after September 11.” Citing his fascination with the delicate balance between the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Heckel said, “If our fear allows this balance to deteriorate, and this has historically happened in times of crisis, we lose our unique way of life and become more like our enemies than we imagine.”
• The Briggs Library at South Dakota State University and the Brookings Public Library are jointly sponsoring a week of programs and community gatherings September 15–21 that will focus on better understanding of immigrant cultures.
• Libraries in San Diego received funding from the California Council for the Humanities to present a series of programs on “Understanding Islamic Religion, Culture, and History,” and the San Diego Public Library created bibliographies on Islam, as well as pathfinders on Afghanistan, Islam, and coping with loss.
• The Connecticut Humanities Council and the state library are jointly sponsoring 15 scholar-led book discussions at libraries around the state. “Interest on the part of libraries is high enough that more discussions will be held in spring 2003,” said Mary Etter of the South Windsor (Conn.) Public Library.
• Bibliographic and Web resources of note include “Events of 9-11-01 and Terrorism,” recommended by Lewis Armstrong, special collections librarian at Emporia State University in Kansas. The Librarians’ Index to the Internet, a program of the Library of California, offers a special collection of annotated links to sources on “September 11 and Beyond” and is being updated for the anniversary.

Some libraries are marking the event in words and pictures:

• Journalist Al Sullivan will present a program at the Camden County (N.J.) Library System September 9 with a firsthand account and photos describing how the tragedy affected nearby residents.
• September 5, Kevin “Kal” Kallaugher, editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun, will talk about the challenges of political cartooning since September 11 in a program at the Howard County (Md.) Library.
• The Chicago Public Library will display “The September 11 Photo Project,” a grassroots photo exhibit that opened in New York last October with 200 submissions and now includes over 5,000 photographs. The project will be on display until September 21.

In addition to these public events, several library organizations are holding relevant professional events this fall, many focusing on the need to protect First Amendment rights.

• The theme of the fourth annual Oklahoma First Amendment Congress, held November 7–8, is “9-11: Freedom in the Balance.” Sponsors include the Oklahoma Library Association, the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, the Tulsa City-County Library System, and the Oklahoma County Metropolitan Library System. The Oklahoma Department of Libraries will also sponsor a panel discussion on November 4 dealing with post-September 11 restrictions being imposed on government information.
• Finally, the members of the Federal-State Cooperative System (FSCS) for public library data happened to be in Washington, D.C., last year on September 11 and plan a “same time next year” meeting for this September. “We all felt we could not ‘live in fear’ and decided to keep with the tradition and hold the meeting the same time as we have for the past several years,” said Darla Cottrill of the State Library of Ohio, who chairs the FSCS Data Collection Sub-committee.