To educate and confront..?

The Leichhardt Municipal Council Library has made it into the national news limelight today, after an allegedly controversial and political photography exhibition at the library was cancelled at the 11th hour - allegedly as a result of a visit from police officers associated with the anti-terrorism squad.

I was particularly angry, upon reading the SMH article - not because of the accusations of censorship of free speech (at least not until the actual facts are revealed).

Rather, I'm annoyed because whilst the library staff, quite sensibly, refused to comment on the issue, the Mayor, Carolyn Allen, made the following statement:

"Being in a public library is different to being in an exhibition space. If you're in an exhibition space and someone knows they are going into the exhibition, they expect to be educated and confronted. But most people going into a library just want to return books."
No, of course we don't want to educate and confront people in a library. Because good literature clearly does not educate and confront its readers. And surely, we wouldn't want our library to encourage its users to think and talk and engage with challenging issues! Who needs free-flow of ideas when we can just consume???

I sincerely hope that the library staff at Leichhardt don't hold their councillor's view that, in public libraries, people "just want to return books". Either they're a very boring, non-dynamic, library service, or their Lord Mayor really has absolutely no clue as to the role of public libraries in the community, and needs to actually take an interest in her library's activities before making such ignorant statements.