I just returned from the Guadalajara International Book Fair and the Colloquium for Academic Librarians sponsored by the University of Guadalajara. This was my second time to both events.

I am writing today to let you know that “we are not alone.” But, more specific, we may be more ahead than other countries relative to libraries and equal access to our residents.

At the Colloquium, I attended a session entitled The International Politics of Information and Its Social Impact where four speakers from various Latin American countries, Spain, and the U.S. (Jim Rettig) spoke. I was intriqued by Jose Raul Vaquero Pulido from Spain (presidente@documentalistas.org). There are two points I want to share with you about his talk:

First, in Spain, the librarians have been struggling with the social issue of government corruption which, when talking with a librarian colleague of mine from Mexico, is also an issue in Mexico. Pulido emphasized that an informed populace contributes to maintaining a strong democracy. By that I mean, just getting the information/ knowledge out to the Spanish citizens is critical so that they are able to identify and fight corruption . He talked about socializing information which is the basis of our ALA core values — information should be free and accessible to everyone. He also maintained that libraries must facilitate equal access to information for everyone.

I know here in the U.S., we should be grateful not only for our professional values but also for our progress in this area. Nonetheless, I was struck with how government corruption was such an issue and how an informed Spanish populace could fight that corruption if they had more access to information. He referred to it as “Information for Citizen Change.”

Mr. Pulido acknowledged that there needs to be a balance between the right to access information and the right to privacy (sound familiar?). One of the proposals he made was for the need to change how information was managed in Spain to allow more access.

The second point of his talk was mentioning that the Spanish governments (local and national) value information and knowledge, but they don’t value librarians. This struck a chord with me because of my advocacy initiative during my presidency will be about preparing ALA grassroots members to articulate and advocate for the value of libraries and librarians/library staff. (http://camilaalire.com/iniatives.html)

This is more basic than advocating for certain legislation; this is about advocating for the core of who we are (library workers) and what we do (provide free and equal access to information thru libraries) to protect and improve our democratic society. It is about continuing to “socialize information” so that all of our residents have the opportunity to access information and to use that information to help maintain our democracy.

Libraries are core to our democracy. And if our libraries around this country start closing, we begin to jeopardize that democracy because we are restricting free and equal access to information. So we may not be at the point that our colleagues in Spain and Mexico are relative to fighting government corruption through access to information, but we definitely cannot let our guard down and do nothing to maintain what we have. We must continue to enlist and prepare more ALA members to advocate for the value of our libraries and of ourselves as library employees! To do so will keep our libraries open and, in the long run, help protect our democracy.