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In less than three months as director of the Monroe County Library System and the Rochester Public Library, Emily Clasper has seen her job grow significantly more challenging.
Clasper intended to continue the work that her predecessor, Patrica Uttaro, had begun in making library services more accessible to people throughout the region, including outside physical library walls. One such initiative is Wired for Opportunity, a federally-funded initiative to expand internet access and teach digital skills to those lacking them.
The library is also adding hundreds more MiFi internet hotspot devices—1,400 of them available to borrow before long, up from 200 when they first were offered.
Just as Clasper has settled into her role, however, the broader context surrounding libraries has shifted.
Libraries across Monroe County hosted events this week to mark National Library Week. The events celebrated longtime tenets of public libraries in America—open access to knowledge, freedom of speech, responding to changing community needs—that lately have come under attack.
Last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a small federal agency, for closure. That cannot be done by statute without congressional approval, and multiple lawsuits have been filed to block the move.
At the end of March, though, IMLS put all 70 of its employees on administrative leave, effectively halting its work.
IMLS does not provide direct funding to Rochester-area libraries. It does, however, give the New York State Library about $8.1 million a year, making up the majority of its operational budget.
The state library in turn provides administrative and technical services shared by public libraries throughout the state. They include summer reading programs, internet access, online databases and e-books.
“Those aren’t our operating funds, but that’s not to say that we couldn’t see a trickle-down effect,” Clasper said. “We’re worried for our colleagues, especially in more rural areas, and we’re worried for ourselves down the road.”
Library leaders across the state have decried Trump’s decision. Buffalo and Erie County Library director John Spears wrote in an email that the lost funding “would be devastating to our communities—and the excellence of our public libraries.” The Southern Tier Library System was one of many regional library associations that asked patrons to contact their legislators to protest the cuts.
More broadly, mounting opposition to books about LGBTQ+ issues and racism, among other things, has led to criticism of libraries that hold such materials.
Book challenges in both school and public libraries have soared. The Arkansas state legislature passed a law, now on hold, that would criminalize libraries and bookstores that make “harmful” materials available to children. Some public libraries in the country have closed altogether after sustained community protests.
“I hear it a lot these days: ‘When did libraries get so radical?’” Clasper said Thursday. “We are by our very nature radical and cutting edge and always have been. It’s a really wild idea to have a whole bunch of free and equitable information available to the public. And that idea … is foundational to American democracy.”
RPL leaders at an event Thursday said there have been very few book challenges or other noticeable protests within the city, though the situation is different elsewhere in the region.
Some parents in Penfield are embroiled in a bitter fight with their school district over which books belong in school libraries. A 2023 drag queen story hour in Pittsford drew protests but ultimately took place without incident.
“There’s definitely been a shift toward an idea of children’s librarians trying to indoctrinate children into certain ideas, trying to promote LGBTQ books or books with diversity,” said Chelsea Arnold, RPL Children’s Center family service coordinator. “It’s unfortunate, but people need to realize that we’re choosing books to represent the population we see.”
Greg Bryant grew up in Detroit with a father who had attended school only through eighth grade. He took his children to the library regularly, insistent that they receive a better education than he did.
“Having knowledge of something is one thing they can’t take away from you,” Bryant said. “A person with knowledge has power, and that’s the thing they’ve always been afraid of.”
Before taking her current job, Clasper was the RPL associate director and previously the director of service strategies for the University of Rochester’s River Campus libraries. She often uses her own library card to check out audiobooks—most recently “Mickey7,” by local author Edward Ashton.
Her concern over the looming federal funding loss, she said, is tempered by her faith in the institution and her colleagues’ ongoing work.
“We go back to our core values: access to information is good,” she said. “That has strong bipartisan support across the country and over time. … People, regardless of their political affiliation, love their libraries.”
Justin Murphy is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. He is the research and communications coordinator for Our Local History and a former reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle.
The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].
