Daniel Montgomery’s love of books began as a teenager with weekly visits to the general public library, which fittingly led him to an almost two-decade profession as an English instructor.
As an educator, he grew to become a union chief. That led to a different lengthy tenure, this time as president of the Illinois Federation of Lecturers, the place he was first elected president in 2010.
Montgomery will take these experiences with him this fall when he begins his position because the American Library Affiliation’s government director in November.
“I see quite a lot of the identical points that I’ve handled over time on the union, and that’s tight budgets — federal, state, and native budgets are sadly at all times tight for schooling and libraries,” he says. “And proper now there’s sort of an unprecedented poisonous atmosphere when it comes to folks wanting to limit what different persons are allowed to learn or have entry to, which isn’t one thing we take into account to be absolutely within the American custom of free speech and free affiliation.”
EdSurge talked to Montgomery about why, regardless of these challenges, he’s optimistic that the tide will flip in opposition to e-book banning — and why college students love the kind of books that political teams need yanked off the cabinets.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
EdSurge: My impression of academics unions is that these are the people who find themselves going to talk out actually strongly, they usually’re not afraid of confrontation, after they imagine one thing is harming academics or college students. Coming from academics unions, do you’re feeling such as you’re a fighter? Is that one thing that’s going to be helpful in your new position at ALA?
Daniel Montgomery: On the one hand, unions are totally different than the library affiliation. The unions signify folks beneath contract in workplaces, so it is a considerably totally different context. ALA members who’re in any union might go on strike on occasion, however I feel the most important a part of ALA is we additionally signify libraries, not simply librarians and library staff. So issues like strikes are in all probability not the best way the ALA strikes on the planet.
However I feel that there is not any query the ALA must be and will probably be assertive on the safety of libraries and librarians and the patrons’ rights to entry data and library providers freely and with out obstruction.
Illinois may be very very similar to the remainder of america. We have now very, very blue areas the place usually you are not discovering folks eager to ban books, although not completely or at all times. And these extra conservative, socially and culturally conservative, areas which might be redder, if you’ll simply use that shorthand, and that is the identical with libraries throughout America.
What I do know is true — I feel it is true in schooling, and it is true for libraries — it would not matter in the event you reside in a extra conservative a part of the nation or a extra liberal a part of the nation, if you’ll. Folks need libraries, they usually need the providers that libraries present. That is common.
Ebook bans and proposed e-book bans come from a small subset of the identical folks time and again, so I’d by no means say there’s this pandemic of e-book bans. There’s greater than there’s been, and I feel that can go over time, however residents and communities have risen as much as oppose them and say, ‘We love our libraries, we love our librarians, and we do not need to inform different folks what they’re allowed to learn.’
When you may predict what e-book banning would appear to be this upcoming college yr, what would you say? The info exhibits there should not as many as previous years, however there are nonetheless rather a lot.
It is actually laborious to foretell.
This is this one thought: A pair years in the past, there have been college board elections right here in Illinois for nearly each college board. It was 2023, a giant election yr for varsity boards. In quite a lot of communities, there have been candidates operating who actually ran on an agenda of e-book bans.
These folks had been roundly defeated — one thing like 80 % of these candidates misplaced. And the place they gained, they gained perhaps one seat on a board, they did not sweep the entire board. So I take nice coronary heart in that. The e-book bans unfold a bit like a virus as a result of folks hear about them, some folks activate, and on this cultural second, there’s of us who just like the form of set off of the tradition struggle, if you’ll.
However that is not what most individuals need. Most individuals don’t desire yelling and screaming and division at their township library board conferences or their college board conferences. They need well-resourced faculties. They need well-resourced libraries with quite a lot of providers.
It’s laborious to foretell, however I feel we will see slowly over time these e-book ban efforts form of ebb away as, one, they’re unsuccessful, and two, they form of set off quite a lot of different folks locally to come back out and say, ‘Wait a minute. We’re not going to try this right here. We love our libraries. We would like folks to have full entry to the data and providers they want.’
I’ve to say, that is the primary time I’ve heard anyone be optimistic about this. My follow-up query was going to be whether or not it takes folks talking up in opposition to e-book bans to make a distinction.
It undoubtedly does. It won’t make quite a lot of information locally, typically it may be extra delicate. A dad or mum needs to problem supplies in a library, as an example. It isn’t essentially a giant information story.
However as soon as folks hear about it, in most communities you see a really fierce opposition and oldsters and neighborhood members standing up and saying no.
Researchers have stated fairly clearly that e-book bans, notably college e-book bans, are a part of an effort to construct distrust of libraries, of public schooling. Nevertheless it sounds such as you assume that that sort of try and drive a wedge between the general public and their libraries is not going to achieve success.
