SKOKIE, Ill. - Strolling through the public library where she has served as director for almost two decades, Carolyn A. Anthony hardly looks the part of firebrand activist. The former president of the local Rotary Club, now a member of the Chamber of Commerce, is focused on things that matter to libraries, issues such as digitizing microfilm or adding a coffee bar to better compete with the Barnes & Nobles of the world.

Few things in the past two years, however, have mattered to libraries quite like the Patriot Act, the counterterrorism legislation passed soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Every few minutes on a tour of the library building here, Anthony points out another laminated sign that delivers to patrons this blunt notice:

"The Skokie Public Library makes every effort to guard your privacy in use of library materials and computers. However, due to the terms of the USA Patriot Act (Public Law 107-56), federal officials may require the library to provide information about your use of library resources without informing you that we have done so. The USA Patriot Act was initiated by Attorney General John Ashcroft."

On the presidential campaign trail and in Congress, the Patriot Act has become a touchstone for the usual critics of the Bush administration, who say provisions in the law threaten civil liberties and privacy rights. But few of those groups have been as vocal or as persistent as librarians, who say the staid and sober stereotype of their profession - one they generally abhor - is helping in this fight.

"We may not still have a bun, and we may not still walk around in those, you know, those shoes," said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association's Washington office. "But we still know facts. We still know how to get information. We don't go into things half-cocked."

Section 215

The typically mainstream librarian crowd has trained its efforts on one provision of the Patriot Act, section 215, which could allow federal agents to obtain a variety of business records, potentially including library records, and which is scheduled to expire next year unless extended by Congress.

Justice Department officials want the provision made permanent and say the criticism leveled by librarians is unfair and unfounded. In a memo made public last fall, Ashcroft said federal authorities had yet to use the Patriot Act to obtain records without notifying the subject of the investigation.

That did little to quiet the concerns of the library association or grassroots library workers. If the provision had not been used, they argued, why keep it?

They also bristled at remarks by Ashcroft, who noted at a speech in Memphis last fall that no U.S. court had found any portion of the law to be unconstitutional. He added: "And so the charges of the hysterics are revealed for what they are: castles in the air, built on misrepresentation, supported by unfounded fear, held aloft by hysteria."

"In a female-dominated profession, 'hysterics' didn't go over too well," said Carla D. Hayden, director of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library and the elected president of the American Library Association, which begins its annual convention today in Orlando, Fla.

The librarians have worked closely with more obvious critics of the Patriot Act, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, but as a group they have proved to be a uniquely wily opponent. Both public and academic library directors typically have the ear of their local political leaders and a reputation for civic involvement and quiet moderation - all factors that have helped their case.

"It's wholly different than when your garden-variety peace activist or civil libertarian stands up and speaks about this issue," said Damon Moglen, national field coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington.

Matthew Battles, author of the book Library: An Unquiet History, and the coordinating editor of the Harvard Library Bulletin, said librarians across history have had a reputation as "genteel reformers" - taking on issues such as access by the poor at the turn of the century and, later, integration of libraries for African-American users.

It is an activism with more recent precedent as well. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the FBI launched what was known as the Library Awareness Program - an informal effort where agents would ask library workers for information on the use of unclassified scientific materials, typically by patrons from the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe.

The program drew resistance from many librarians and led to library confidentiality laws that now exist in 48 states.

"Most librarians threw them out on their ear. But sadly, in some cases, they didn't know and they thought, 'Oh, this is the government, we have to comply,'" Sheketoff said. "It was a galvanizing event."

'Sacred'

Barbara Powell, director of the Concord Free Public Library in Concord, Mass., said librarians reacted in much the same way to the Patriot Act. "We're socialized to throw our bodies over library records," she said. "I can't tell you the amount of time I have spent with my staff going over: 'If someone is taking out a book on hemorrhoids, you don't say Preparation H worked for me.' If someone is taking out a book on divorce, you don't gossip about that. It's really a very sacred part of our professional training."

Response to the Patriot Act has varied from library to library. Many librarians, including Powell, have spoken to civic groups and city councils about the legislation. Others have posted warning notices, such as the ones in Skokie. In Santa Cruz, Calif., they have shredded computer logs.

University of Vermont reference librarian Trina Magi joined with an area bookseller and author to begin pressing for changes to the law - an effort that began over dinner at a restaurant in Montpelier and has won Magi various recognition, including the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award.

Her work in Vermont led to Rep. Bernard Sanders, the state's independent congressman, introducing legislation that would exempt libraries and booksellers from section 215.

Supporters of the existing Patriot Act dismiss the notion of federal agents stalking library users. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican, rejected the idea of carving out an exception in the legislation for libraries.

"I mean, you can subpoena my bank records, my medical records, my telephone records. It's done every day in America by the thousands, every day," Sessions said. "To say you can't subpoena whether you've checked out a book on bomb-making from the library to me is breathtaking in its lack of understanding of the way the criminal justice system works."

At the Justice Department, spokesman Mark Corallo said the standoff with librarians - who have partnered with authorities on many high-profile investigations, including tracking the Unabomber - hurt morale among law enforcement and failed to sway public opinion. "The fact about the Patriot Act, and this section [215] of the Patriot Act, is the overwhelming majority of Americans support it," Corallo said.

Diversity

Anthony, Skokie's head librarian, acknowledges that libraries are not specifically mentioned in the Patriot Act, but rejects the idea that their records could not be subjected to it.

The laminated signs in Skokie mention Ashcroft because the library serves a large immigrant population that does not always understand the different levels of government, she said. "We didn't want them running across the street to Village Hall, saying: Why did you do this?"

Anthony said her involvement on the issue stemmed from Skokie's diversity. Roughly 37 percent of the town's population is foreign born, and in state reports, the area schools have reported as many as 65 different languages spoken by students.

At the Skokie library, which circulates 1.6 million items each year, officials have cut the number and types of records they keep to avoid having paperwork that they could have to turn over to federal agents.

Then there are those signs. And the thick file folder on a table in Anthony's third-floor office, stuffed with memos and legislative alerts that offer the only hint of her activist role.

"I'm about as mainstream, middle of the road as it gets," Anthony said. "I mean, look at me - I'm not fringe. But we're not just sweet Marian the Librarian. We do have a backbone and we are willing to take a stand."

© Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun

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