Daniel Montgomery’s love of books began as a teenager with weekly visits to the general public library, which fittingly led him to a virtually two-decade profession as an English instructor.
As an educator, he grew to become a union chief. That led to a different lengthy tenure, this time as president of the Illinois Federation of Lecturers, the place he was first elected president in 2010.
Montgomery will take these experiences with him this fall when he begins his position because the American Library Affiliation’s govt director in November.
“I see plenty of the identical points that I’ve handled through the years on the union, and that’s tight budgets — federal, state, and native budgets are sadly at all times tight for training and libraries,” he says. “And proper now there’s type of an unprecedented poisonous surroundings when it comes to folks wanting to limit what different individuals are allowed to learn or have entry to, which isn’t one thing we think about to be absolutely within the American custom of free speech and free affiliation.”
EdSurge talked to Montgomery about why, regardless of these challenges, he’s optimistic that the tide will flip in opposition to e book banning — and why college students love the kind of books that political teams need yanked off the cabinets.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
EdSurge: My impression of academics unions is that these are the people who find themselves going to talk out actually strongly, and so they’re not afraid of confrontation, once they consider one thing is harming academics or college students. Coming from academics unions, do you’re feeling such as you’re a fighter? Is that one thing that’s going to be helpful in your new position at ALA?
Daniel Montgomery: On the one hand, unions are completely different than the library affiliation. The unions signify folks beneath contract in workplaces, so it is a considerably completely different context. ALA members who’re in any union could go on strike sometimes, however I feel the most important a part of ALA is we additionally signify libraries, not simply librarians and library staff. So issues like strikes are most likely not the way in which the ALA strikes on the earth.
However I feel that there is not any query the ALA must be and might be assertive on the safety of libraries and librarians and the patrons’ rights to entry data and library providers freely and with out obstruction.
Illinois could be very very like the remainder of the US. Now we have very, very blue areas the place usually you are not discovering folks desirous to ban books, although not solely or at all times. And these extra conservative, socially and culturally conservative, areas which can be redder, if you’ll simply use that shorthand, and that is the identical with libraries throughout America.
What I do know is true — I feel it is true in training, and it is true for libraries — it does not matter when you reside in a extra conservative a part of the nation or a extra liberal a part of the nation, if you’ll. Individuals need libraries, and so they need the providers that libraries present. That is common.
E book bans and proposed e book bans come from a small subset of the identical folks over and over, so I might by no means say there’s this pandemic of e book bans. There’s greater than there’s been, and I feel that can cross over time, however residents and communities have risen as much as oppose them and say, ‘We love our libraries, we love our librarians, and we do not wish to inform different folks what they’re allowed to learn.’
If you happen to might predict what e book banning would appear to be this upcoming faculty 12 months, what would you say? The information reveals there will not be as many as previous years, however there are nonetheless loads.
It is actually laborious to foretell.
Here is this one thought: A pair years in the past, there have been faculty board elections right here in Illinois for nearly each faculty board. It was 2023, an enormous election 12 months for varsity boards. In plenty of communities, there have been candidates operating who actually ran on an agenda of e book bans.
These folks had been roundly defeated — one thing like 80 p.c of these candidates misplaced. And the place they gained, they gained possibly one seat on a board, they did not sweep the entire board. So I take nice coronary heart in that. The e book bans unfold a bit like a virus as a result of folks hear about them, some folks activate, and on this cultural second, there’s of us who just like the kind of set off of the tradition conflict, if you’ll.
However that is not what most individuals need. Most individuals don’t desire yelling and screaming and division at their township library board conferences or their faculty board conferences. They need well-resourced faculties. They need well-resourced libraries with plenty of providers.
It’s laborious to foretell, however I feel we will see slowly over time these e book ban efforts kind of ebb away as, one, they’re unsuccessful, and two, they kind of set off plenty of different folks in the neighborhood to return out and say, ‘Wait a minute. We’re not going to do this right here. We love our libraries. We would like folks to have full entry to the data and providers they want.’
I’ve to say, that is the primary time I’ve heard anyone be optimistic about this. My follow-up query was going to be whether or not it takes folks talking up in opposition to e book bans to make a distinction.
It undoubtedly does. It may not make plenty of information in the neighborhood, generally it may be extra delicate. A guardian desires to problem supplies in a library, for example. It is not essentially an enormous information story.
However as soon as folks hear about it, in most communities you see a really fierce opposition and fogeys and group members standing up and saying no.
Researchers have stated fairly clearly that e book bans, significantly faculty e book bans, are a part of an effort to construct distrust of libraries, of public training. Nevertheless it sounds such as you suppose that that type of try to drive a wedge between the general public and their libraries is not going to achieve success.