Yeah, I feel folks belief their libraries. There may be polling that is been executed over time [showing] libraries are sometimes a few of the most valued establishments in any neighborhood. You’ll be able to simply see that in follow as a result of folks depend on them.
Now you’ll be able to go there and you may hire cooking implements, get assist together with your taxes or assist in beginning a small enterprise, and simply the quite simple however essential facet of web entry. In quite a lot of our rural communities, there’s nonetheless not broadband web broadly obtainable to folks, and the library is the place the place they will get it.
It is incumbent on us to actually make the argument to folks once more for why public libraries are so crucial and important to our democracy, and to the on a regular basis lifetime of American households. I wish to level that out as a result of issues like democracy and freedom are very broad, massive concepts. They’re laborious to wrap your thoughts round typically. However the important providers that American households rely upon, folks know what that’s. You see typically with funds cuts the place libraries might need to scale back some hours or [services], the neighborhood rises up and says, ‘No, we do not need that.’
The premise of your query is legitimate, that there are of us that need to sow mistrust in establishments. However I will inform you, we do quite a lot of polling within the [American Federation of Teachers] on public faculties. Public faculties nonetheless ballot very, very excessive. Regardless of what you may hear, complaints about America’s public faculties, folks love their public faculties.
They do love academics. Subsequent to nurses and firefighters, academics are proper up there. And the identical with libraries and librarians. They’re trusted folks, however we now have to keep in mind that.
When folks need to take away books like “The Hate U Give” or “All Boys Aren’t Blue” from faculties, others may assume, ‘What does it matter if these are faraway from the college library if dad and mom should purchase it, or you will get it from the general public library?’ Why is it vital for the children who use these libraries to have entry to a few of these books when you could possibly say, ‘Simply get them outdoors of college?’
There’s two solutions to that. One in all them is that college is fixed for kids. They often are in class for an incredible quantity of hours and over the course of years, so it is an actual dereliction of responsibility on this nation if adults enable faculties to not have absolutely outfitted and staffed libraries.
Each college in America ought to have a library and an authorized college librarian, and that is simply good for teenagers. There needs to be a wealthy array of supplies obtainable for his or her use and schooling, and librarians know what’s age acceptable, academics know what’s age acceptable, they usually make these sorts of curricular suggestions to children on a regular basis.
However quite a lot of children haven’t got entry to the general public library, or their dad and mom won’t have a automotive to take them to the general public library, however they’re in class. So to me, the argument that, ‘Effectively, they will get it elsewhere,’ would not actually maintain water for that matter. The top level is each college ought to have a richly resourced college library for its college students.
And there are college boards that decide curriculum, so it isn’t as if it is the wild west of entry. Grossly inappropriate materials, that simply would not occur. What occurs, sadly, is a few folks do not like the concept there’s freedom for kids to entry supplies that they could not personally agree with. However once more, the premise of our nation is the liberty of the press, the liberty of affiliation. All our freedoms should not based mostly on simply what my particular person private preferrred is about what’s acceptable for you.
I spent quite a lot of time asking about e-book bans, however what do you assume are going to be a few of the different points round libraries which might be going to be vital to observe this fall and past?
We’re all very apprehensive concerning the funds. The Trump administration has [made] cuts to schooling. For the Institute of Museum and Library Companies (IMLS), the cash is frozen up, and that is being challenged in courtroom. However actually the federal authorities offers a minuscule fraction of its funds to libraries and museums and applications like that, so it is sort of small potatoes within the federal funds however an enormous challenge for states and libraries.
There’s actually no library that is bought too many sources. State budgets, as effectively, are being lower as a result of the states are so apprehensive about shedding cash beneath Trump’s large effort to chop issues that states [need]. Now the Massive Dangerous Invoice, which goes to [cut] Medicaid reimbursements, that is an enormous budgetary gap for states. And states give grants to libraries, too. So there’s quite a lot of budgetary uncertainty, and that is the first factor that I’m fascinated with proper now along with the e-book bans.
If we now have these federal funds cuts trickle down, what are a few of the ways in which we would see that play out in communities? May libraries shorten their hours? May they cease offering sure providers? Lay folks off?
All the above. We’ve had the monetary collapse, 2008, and COVID, all types of powerful monetary occasions, and communities are continuously struggling to make ends meet. So the billions of {dollars} of cuts from the federal authorities beneath the Trump administration have far-reaching results into American life.
