An Idea Whose Time Has Come: The September Project

A splendid idea has emerged.

The September Project will bring people to public libraries on Saturday, September 11, 2004, to share and discuss ideas about democracy, citizenship, and patriotism through public talks, roundtables, and performances. In addition, the gatherings will provide voter registration opportunities. For more information, send e-mail to The September Project and help create a national movement to make 9/11 a significant moment of observance for the United States of America. All libraries should participate in The September Project. If this is (fair & balanced) patriotism, so be it.

[x The Chronicle of Higher Education]
On September 11, Libraries Hope to Foster Open Discussions
By SCOTT CARLSON

This year on September 11, David Silver hopes that communities can get together to talk about patriotism. But the conversation will probably be different from other recent discussions of the topic.

Mr. Silver, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Washington, is helping to organize the September Project, an endeavor designed to foster community discussions about freedom and democracy. The sites for these discussions will largely be libraries. More than 100 libraries, some of them at colleges, have already volunteered to play host to a discussion or exhibition related to the project.

"It's a response to the climate of silence that has seeped into this country, post-9/11," Mr. Silver says. "It's difficult to get a lot of information from the media and from the government, so we wanted to create safe spaces -- safe local spaces where we have free information."

The September Project has few requirements for participation. Mr. Silver is encouraging libraries to hold readings of the Bill of Rights and to set up voter-registration programs. He is also encouraging participants to take digital pictures on that day, with the hope of creating a huge photographic collage.

But beyond that, events and programs are up to the individual libraries. Because September 11 falls on a Saturday this year, when some academic libraries are closed and when students on many campuses have not yet arrived for the fall, some academic libraries are holding exhibitions that will last for weeks.

Libraries seemed like logical settings for discussions, Mr. Silver says, because they are generally open to all, even the homeless, and because they are nonpartisan and community-oriented.

But libraries have also become politically charged environments since September 11 and the passage of the USA Patriot Act, one of the laws created in response to the terrorist attacks. While the Bush administration has supported the Patriot Act, librarians have loudly criticized it for provisions that allow law-enforcement officials to more easily dig through patron records.

"With things like the Patriot Act, our right to information, our right to privacy, is being compromised," and so the mission of libraries has been compromised, Mr. Silver says. The goal of the project is to celebrate open discussion and community.

"So really, what we are doing on September 11 is what libraries do every day -- providing safe havens for the community."

Various Interpretations

But communities have different political atmospheres and different interpretations of the project's goals. The Arnulfo L. Oliveira Memorial Library, which serves the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, will show a series of films about the Constitution and the founding of the country. The tentatively scheduled speaker for the day is Frank Yturria, a rancher who is a major contributor to President Bush and a Bush appointee to the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Foundation, which provides grants to Latin America.

Asked if the library would discuss the Patriot Act, John Hawthorne, head librarian of the archival collection, said: "No, I think we're going to stay away from that," adding that it was never part of the planning for the day's programs.

Other libraries have a much more politically charged perception of the day's events. Jane D. Saxton, director of library services at Bastyr University, in Washington State, says her library will hang posters of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and will direct patrons to local public libraries for events. (Her library is closed that Saturday.) Although she sees the events as nonpartisan, she expects criticisms of the Patriot Act to be a big part of the discussions. "If criticisms arise, it may be because the Patriot Act infringes on civil liberties," she says.

Jessica B. Albano, communication-studies librarian at the University of Washington, says her library will feature exhibitions of political cartoons and children's literature about terrorism.

Does she think the September Project is a political event? "I think that it is a political event, but I think that it is a political event in which people of all political beliefs will be able to express themselves."

Copyright © 2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education