Yeah, I feel folks belief their libraries. There’s polling that is been performed through the years [showing] libraries are sometimes a number of the most valued establishments in any group. You possibly can simply see that in follow as a result of folks depend on them.
Now you may go there and you’ll hire cooking implements, get assist along with your taxes or assist in beginning a small enterprise, and simply the quite simple however essential facet of web entry. In plenty of our rural communities, there’s nonetheless not broadband web extensively out there to folks, and the library is the place the place they’ll get it.
It is incumbent on us to essentially make the argument to folks once more for why public libraries are so needed and very important to our democracy, and to the on a regular basis lifetime of American households. I wish to level that out as a result of issues like democracy and freedom are very broad, massive concepts. They’re laborious to wrap your thoughts round generally. However the very important providers that American households rely upon, folks know what that’s. You see generally with funds cuts the place libraries may need to cut back some hours or [services], the group rises up and says, ‘No, we do not need that.’
The premise of your query is legitimate, that there are of us that wish to sow mistrust in establishments. However I am going to inform you, we do plenty of polling within the [American Federation of Teachers] on public faculties. Public faculties nonetheless ballot very, very excessive. Regardless of what you may hear, complaints about America’s public faculties, folks love their public faculties.
They do love academics. Subsequent to nurses and firefighters, academics are proper up there. And the identical with libraries and librarians. They’re trusted folks, however we’ve got to do not forget that.
When folks wish to take away books like “The Hate U Give” or “All Boys Aren’t Blue” from faculties, others may suppose, ‘What does it matter if these are faraway from the college library if mother and father should buy it, or you may get it from the general public library?’ Why is it vital for the youngsters who use these libraries to have entry to a few of these books when you would say, ‘Simply get them outdoors of faculty?’
There’s two solutions to that. One in all them is that faculty is fixed for youngsters. They often are at school for an incredible quantity of hours and over the course of years, so it is an actual dereliction of obligation on this nation if adults permit faculties to not have absolutely outfitted and staffed libraries.
Each faculty in America ought to have a library and a licensed faculty librarian, and that is simply good for youths. There needs to be a wealthy array of supplies out there for his or her use and training, and librarians know what’s age acceptable, academics know what’s age acceptable, and so they make these sorts of curricular suggestions to youngsters on a regular basis.
However plenty of youngsters do not have entry to the general public library, or their mother and father may not have a automotive to take them to the general public library, however they’re at school. So to me, the argument that, ‘Effectively, they’ll get it elsewhere,’ does not actually maintain water for that matter. The top level is each faculty ought to have a richly resourced faculty library for its college students.
And there are faculty boards that decide curriculum, so it isn’t as if it is the wild west of entry. Grossly inappropriate materials, that simply does not occur. What occurs, sadly, is a few folks do not like the concept that there’s freedom for youngsters to entry supplies that they could not personally agree with. However once more, the premise of our nation is the liberty of the press, the liberty of affiliation. All our freedoms will not be primarily based on simply what my particular person private superb is about what’s acceptable for you.
I spent plenty of time asking about e book bans, however what do you suppose are going to be a number of the different points round libraries which can be going to be vital to observe this fall and past?
We’re all very nervous in regards to the funds. The Trump administration has [made] cuts to training. For the Institute of Museum and Library Companies (IMLS), the cash is frozen up, and that is being challenged in courtroom. However actually the federal authorities offers a minuscule fraction of its funds to libraries and museums and applications like that, so it is type of small potatoes within the federal funds however an enormous challenge for states and libraries.
There’s actually no library that is received too many assets. State budgets, as effectively, are being minimize as a result of the states are so nervous about shedding cash beneath Trump’s big effort to chop issues that states [need]. Now the Large Dangerous Invoice, which goes to [cut] Medicaid reimbursements, that is an enormous budgetary gap for states. And states give grants to libraries, too. So there’s plenty of budgetary uncertainty, and that is the first factor that I’m desirous about proper now along with the e book bans.
If we’ve got these federal funds cuts trickle down, what are a number of the ways in which we’d see that play out in communities? Might libraries shorten their hours? Might they cease offering sure providers? Lay folks off?
The entire above. We’ve had the monetary collapse, 2008, and COVID, all kinds of powerful monetary occasions, and communities are always struggling to make ends meet. So the billions of {dollars} of cuts from the federal authorities beneath the Trump administration have far-reaching results into American life.
