Following is the contents of an open letter to Charles Harmon, chair, and members of the American Library Association Committee Professional Ethics.
Re: Robert Kent and Friends of
Cuban Libraries
Dear Charles and Committee members:
On Monday, 3 April of
this year, I returned from a two-week research trip to Cuba. The trip was
organized and conducted by Rhonda Neugebauer of Witchita State and included
some fourteen other librarians from around the country. During our stay, we
visited many libraries and spoke with countless librarians and support staff.
Our stay included visits to the Biblioteca National "Jose Marti;" the
Biblioteca Publica Ruben Martinez Villena in Havana; the Biblioteca Provincial
"Elvira Cape" in Santiago de Cuba; the Biblioteca Central "Ruben Martinez
Villena" of the University of Havana; and public libraries in Matanzas,
Cardinas and Varadero. We also visited the Instituto de Historia de Cuba; The
Archivo General de la Isla de Cuba; the Escuela Nacional de Tecnicos de
Bibliotecas in Havana; several elementary and secondary school libraries; and
the Latin America literary incubator and publishing house, Casa de las
Americas.
In Santiago de Cuba, a few of our group also visited two of what Mr. Robert Kent of the Friends of Cuban Libraries calls "independent" libraries. We spoke at length with the people who are responsible for these "libraries." Please allow me to summarize a few of the conclusions I have reached about Cuban libraries in general and about the "independent" libraries that Mr. Kent has championed in innumerable postings on innumerable library listservs. Please understand that these are my personal conclusions and are not intended to represent the perceptions of other members of the group.
The materials budgets of Cuban libraries are dramatically underfunded. But, libraries are not alone in this regard. The financial crisis that this island nation has undergone since the collapse of the Soviet bloc (something the Cubans refer to as the "special period") has had a severe impact on book publishing, industry, construction and many other areas of the economy, including of course, living standards.
The Cuban librarians that I met were, with a few exceptions, highly professional, talented and capable. They are committed to professional excellence and are clearly abreast of current trends in North American and European librarianship.
The Jose Marti National Library and the major provincial and city libraries are busily preparing for automation. The National Library's systems staff has developed a plan for a national union catalog and network that only awaits funding for implementation. (A nationwide science and research network is also being created by the National Institute of Science and Technology (Havana), which we also visited.)
Most of the libraries that we visited have clear collection development policies and standards. The national library collects materials on all topics and does not limit its collections to materials that support the ideology of the Cuban government. They actively solicit, for example, copies of materials published by dissident Cuban authors who reside abroad. At the same time, they do not necessarily add all of the vehemently anti-Fidel materials published by dissident Cubans who reside in Miami, just as North American libraries do not actively seek out and buy all of the anti-gay and lesbian tracts published in Colorado Springs and other centers of right-wing Christian publishing.
Cuban librarians take their outreach obligations seriously and have invested heavily in bookmobiles and branch libraries in isolated rural locations. They are particularly committed to making libraries services available to rural Cuban children.
School libraries are ubiquitous in Cuba. Almost all elementary and secondary schools have libraries and librarians. (We might compare this to the situation in the United States.) We spoke at length with a group of second graders in a Matanzas elementary school who asked bright and intelligent questions of us. They were reading Jose Marti's The Red Slippers.
Some of our group visited two "independent" libraries. Both of these were listed, with addresses, in one of Robert Kent's numerous postings on library listservs. The following bulleted items represent my personal understanding of what we found:
The first "independent" library we visited was in Santiago de Cuba. It was located in private home and consisted of two bookcases filled with books, one in the living room, another in a back bedroom. I would estimate that this collection might have included 200 volumes. The woman who tended the collection spoke freely and openly with us about herself and her "library."
She insisted that the main objective of the library was to make materials available to children, but could produce no childrenšs books. Many of the books in the "collection" were published in Cuba, although perhaps the bulk were published in the United States, Mexico, Spain and other countries. She showed us a copy of a single issue of the Cuban periodical Educacion as an example of how she wishes to make books available to students. She told us that she was considering removing the back cover of the issue, however, because it includes a quote from Fidel Castro. She told us that most of her relatives live in Havana and that she regularly records and broadcasts anti-Cuban government statements on Radio Marti and Radio Mambi, both of which beam anti-Cuban government programming to Cuba from the United States.
