The new David M. Rubenstein Gallery, part of the National Archives in Washington DC, will be opening an exhibit on December 10, 2013, called Records of Rights.  This will be a permanent exhibit of documents that are considered central to the history of civil rights in America. The press release about the exhibit states that it “showcases original and facsimile National Archives documents to illustrate how Americans throughout our history have debated and discussed issues such as citizenship, free speech, voting rights, and equal opportunity.” For example, it will include the Congressional resolution proposing the 14^th Amendment in 1868, certification of the 26^th Amendment, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. These documents illustrate America’s continual commitment to ensuring all citizens have their civil rights respected and their equality assured.

The exhibit presents the history of the United States as one of progress, moving ever forward from the unfulfilled promises of freedom and equality laid down in the Constitution and Bill of Rights towards true realization of them. It emphasizes three issues: slavery and racism of segregation after slavery; women’s suffrage and rights; and immigration restrictions and immigrant’s rights. While these are all important movements that have shaped our nation, the way they are presented must be delicate to ensure that the current state of affairs is not distorted. These fights for civil rights are not just part of our history, they’re part of our present. While there are multiple civil rights battles going on right now, such as the struggle for LGBT rights, the most prominent is the National Security Administration is violating the rights of Americans and people all over the world through their comprehensive surveillance and data collection programs. The information revealed over the summer by Edward Snowden detailing the extent of surveillance practices by the NSA has rightfully shaken beliefs in America’s respect for civil rights. As such, the opening of this exhibit raises some questions about the responsibilities archivists have to present as full of a record as possible in their collections. By presenting only civil rights victories of the past and not including an emphasis on current issues, this exhibit runs the risk of presenting a distorted view of American government.

The examination of the journey of how Americans have fought for civil rights does demonstrate that the nation has come a long way since it’s founding. However, while the victories of civil rights battles deserve to be commemorated, we should in no way encourage a view does not take into account current struggles over our rights. The NSA’s bulk collection of data is a violation of constitutional rights outlined in the fourth amendment, for privacy and freedom of association, all done in the name of protecting us from the great, nebulous threat of terrorism. These violations of privacy are not limited to Americans, but citizens of foreign countries and even other political leaders such as Angela Merkel. These programs, we are told, are to protect us from terrorist threats and that the information collected through them has been used to prevent attacks. Despite these claims, evidence suggests the information gathered has proven to be almost negligible in counter-terrorism operations.

David Lyon and Zygmunt Bauman discuss the role fear plays in getting people to accept such extreme measures in their book Liquid Surveillance, and the NSA’s stated justifications for their surveillance programs often exemplify these ideas. While the authors acknowledge that surveillance is not a new phenomenon, they discuss how it now permeates and seeps into our lives in previously unheard of ways. This, they argue, creates new and more intense feelings of insecurity. This sort of surveillance and the fight against terrorism forces people to conceptualize a nebulous Other, one who is not so easily identified as terrorists have no shared physical characteristics but come from a variety of backgrounds and locations. The sense of insecurity is increased as “there’s not knowing when the categories of risk may ‘accidentally’ include us,”[1] meaning that we begin to support more intense measures to catch the real threat out of fear that we will be somehow classed among their number. This sense of fear and insecurity has been an important tool in shaping the development of the state of surveillance, which is now a the forefront of the debate on civil rights.

The Society of American Archivists, in a statement on the Core Values of Archivists, asserts “By documenting institutional functions, activities, and decision-making, archivists provide an important means of ensuring accountability,” and that this accountability is “an essential hallmark of democracy.” In other words, preserving the historical record is essential to holding governments accountable and ensuring the future health of a democratic system. However, this same document says “archivists serve the needs and interests of their employers and institutions.” This Records of Rights exhibit presents some interesting questions about balancing these two responsibilities, as the archivists’ institution, in this case, is a federal institution. This exhibit has the potential to present a skewed picture of America’s commitment to civil rights, illustrating the extensions of rights through the country’s history while neglecting to account for the current state of affairs. The exhibit could potentially engender the idea that the struggle for civil rights is part of our past only and not an ongoing part of our present.  However, the archivists are serving the needs of their employer, and are therefore limited in their capabilities to make changes to the collection. Though, by serving their employer, they could be violating the mission of archivists “to preserve and make accessible a comprehensive and trustworthy American historical record.”

There are ways that the current rights issues could be incorporated into this collection. The press release details a digital, interactive section of the exhibit, which seems like the perfect place to produce a digital project that could detail current developments about this issue. Also, surveillance and privacy issues are not the only civil rights issues currently being debated, and another digital piece about the struggle for LGBT rights and the debate over healthcare, which is considered to be a right by some but not others. Additionally, as this is a permanent exhibition, this interactive area could be used to update new developments in these struggles as well as others as time goes on. While it is not possible to adequately represent every issue in one exhibit, the omission of current civil rights struggles, particularly over NSA surveillance programs, has a strong capability to skew the historical record. Archivists, as keepers of this record, should make an effort to include the information about the current state of affairs in any way they can in order to present a more comprehensive view of civil rights in America.

Discussion about the social role of librarians is increasingly common with the advent of the digital age, but these topics are not new. For instance, in 1972 the book Revolting Librarians, was independently published by a group of librarians who were idealistic about the role they should play in society and were fed up with the tendency of their superiors to try and stop political activism. This issue is central to the essay collection Questioning Library Neutrality, edited by Alison Lewis. While the book succeeds in presenting the potential risks that come from neutral librarianship, if a bit dramatically, it does not allow much room for debate on the meaning of neutrality, nor does it provide many suggestions for how librarians and students of library and information science can work to mitigate these problems. Overall, the collection provides an introduction to the concept of neutrality but the essays included often rely on strong language and scant evidence to substantiate sweeping claims, while neglecting to address current efforts being undertaken to create more active librarianship.

