How many librarians does it take to change a light bulb? 20, more or less.

One to notice the faulty property and to report it to the director; 3 or more of the leadership team to authorize the change; 1 to notify the city manager that a change in the property owned by the city is imminent; 3 to decide whether an incandescent or fluorescent bulb is more ecologically friendly and energy saving; 2 to complete paperwork authorizing the procurement of said bulb; 4 or more to arrange for, prepare and serve refreshments at the event; 1 to change the bulb while another holds the ladder; 3 to form a committee to prepare the report to the board of trustees advising them that the authorized change has been accomplished; and 1 to inform that pesky trustee from which budget line item the bulb was purchased and to explain why its purchase was not competitively bid.

How many library patrons does it take to change a light bulb?

Change?! Who said anything about change?!

I am glad you laughed at these jokes, but in a very real sense, this same interplay between variant reactions to change is played out almost daily in each facility within the Pioneer Library Systems, and it is no doubt true nationwide.

This is because, at least in part, what the average patron expects of his/her local library has changed so dramatically in such a short time. Many of us still want "our " librarian to advise us on the availability of a certain book on last summer's New York Times best seller list ("now, I can't remember the title or the author, but I know it was a mystery…"). We want our librarian to tell us what those little green bugs are doing on our azaleas and how to get rid of them. We want our librarian to remind us exactly when Jane Seymour was queen, how she died and where she is buried. We want our librarian to tell us what the population and elevation is of Quito, Ecuador, and what we should see and wear there in June. And we want our librarian to explain why you didn't have a copy of Schedule 1 for Form 1040A when I needed it so I could file my tax return yesterday and not have to pay a penalty!

But - an increasing number of us are wanting to be able to order a book by mail and re-check out another book by telephone, to dial up the library via the modem on our home computers to check on the availability of that certain book, and to read the New York Times best seller list on-line when we do come in to our library without the assistance of some fussy and fusty human being!

What makes it possible for our libraries to meet all of these sometimes duplicative and often contradictory patron demands is, first, the fact that we are blessed with some extraordinarily patient PLS employees dedicated to life-long learning (on their part as well as ours!). Second must be the recognition that access to such a tremendously rich and varied collection of resources is virtually unique in the world, and largely due to the efforts of that small group of "demigods" (as Jefferson called them) who met in foul, fetid, filthy, foggy, fuming Philadelphia in the long hot summer of 1787 to write the U.S. Constitution, and subsequently in New York City in 1789 where they hammered out what has become known as the Bill of Rights. More particularly we often take for granted our right to express ourselves freely and our right freely to gain access to the thoughts and creations of others because of the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It is to the latter part of this amendment, usually called the "free expression" clauses, to which we address ourselves this evening.

When I taught government at Moore High School, I always reminded my students that free speech and a free press were not American inventions, but have their antecedents in English common law and such documents are Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and the English Bill of Rights. But no nation has so carefully, so assiduously, and usually so consistently guarded the free expression rights of its citizens from government encroachment as the United States.

On occasion public opinion has temporarily restricted what n ordinary citizen may say or do in exercising his/her right to free expression: consider the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by Congress during the John Adams administration; the limits placed on free assembly and association during the Civil War and the "red scare" of the 19-teens and 20's; the legislative attempts to restrict labor organizing and picketing in the latter half of the 19th century and much of the 20th century; the establishment of so-called speech codes on the campuses of many colleges; wholesale arrests of civil rights demonstrators and anti-abortion picketers in front of Planned Parenthood offices and clinics; and most recently the Communications Decency Act passed by Congress in 1996, intended to limit access to the Internet.

In each of these instances, either the flow of public opinion on a particular restriction ebbed or the U.S. Supreme Court, making its decisions based upon the rule of law, declared such restrictions unconstitutional.

What fascinates me, as a student of the Constitution and the First Amendment, is how these battles over free expression continue to be waged when the eventual outcome seems always to be foreordained. While all personal expression in public places does not find Constitutional protection, the vast majority of attempts at censorship, though temporarily successful, are doomed to failure.

So do friends of our libraries and other First Amendment advocates need to be concerned when some person, some group, some member of Congress, even the President proposes some restriction upon free expression? The answer is decidedly "YES!" As Thomas Paine wrote, "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must…undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

For those of us who are occasionally fearful that it appears that to some folks liberty means license, or as Cole Porter put it, "Anything Goes!", let me assure you that neither public opinion nor the federal courts recognize that concept as legal doctrine. And while the First Amendment does, indeed, say, "Congress shall make no law…," there are several broad and specific forms of expression that do not meet constitutional muster. Generally, one may say, write, publish or otherwise broadcast and display the contents of one's mind in any form, any time and any place.