The second "independent" library that we visited was also in Santiago de Cuba. This "library" had no books or materials at all. The family that lived in the apartment said that they had distributed all of the materials they had to other sympathetic individuals in preparation for leaving for Miami.
They have received exit visas from the U. S. government and expect to depart Cuba in May. They explained that they had never collected books per se, but rather had relied upon deliveries of pamphlets, reprints of articles and other materials directly from the U. S. Interest Section in Havana.
These materials, they noted, were hand-delivered by Americans who came to their home in an automobile. They thought that these materials were better than books because they not only supported their political beliefs and also could be used to enlighten others. They agreed that these materials were useful in their efforts to bring others to their anti-government position and to recruit others to the anti-Castro movement.
Marta Terry, the president of the Cuban Library Association, and other Cuban librarians pointed out to us that they have tried many times to contact and work with these "librarians." The independent "librarians" with whom we spoke have never approached the established libraries because the vaguely feel that they would be rebuffed.
Mr. Kent continually insists that the "independent librarians" of Cuba are our peers and colleagues. In neither of the two cases that I cite above do the principals have degrees or training in librarianship, nor do they even appear to be what we might call "book-oriented" people. They are not librarians by any definition that we would understand.
Neither of the two "independent" libraries that I visited are marked or signed in any way as libraries. One had no collection whatsoever and the other had a modest collection of materials of a size that one might expect to find in any Cuban home. The one collection that I saw was not cataloged or even organized by subject. There was no circulation apparatus and this collection had no materials to support its primary collecting goal, children's literature.
The independent "librarians" that I met are all self-professed political dissidents, dedicated to the overthrow of the Cuban government. (They spoke with us openly and apparently without fear of reprisal about their anti-government activities.) They are closely allied with the U. S. government, the U. S. Interest Section in Cuba and with Cuban dissidents in Miami and Mexico. Several had been arrested by the Cuban authorities, but they emphasized that these arrests had nothing to do with their "independent" library activities. The arrests, in all cases, were for subversive and clandestine activities carried out to undermine the Cuban government. It is my distinct impression that these libraries are, on the one hand, a public face and a recruiting tool for a dissident movement within Cuba and, on the other, a means of "jumping the queue" to get an immigration visa to the United States.
Upon my return I found that I had received a copy of a letter, dated 15 March, from Mr. Robert Kent to Charles Harmon and the members of the ALA Committee on Professional Ethics. In his letter to you, Mr. Kent presents censorship of Cuban library collections and suppression of the "independent" libraries as an established fact.
With this firmly established, he anticipates duplicity on the part of Ms. Neugebauer and, by extension, those who accompanied her. He cites the stated objective of the group, "to hold discussions between U. S. and Cuban librarians on key aspects of librarianship such as philosophy, values, ethics and professional practices," as evidence that she "apparently has no intention of supporting intellectual freedom during the library program she will be conducting in Cuba." He concludes by suggesting that her activities in this area "may be subject to an inquiry by the ALA Committee on Professional Ethics."
I accompanied Ms. Neugebauer on all of the visits that the group
made in Cuba and I wish to make the following comments:
In all encounters with Cuban librarians, and indeed with Cuban citizens, Ms. Neugebauer and the other members of the group conducted themselves at the highest professional level; a level that does honor to our profession and the American Library Association.
In all of our meetings with Cuban librarians,
Ms. Neugebauer and
other members of the group asked penetrating questions about government
interference in collection development, the independence of Cuban librarians,
and other questions that probed their philosophy, values, ethics and
professional practices.
It seems to me that Mr. Kent's charges against Ms. Neugebauer should be dismissed out of hand. His activities and his charges against Cuban librarians are unproven and, certainly, conflict with what I found in long and probing conversations with these very librarians. Mr. Kent's rhetoric is inflamed and his charges reflect more accurately his politics than they do the practice of Cuban librarians.
