In LWV-BMC’s Civic Conversation podcast, Grier Carson talks about the library as a civic institution

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This month, we welcome Grier Carson, Library Director of the Monroe County Public Library, to discuss the library as a civic institution.  Carson talked to our host, Jim Allison, about the library’s role in a democracy and how it protects intellectual freedom and access to information for everyone without regard to their social status, gender, race, or religion.  The library has three goals, says Carson, to provide equitable impartial access, to strengthen communications, and to improve people’s lives.  He talked briefly about what is happening in Fishers, Indiana, at Hamilton East Public Library, saying instead of focusing on the appropriateness of content in the library and collection development policies, if we are genuinely concerned about the appropriateness of information, we should go after Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, and Twitter and access to content on the Internet. “Going after books is an easy, time-worn practice and amounts to window dressing in 21st-century culture wars,” said Carson. “But it has very real and negative consequences for library professionals and their livelihood. It is ludicrous and careless.”