This article reminds me of a meme floating around that says, “In case of a civil war, let’s meet at the library. The Republicans have no idea where it is.”
Book banners and burners are nothing new. They’ve have been in business for centuries. The classic examples being the Vatican’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum which proscribed books for over 400 years, and the Nazis with their literary bonfires. Those bonfires reminding us of Savonarola’s 1497 Bonfire of the Vanities with its quote of books. In America books have been banned sonce 1637. in Southerners banned and burned Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The pace picked up with the banning of The Origin of the Species, Ulysses, The Wizard of OZ, The Grapes of Wrath, the Harry Potter books, until we’ve found PEN America reporting nearly 16,000 book banned and challenged in public schools nationwide in just the past four years.
Not to make light of a crucial subject, but my favotite take on banning appeared in Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” where the following takes place between the Marian the librarian and Mrs. Shinn, the mayor’s wife:
Good afternoon, Mrs. Shinn.
Don’t change the subject.
Something the matter?
The same thing is the matter as is
always the matter here. Look!
Is this the sort of book
you give my daughter?
This Ruby Hat of Omar Kay-ay-ay–
I am appalled!
I did recommend it.
It’s beautiful Persian poetry.
It’s dirty Persian poetry.
People lying out in the woods
eating sandwiches.
Getting drunk
with pitfall and with gin.
Drinking directly out of jugs
with innocent young girls.
-No daughter of mine–
Mrs. Shinn.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
is a classic.
It’s a smutty book, like most of
the others you keep here, I daresay.
Honestly, Mrs. Shinn.
Wouldn’t you rather have your daughter
read a classic than Elinor Glyn?
What Elinor Glyn reads
is her mother’s problem.
Just you keep your dirty books
away from my daughter.
Also you can’t “indoctrinate” someone into being gay – they either are or are not. No sane person would CHOOSE to be gay in a society populated by those like Ms. Arnold. None of the books that Arnold objects to are targetted at indoctrinating people.
They simply present the idea that someone may be different or have a different outlook on life and that that’s ok. That being TOLERANT, and to be accepting of what you or a peer ARE is the point.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among gay teens – 1.8 million of them have considered it. Does Ms Arnold believe that it’s better for a teen to commit suicide or not – regardless of their inclination? Because the main cause of such suicides is societal pressure brought on by adults and peers who are not tolerant, and bad personal feelings about how they are vs the rest of society.
I don’t see Ms Arnold advocating for better suicide prevention. Her only advocacy seems to be about persecuting gay people. Oh and the facts in the below article are easily accessible in a Library which it doesn’t seem Ms. Arnold makes use of anyways – or she would know this having actually researched her crusade and it’s merits.
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/facts-about-lgbtq-youth-suicide/
This! ^^^ The fact that a percentage of people are more interested in punishing strangers for living their lives than they are interested in keeping our access to education, health care, and basic legal protections secured is unfathomable.
Treading on our constitution in order to feed the thirst for racial profiling, trading on our freedoms in order to feed the thirst for discrimination, and throwing all values out the window to succumb to hate is not the great look of an American some are convincing themselves it is.
If anyone wants to make our country “great” they ought to begin by dropping the hate.
It seems no one needs a library more than President Trump. He might find out in the law section that a President may veto legislation and its funding within seven days, not seven years or 70 years by Executive Order. Any Librarian can easily help his loyalists find the law.
The continued Republican attack on valid facts and information and science is disgusting. Attacks on libraries especially which serve everyone and provide access is not what this country is about. I label REPUBLICANS IN PARTICULAR because YOU are the only ones that can really affect this. It’s your party. Take it back from the oligarchs and rabid right-wing idealogues and make it an AMERICAN party instead of a fascist one. Protect our right to information and to facts, and reject these partisan attacks on our very infrastructure. Restricting access to information is the first step towards an authoratarian government. Do you REALLY want to be ruled by a dictator? Do you really believe that access to books, computers, and sesame street are threatening to our democracy? Or are you just parroting the fox news talking heads?