The level of ignorance, incompetence or deliberate imposition of personal bias by many of those who are promoted to senior positions is appalling. That this is true even within institutions that are supposedly about learning or their governing authorities is disastrous.
The moves that you write about will only add to an already 'dumbed-down' society, as is reflected by the reality of populist support for politicians who have a defective moral compass and impose their own, skewed, offensive & life abusing views on others.
Without the development of critical thinking and exposure to the widest possible range of rational thought, insight, respect for difference and desire to ensure equal opportunity for all, society will continue to become increasingly inequitable and gaps between those who have and those who have not will become ever wider.
Historically, libraries have been places where not only information but the reflections, understandings, experiences, wisdom and craft of both the layperson and the expert; the serious and the relaxed; the studious and the frivolous; the familiar and the novel; the convention and the legislated; the past and the future; the creative and the real.
There is ample evidence that punitive methods do not develop minds nor produce positive outcomes. On the contrary, positive behavioural change and development is accomplished through encouragement and reward. The wide content of strong libraries with enthusiastic and open-minded library staff provide a richness of reward that will always benefit those who have the opportunity to experience them.
Those who seek a better, fairer, more just, creative, innovative and caring society are those who recognise the value of libraries, and that the importance of the freedom to read, to listen, to view, to touch, to experiment to explore and to benefit from serendipity are equally important as is the freedom of speech.
Only the arrogant, narrow-minded, ignorant, self-aggrandising and controlling will choose to censor or to close libraries. No-one who does so can have any real understanding of pedagogy or intellectual development. Indeed, the actions about which you have written would appear to me to be in direct conflict with the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