So what do states do? They will must both enhance their very own income one way or the other or make huge cuts to the sorts of issues that the federal government exists for. On the native degree, libraries confronted with that generally have to chop again hours, reduce programming that they often do, possibly they reduce the quantity of purchases they make for supplies, God forbid there’s shedding folks and even closing.
One of many issues right here in Illinois that was affected by IMLS cuts was interlibrary mortgage service. The federal program ran the interlibrary mortgage providers within the bunch of communities, which is how when you’re in a rural group, you may get materials which may not exist in your native library however are in a neighboring county or a neighboring jurisdiction. So these results actually do hit dwelling with the general public.
You had been an English instructor for a very long time. Did you ever get challenges from mother and father who thought the books you taught had been inappropriate?
Throughout my profession, the one one I can recall a guardian difficult was the Bible. In my faculty district, we taught components of the Bible simply as literature and kind of cultural background. You are not instructing faith, you are doing historical past and literature of a sacred textual content. We checked out different sacred texts from different traditions, too.
I had a guardian who was satisfied that when you had youngsters learn something from the Bible in any respect, it was attempting to proselytize and have them change into Christians, I suppose. However our district had a extremely good, sturdy challenged supplies coverage that oldsters needed to comply with.
What had been your favourite books to show?
I taught an enormous array of scholars, from freshmen who had been studying effectively under grade degree to senior AP. With the freshmen, there is not any e book on the earth that is extra gripping than “Of Mice and Males.” It did not matter who the youngsters had been or what their studying degree was, that was a e book you would educate and the youngsters beloved it. It is a very quick e book, however it’s highly effective. It raises all kinds of fascinating questions. Additionally a e book that has been banned at numerous occasions the place folks tried to ban it in historical past, nearly each e book in our listing. The diary of Anne Frank was very transferring and highly effective.
I really like instructing Shakespeare. Macbeth, often we educate that with seniors, and that actually carries a lot weight that’s actually enjoyable to show.
I really like instructing “Billy Budd,” the Herman Melville story type of novella. That was one thing that almost all youngsters had by no means had an publicity to however had been actually taken by, particularly older readers, simply due to the moral issues that presents.
College youngsters wish to be challenged. They’re good. I at all times discovered that rigorous and difficult materials, it’s important to scaffold it and assist them as readers, however the youngsters can learn the classics. They’ll learn a lot less complicated issues and nonetheless get loads out of it.
When you have got faculty library e book challenges, it appears what individuals are saying is that these college students cannot deal with difficult materials or they cannot deal with one thing even like, “The Completely True Diary of a Half-Time Indian,” which is incessantly on most-banned lists. They’re underestimating youngsters in that approach.
There’s plenty of nice proof, tales and training writers writing in regards to the expertise of instructing youngsters — a few of whom come from actually powerful backgrounds, powerful city settings, plenty of poverty — actually difficult supplies, right down to the Greek and Roman classics.
It is my expertise that youngsters like to be challenged. I feel it reveals respect as people and human beings to say, ‘You are a considering particular person. That is going to problem you.’ However that is what training is. It is change, and it is problem.
I discovered my college students at all times utterly responded to that, and so they felt extra respect for you as a instructor as a result of they felt in the long run you handled them extra like a grown-up.
I keep in mind being in highschool and hanging out with another women who I knew had very powerful dwelling lives, and this one lady actually beloved the Ellen Hopkins books like “Crank,” that are primarily based on her daughter’s battle with dependancy. I feel she most likely simply felt seen by gaining access to a e book about that have.
There is a actually nice novel referred to as “Freshwater Highway” by Denise Nicholas, who’s recognized a lot better as an actress, however she wrote a extremely good e book about this younger African American lady who [joins] Freedom Summer time in 1964, leaves her freshman 12 months from the College of Michigan.
I might educate that junior 12 months, so whereas the youngsters are finding out the Civil Rights Period and Freedom Rides and issues like that, they learn this fictional e book, and what’s nice about it’s that the protagonist is a 19-year-old lady of shade. I hardly ever had a e book that the women in my courses connected to raised than that.
That was a fantastic learn as a result of it challenged them, it opened their eyes about what was happening within the South within the ’60s and what life for a really strong-willed, unbiased younger Black lady can be in that setting. So it was actually enjoyable as a result of these are such nice experiences to undergo with younger folks.
That is the implicit argument for libraries: That a teen might stroll right into a library not realizing what they wish to learn or what would captivate them. And an excellent librarian’s going to say, ‘What are you curious about? Have you ever ever heard of this e book?’ I feel anybody who’s a reader has had the expertise of somebody recommending or supplying you with a e book you did not know something about. You learn it and you’re feeling prefer it adjustments your life or the way you take a look at the world.