Finally, I want to state that I know Ms. Neugebauer to be a
honorable and principled librarian, someone who is committed not only to high
professional standards but who is also dedicated to the truth wherever it may
lead. Mr. Kent's charges are outrageous and unfounded and I request that you
and the members of the committee dismiss them out-of-hand.
Larry R. Oberg
University Librarian
Mark O. Hatfield
Library
Willamette University
Salem,
Oregon
To the Editor [of
an unspecified journal]:
I have followed and participated in the worldwide
"virtual" debate on the issue of the so-called "Cuban Independent Libraries."
Given the information widely available about the founders of the so-called
"Friends of Cuban Libraries," the funders of Mr. Robert Kent's trips to Cuba,
the identities of the "independent librarians," and the clear ideological
nature of their activities, I was surprised and disappointed to read the FAIFE
[Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression] statement published in
this issue.
This statement, based on insufficient investigation and understanding of the issues involved, reveals that FLA-FAIFE [IFLA-FAIFE?] has easily become an instrument in the unmitigated campaign of war and provocation being waged against Cuba by the United States for 40 years. Librarians worldwide have a commitment to freedom of expression and intellectual freedom. These basic principles are being violated in every country on the face of the earth, Cuba included.
FAIFE could easily write resolutions condemning the violations - some involving long imprisonment, torture, murder and the death penalty - perpetrated against free expression around the world. And yet the two resolutions that have so-far been passed by FAIFE include the one on Cuba - where at worst, individuals have been "intimidated" for seeking outlets for political expression - and Iran, in which the individuals involved were actually murdered for free expression.
As a citizen of the United States, I am acutely aware of the state of siege which has been imposed on Cuba and codified into our own legal system through the Torricelli and Helms Burton Acts. These laws actually make it incumbent upon the United States government to fund such activities as those in which Mr. Kent and Jorge Sanguinetty, his non-librarian co-chair, engage. Mr. Kent's trips to Cuba are financed by the Freedom House, an organization presented with a large check by President Clinton several years ago with the express purpose of funding such activities in Cuba. Mr. Sanguinetty, an ex-patriot economist dedicated to the return of free markets to Cuba, is also an employee of Radio Marti. The "librarians" they champions are not librarians at all, but political dissidents who turn their houses or storefronts into what they call "libraries" but may in fact be as limited in their range of materials as they claim Cuban public libraries are. For FAIFE to champion their dubious and hypocritical cause trivializes the potential power of a FAIFE resolution. It makes FAIFE look oblivious to reality, and to the orchestrated machinations of ideological warfare.
Mr. Kent and Mr. Sanguinetty have used the best instincts of librarians against us. It was smart, I admit, but unfortunate. I am a librarian who attended the IFLA [International Federation of Library Associations] conference in Havana, met real librarians and visited real libraries. I don't think Mr. Kent was there. Mr. Kent was not on the plane which was turned back to Miami because of bomb threats. This plane was carrying the former president of ALA who became frightened and canceled her attendance at the conference. Would FAIFE call this intimidation?
Ordinary U.S. citizens, librarians and otherwise, are threatened by the US government with hefty fines and jail terms for visiting Cuba without a "license." Mr. Kent is evidently exempt from these because he makes his trips on behalf of the right-wing Cuban network and U.S. government policy.
Will FAIFE make a statement about this? Will FAIFE call on the U.S. government to immediately end the travel ban that intimidates, harasses and threatens to punish U.S. citizens for wanting to travel freely? How about ending the blockade which has created the state of siege which in itself - as in all times of warfare in all countries - inhibits the exercise of full freedom of expression?
At the very least, let's have some scale and balance here. It is truly
pathetic that one of FAIFE's first actions is to condemn a country which
exceeds many worldwide in the area of literacy and educational rights for all.
And all on the say-so of scurrilous characters with an agenda that has nothing
to do with "free expression" for Cubans, except perhaps for those living in
Miami.
Ann C. Sparanese, MLS
Head of Adult & Young Adult
Services
Englewood Public Library