For 123 years, the Chicago Public Library has held a bond of trust with the city’s citizens. The library is expected to acquire and make available information free of bias, distortion, and censorship.
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CPL recently published, with taxpayer’s money, the Chicago Historical Engagement Calendar 1996. It is an illustrated calendar that contains for each day of the year information items about Chicago and its history. On November 10, 1995, the Reader ran a review of the publication that was far from flattering [Neighborhood News]. It pointed out many errors of fact, grammar, and spelling. For example, the entry for August 16 read “1913: 40,000 people came to Grant Park to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Lt. Oliver Hazard Perry’s victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in the Revolutionary War.” The entry for December 30 clearly gives the impression that the Iroquois theater had violated theater design rules thus causing the death of 602 people. What it should have said was that theater design rules were changed as a result of the fire. And on December 31 it says that “Chicago garnered 87.9 inches of snow,” a misuse of the word garnered. Did Chicago store 87.9 inches of snow, and if so where, how, and more importantly, why?
Such conduct must not be tolerated! Ideally, CPL librarians should police their own. But alas, CPL librarians do not seem to have the backbone, will, or perhaps freedom to rid themselves of these violators of trust. The job must, therefore, fall to Chicago citizens and their elected representatives.
Librarian
