Imagine That

     Not every city would book a fireworks show at a library, but Kalispell's has been popping nonstop for months. The director resigned in July, and the interim director resigned in December, both citing difficulties with the library board. One audacious member wanted to see the non-public areas of the library. That may not seem like an unreasonable request, but a friend who retired from there a couple years ago, said one of those rooms houses a huge backlog of books waiting to be shelved. Part of the reason for the huge backlog was an abundance of staff meetings and an hour per week of mandatory mental health maintenance. You could paint a picture, go for a walk, etc. but, even if the stacks of shelfless books were a danger to their physical and/or mental health, they were not allowed to do the job they were getting paid for. 

    Fifteen years ago our library got a new director, let's call her (insert progressive here). Why not? President Biden has promised his next supreme court pick will be (insert Black female here). The majority of Flathead County is conservative, many of the library staff were Christians, the library was a place to borrow books and other media. We were so unenlightened. 

    One of the first things Insert Progressive did was to change the name. Progressives re-invent themselves, churches rebrand themselves. No more dull denominations, we now have catchy concepts like Hope, Adventure, Canvas. If one of our local churches renames itself Pie, I might join. So Flathead County Library, at a cost of tens of thousands of county dollars, became Imagine If. I had to trade in my library card, getting one was one of my first orders of business when we moved to Kalispell and a rite of passage for my children. My new Imagine IF card:  No judgments. No funny looks. No questions asked--sounded like a customer loyalty card for an "adult" store. I buried it in my wallet and, except for rare occasions, stopped going to the library. 

    Employees who worked there for decades were suddenly unqualified for their jobs. Fortunately, the new director knew people who were, but it didn't matter much because materials were now checked out via self serve kiosks. There were more parties and craft times. Preschool story hour included a book with same sex parents. Staff had to state their preferred pronoun. The public computers were moved upstairs so children would not accidentally scorch their eyeballs if they saw the screen. Some of the unenlightened quit. But the most recent brouhaha was over a couple of sexually explicit books for teens that parents around the country are trying to have removed. When some of the library board members decided to support decency over the director, she resigned. The enlightened quitting--Imagine that.

    The progressives among us are screaming censorship. All libraries practice censorship, the only question is which things they censor. The new board-approved director, though experienced, does not have a Master's Degree in Library Science and people without Master's degrees are frequently normal. So, even though Kalispell has unaffordable housing and most of the potential candidates from a nationwide search withdrew their names, the state Librarian is threatening to withhold funds and "Shhh!" the library board until their ears bleed. The Flathead County Library may wind up supporting the values of the people who support it. Imagine That!