However, the courts have found that expression that defames, slanders or libels a person, provided that that expression is not true, is not protected. So, if I were to say, "Bill Clinton and Frank Keating are not good, egg-sucking hound dogs!", are my words protected? Yes. It's a matter of opinion, which is always protected. On the other hand, if I publicly claim that Mary Oppegard, this mild mannered Presbyterian minister's wife, is by night a wild-eyed worshiper of Satan, I suspect she would have a cause of action against me.

Similarly, I am entitled to wear a political button, which advocates the overthrow of the United States government and Clinton's replacement by Saddam Hussein as president, but I probably shouldn't share with Mr. Hussein any atomic secrets or the location of our strategic forces in the Persian Gulf. This restriction upon expression is usually called sedition and subversion, but it always requires some overt action, something more than speech, for the government to make its case against such expression. Bear in mind, however, that the state is not permitted to make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views. Demonstrators' speech which has 'stirred people to anger, invited public dispute, or brought about a condition or unrest" is protected, and a conviction resting on such grounds cannot stand.

Another constitutional restriction on free expression is perhaps the most problematic, namely, obscenity. This is because the courts' definitions of what constitutes an obscene expression have become murkier and murkier until it is often very difficult for someone to know he is breaking the law until he has been fined and/or imprisoned, and even more difficult for a police officer to understand such definitions and to uphold such laws without risking later public embarrassment and judicial ridicule for trying to enforce the unenforceable. No less a light than one of the Supreme Court's more conservative Republican justices, the late Potter Stewart, eventually surrendered in his attempt to define obscenity, saying merely, "I know it when I see it."

The Court continues to try to create, somewhat gymnastically, such a definition with words like these: a work is obscene if, to the "average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest," that it is "patently offensive," and that it lacks "serious political, literary, artistic or scientific value."

As a result, the vast majority of First Amendment legal scholars agree with another former Supreme Court justice, William O. Douglas, who wrote in dissent: "The standard of what offends 'the common conscience of the community' conflicts…with the command of the First Amendment…Certainly that standard would not be an acceptable one if religion, economics, politics or philosophy were involved. How does it become a constitutional standard when literature treating with sex is concerned?" Douglas went on to write, "(T)here are as many different definitions of obscenity as there are (human beings) and they are as unique to the individual as his dreams….Whatever obscenity is, it is (not measurable) as a crime…."

The last form of expression that often merits scrutiny by the high court is sometimes called the "time, place and manner" exception. Without going into detail, I will let the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes speak for themselves: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."

To paraphrase liberally, Holmes said then and later that virtually all expression was protected, but some might not be acceptable because of the time at which it was spoken (e.g., in time of war), the place at which it was uttered (e.g., in a public school), or the manner in which it was communicated (e.g., "fire" versus "FIRE!").

Suffice it to say, the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment and the corollary to that freedom, the freedom to read, are uniquely fulfilled by the library. Any person, regardless of station, can have access to its materials and information. The role of the library cannot be filled by any other institution of our society. The news media provide information, but most are of necessity abridged and can reflect the prejudices of an editor or publisher. Schools educate, but according to a program demanded by its community and designed to fit the many, and one attends schools on the conditions set by teachers, administrators and boards of education. It is in the library, and in the library alone, that one can learn to the limits of one's abilities and to the limits of what is known.

I will leave it to our panelists this evening to address their individual takes on libraries and censorship, whether it be on the removal from school libraries of Mark Twain's currently politically incorrect Huckleberry Finn, because of his frequent use of the "N-word", or on protests against a children's book in a public library, because its description of the marriage of a white and a black rabbit was a plot of an integrating desegregationist author, or on concerns about more modern and up-to-date translations of the Holy Bible, in particular late 20th century renditions of "Son of Solomon", or, a little closer to home, on the confiscation of the Academy Award winning film "The Tin Drum".

But I want to leave you with a few more quotations for your thoughtful consideration this evening:

Once again Oliver Wendell Holmes - "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market…We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression that we loathe."

Once again Potter Stewart - "Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime…"

Lastly, James Madison, who introduced and shepherded through the First Congress, and is usually identified as "the father of the First Amendment" - "A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

Open Meeting-Open Records Workshops Offered
Workshops on Oklahoma's Open Meeting and Open Records laws are being presented in various locations through Oklahoma as a joint project of FOI Oklahma Inc. and the office of Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

contact FOI Oklahoma Executive Director Kay Bickham at 405 341-3169.

Education for Freedom Curriculum Available
The Education for Freedom curriculum has been used by more than 600 teachers throughout Oklahoma.

Teachers interested in getting a copy of these First Amendment curriculum materials for grades K-12 can contact Sue Hale at 405 475-3127 or by e-mailing her at shale@oklahoman.net.