So what do states do? They are going to must both enhance their very own income someway or make large cuts to the sorts of issues that the federal government exists for. On the native stage, libraries confronted with that typically have to chop again hours, reduce programming that they often do, perhaps they reduce the quantity of purchases they make for supplies, God forbid there’s shedding folks and even closing.
One of many issues right here in Illinois that was affected by IMLS cuts was interlibrary mortgage service. The federal program ran the interlibrary mortgage providers within the bunch of communities, which is how in the event you’re in a rural neighborhood, you will get materials which may not exist in your native library however are in a neighboring county or a neighboring jurisdiction. So these results actually do hit house with the general public.
You had been an English instructor for a very long time. Did you ever get challenges from dad and mom who thought the books you taught had been inappropriate?
Throughout my profession, the one one I can recall a dad or mum difficult was the Bible. In my college district, we taught elements of the Bible simply as literature and form of cultural background. You are not educating faith, you are doing historical past and literature of a sacred textual content. We checked out different sacred texts from different traditions, too.
I had a dad or mum who was satisfied that in the event you had children learn something from the Bible in any respect, it was making an attempt to proselytize and have them turn out to be Christians, I suppose. However our district had a extremely good, robust challenged supplies coverage that folks needed to observe.
What had been your favourite books to show?
I taught an enormous array of scholars, from freshmen who had been studying effectively beneath grade stage to senior AP. With the freshmen, there is not any e-book on the planet that is extra gripping than “Of Mice and Males.” It did not matter who the children had been or what their studying stage was, that was a e-book you could possibly educate and the children liked it. It is a very brief e-book, but it surely’s highly effective. It raises all types of attention-grabbing questions. Additionally a e-book that has been banned at numerous occasions the place folks tried to ban it in historical past, nearly each e-book in our checklist. The diary of Anne Frank was very transferring and highly effective.
I like educating Shakespeare. Macbeth, often we educate that with seniors, and that actually carries a lot weight that’s actually enjoyable to show.
I like educating “Billy Budd,” the Herman Melville story sort of novella. That was one thing that the majority children had by no means had an publicity to however had been actually taken by, particularly older readers, simply due to the moral issues that presents.
College youngsters need to be challenged. They’re good. I at all times discovered that rigorous and difficult materials, it’s a must to scaffold it and assist them as readers, however the children can learn the classics. They’ll learn a lot easier issues and nonetheless get rather a lot out of it.
When you might have college library e-book challenges, it appears what persons are saying is that these college students cannot deal with difficult materials or they can not deal with one thing even like, “The Completely True Diary of a Half-Time Indian,” which is often on most-banned lists. They’re underestimating children in that manner.
There’s quite a lot of nice proof, tales and schooling writers writing concerning the expertise of educating children — a few of whom come from actually powerful backgrounds, powerful city settings, quite a lot of poverty — actually difficult supplies, all the way down to the Greek and Roman classics.
It is my expertise that youngsters like to be challenged. I feel it exhibits respect as people and human beings to say, ‘You are a pondering individual. That is going to problem you.’ However that is what schooling is. It is change, and it is problem.
I discovered my college students at all times utterly responded to that, they usually felt extra respect for you as a instructor as a result of they felt ultimately you handled them extra like a grown-up.
I bear in mind being in highschool and hanging out with another ladies who I knew had very powerful house lives, and this one lady actually liked the Ellen Hopkins books like “Crank,” that are based mostly on her daughter’s battle with dependancy. I feel she in all probability simply felt seen by accessing a e-book about that have.
There is a actually nice novel known as “Freshwater Street” by Denise Nicholas, who’s identified a lot better as an actress, however she wrote a extremely good e-book about this younger African American lady who [joins] Freedom Summer time in 1964, leaves her freshman yr from the College of Michigan.
I’d educate that junior yr, so whereas the children are finding out the Civil Rights Period and Freedom Rides and issues like that, they learn this fictional e-book, and what’s nice about it’s that the protagonist is a 19-year-old lady of shade. I hardly ever had a e-book that the women in my lessons connected to raised than that.
That was an important learn as a result of it challenged them, it opened their eyes about what was happening within the South within the ’60s and what life for a really strong-willed, impartial younger Black lady can be in that setting. So it was actually enjoyable as a result of these are such nice experiences to undergo with younger folks.
That is the implicit argument for libraries: That an adolescent may stroll right into a library not figuring out what they need to learn or what would captivate them. And an excellent librarian’s going to say, ‘What are you curious about? Have you ever ever heard of this e-book?’ I feel anybody who’s a reader has had the expertise of somebody recommending or supplying you with a e-book you did not know something about. You learn it and you are feeling prefer it modifications your life or the way you have a look at the world.