By being neutral, the editor suggests that librarians run the risk of “promulgating misinformation or worse.” [1. Alison M. Lewis (2008) “Questioning Neutrality: An Introduction.” Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian (pp. 1-4). Duluth: Library Juice Press, (2)] These concerns inspired her to compile this collection. It is comprised of 11 essays, each originally published in the journal Progressive Librarian and presented in chronological order from their original publication date. Her aim with this collection is to “stimulate further interest and debate about the concept of neutrality within the library community,” [2. Ibid., 4] and each of the articles within the collection is opposed to neutrality. While there are some issues with the book, it is a fairly short introduction to various aspects of neutrality and how it can manifest in libraries. The arguments may be a bit strong but overall it is a book that would be helpful for those new to the field as it is accessible to those unfamiliar with debates about neutrality.

There are many organizations that work for more freedom of expression within the library sector and encourage librarians to be activists both nationally and in their communities, none of which are discussed in this collection. These groups include Radical Reference, the Progressive Librarian’s Guild, and the Alternative Media Task Force. These are groups of activist librarians and each run different programs and initiatives to promote equality and support certain social causes. For instance, the Alternative Media Task Force works to include materials by alternative publishers in collections and Radical Reference examines corporate activity in the library sector and monitors it in case of unethical activity. However, none of the essays in this collection make note of any of these initiatives. The essays were originally published in Progressive Librarian, which is the journal of the Progressive Librarian’s Guild, and it seems unlikely that the authors would not know of any of these groups or activities. Adding examples of work done by these groups or others would have contributed a great deal to the arguments in each of the essays and to the collection as a whole.

Lewis concludes her introduction by claiming that “‘neutrality’ no longer means ‘impartiality’ or ‘objectivity,’ but too often lapses into ‘indifference.’” [3. Ibib., 4]. This brief statement is the closest thing to a definition of neutrality in the entire collection. This lack of a definition is the most glaring weakness of the book. None of the essays include a definition of neutrality in libraries or what being a neutral librarian entails. The authors seem to define neutrality as maintaining the status quo and ignoring social and political issues, but it is never explicitly stated. Additionally, each essay uses harsh, negative language when discussing the issue. This conceptual ambiguity makes it difficult for readers to draw independent conclusions as the explanations force them to conceive of neutrality only in negative terms. For instance, in Sandy Iverson’s article, “Librarianship and Resistance,” she says that, by striving to be neutral, “librarians responsible for acquisitions may be recreating racist censorship in their daily practices of selecting from lists of materials produced by mainstream publishing houses and other organizations that perpetuate these patterns.” [4. Sandy Iverson, “Librarianship and Resistance.” (2008) Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian (pp. 25-32). Duluth: Library Juice Press, 27.]  Peter McDonald, in “Corporate Inroads and Librarianship: The Fight for the Soul of the Profession in the New Millennium,” suggests that that by striving for neutrality, librarians are being complicit in corporate hegemony and control of information. [5. Peter McDonald, “Corporate Inroads and Librarianship: The Fight for the Soul of the Profession in the New Millennium,” Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian (pp. 9-24). Duluth: Library Juice Press, 10.] And in “The Hottest Place in Hell: The Crisis of Neutrality in Contemporary Librarianship,” Joseph Good discusses neutral librarianship as being on par with Switzerland’s smuggling of “millions of Deutschmarks of stolen Jewish money, in the form of gold bullion, out of Nazi Germany during the height of the Holocaust.” [6. Joseph Good, “The Hottest Place in Hell: The Crisis of Neutrality in Contemporary Librarianship.” Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian (pp. 141-146.) Duluth: Library Juice Press, 142.] From all this, a reader can hardly draw any conclusion other than that neutrality is bad, but would not be able to say exactly what it is.

Another weakness of the collection is that most essays do not provide any workable suggestions or proposals of how to combat the negative effects they describe and how librarians can be more active. As mentioned above, there are many organizations working for more active librarianship, but these are not discussed. One essay in the collection, “The Professional is Political: Redefining the Social Role of Public Libraries,” written by Shiraz Durrani and Elizabeth Smallwood, is an exception. The essay focuses on the program called Merton Sense, which was designed for local youths to “connect young people, many of whom were from socially excluded groups, with their library service by actively engaging young people in designing the new service.” [7. Durrani, Shiraz & Smallwood, Elizabeth (2008). “The Professional is Political: Redefining the Social Role of Public Libraries.” Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian (pp. 119-140). Duluth: Library Juice Press, 132.] The program resulted in the youths becoming engaged with the library and furthering their education, and was also beneficial for the library as it resulted in increased participation and interest from the local community. While the authors also neglect to define neutrality, the article offers an impartial examination of the problem and an example of ways it is being addressed in practice, which is more productive when addressing challenges to the profession.

This collection was meant to stimulate debate about the concept of neutrality in librarianship, but the uncompromising negative language of the authors combined with a lack of definition for neutrality greatly limit its potential impact. Also, without current projects to promote more activist librarians, the authors neglect an important aspect of the issue, which is taking steps to mitigate any harmful effects. Looking at and discussing those sorts of initiatives that encourage librarians to engage their communities and be more representative of different groups of voices would have been more productive than simply identifying problems without offering solutions.