[Libs-Or] Policies regarding co-sponsoring programs?

Sun Apr 7 12:08:35 PDT 2013

How does this fit with an organization's or a city's anti-discrimination and equity policy? Some cities have anti-racist policies and standards. A library that gives meeting space to a blatantly racist group would alienate and intimidate me and would certainly impair my equal access to that library.

Anne Miller
Youth Services Librarian

From: libs-or-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us [mailto:libs-or-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us] On Behalf Of Leah Griffith
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 5:41 PM
To: Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney
Cc: libs-or at listsmart.osl.state.or.us
Subject: Re: [Libs-Or] Policies regarding co-sponsoring programs?

Partnering with the community is a key part of what we do as public libraries. Some of the best programs we've done have been in partnership with another organization.

Saying that however, I think your question is excellent and I liked what I saw in the Fort Worth policy.  It does get a bit tricky regarding church organizations. We have partnered with churches and ecumenical groups but only when the activity is secular.  It has also been as part of a larger group of partners.

We've pretty much done what the Fort Worth policy says, just without the formality of a policy.

I'd like to see what kind of policy you end up with as we may want to adopt something ourselves.

Leah M. Griffith
Newberg Public Library
Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 6, 2013, at 4:00 PM, "Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney" <kbrodbeck-kenney at lincolncity.org<mailto:kbrodbeck-kenney at lincolncity.org>> wrote:
Hi Max,

As things currently stand, any group can make use of our meeting rooms -- our policy states that:

"Driftwood Public Library and the City of Lincoln City do not bar access to the meeting rooms to anyone on the basis of race, religion, gender, creed, age, national origin or social and/or political views. The library's and city's endorsement of a group's views is not implied by their permitting a group to use the meeting rooms."

So, to answer your question, if a white supremacist group requested to use a meeting room here at the library, their application would not be denied on that basis. We do require that groups who use the meeting rooms abide by our conduct policy, so if they were disruptive in their behavior during their meetings or interfered with others' ability to use the library, that would be an issue.

I'm comfortable with this policy, and it's stood us in good stead thus far -- we have a wide variety of community groups that use our meeting rooms, and (*knocks on wood*) have not had any issues thus far.

What I'm now looking into is when things go beyond merely allowing the use of the room, to actually sharing the costs and advertising with a group for an event. In the past, we have shared the costs and advertising with groups like the AAUW (American Association of University Women) to bring in speakers, and presented these events as co-presentations along the lines of "Driftwood Public Library and the AAUW present" such-and-such program. Recently I was approached by a local church about hosting similar program in conjunction with Earth Day. The subject matter of the program is non-religious and fits with the library's mission of literacy, but we have some concerns about what precedent co-sponsoring a program with a group that is explicitly religious might set. There is some trepidation with regard to saying, "Driftwood Library and Local Church present" in our press materials. I have found some policies online that address the process for co-sponsoring programs (for example, Fort Worth: http://fortworthtexas.gov/library/info/default.aspx?id=41498), but most don't address the issue of religion or partisan politics.

I suppose the question we are asking ourselves is, should we set a policy that states that if the content of a program proposed for co-sponsorship fits the library's mission, we will consider sponsoring it no matter the originating group, or should we set a policy that restricts such sponsorships to secular and/or non-partisan organizations? And if we do set such a policy, who defines whether a group is non-partisan?

Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney

>>> Max Macias <mmacias at pcc.edu<mailto:mmacias at pcc.edu>> 04/04/13 8:42 AM >>>
Hi Kirsten,
I'm interested to know if you would allow a White-Supremacist group, or a Satanic group to use your facilities for meetings.

Would you allow such usage of library resources?

If not, what would you say, what would be your rationale?

If so, what would your rationale be then?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic--this is a genuine question.

This is an interesting discussion--thank you!

Max Macias

On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 5:32 PM, Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney <kbrodbeck-kenney at lincolncity.org<mailto:kbrodbeck-kenney at lincolncity.org>> wrote:
I'm curious if any of you have specific policies about co-sponsoring programs with local community groups.

Our policy regarding our meeting space boils down to basically, anyone can use it, and use of the library's space does not constitute library or city endorsement.

We have also co-sponsored events with local community groups such as the AAUW and such: basically, we share costs and advertise the program as "Driftwood Public Library and the AAUW present X Program On X Nifty Thing." We don't have an official policy on this (bad Kirsten!) but the general view has been that we were willing to co-sponsor programs that were aligned with the library's mission -- most often it happens that a community group approaches us an says, "We were planning on doing a program on X, can we have it at the library?" and we say, "We were thinking of doing a program on that, too -- why don't we co-sponsor it?"

My library's advisory board has recently questioned this, since some of the groups we've partnered with could be considered partisan or religious. Our feeling at the library has tended to be that as long as the program was educational and fit the library's mission, we were willing to work with these groups. I do think my board is right to express concern that in the absence of a policy, we may be setting a bad precedent -- but my instinct is that it has to be all or nothing -- either we're willing to co-sponsor events that fit the library's mission with any group, or we can't co-sponsor at all.

I'm curious about how other libraries have handled this and whether you have written policies to this effect.

Kirsten Brodbeck-Kenney
Library Director
Driftwood Public Library
801 SW HWY 101, #201
Lincoln City, OR 97367
(541)996-1251<tel:%28541%29996-1251>
kbrodbeck-kenney at lincolncity.org<mailto:kbrodbeck-kenney at lincolncity.org>

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