Also this issue: Iron City Smackdown -Howard Altman Masking Fear On prevention in the age of SARS. -Helen i-lin Hwang Letters to the Editor

June 5-11, 2003

loose canon

Elliot Shelkrot: Starship Captain

by Bruce Schimmel

"I tell people that being the director of a big city library is like being Captain Kirk from Star Trek. I don't drive the ship, I fight the Klingons."

These days, Elliot Shelkrot, director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, is doing battle with invaders from all over the universe -- including some recently spawned creatures from the planet of the Big Brothers.

Having worked at the Library since 1987, Shelkrot says his mission has always been to break down the barriers that keep people from the "information, the ideas and the inspiration" that libraries provide. Only now, the barriers are getting tougher to breach.

Elliot Shelkrot, director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, is doing battle with Big Brother.

Having worked at the library since 1987, Shelkrot says his mission has always been to break down the barriers that keep people from the "information, the ideas and the inspiration" that libraries provide. Only now, the barriers are getting tougher to breach.

Historically, the library's greatest threat has come from censorship. There have always been invaders from the Land of the Finger Waggers, who demand that the library toss out books and movies thought to be offensive.

There is stuff in the library, they say, that is just plain bad for people.

It's a charge to which Shelkrot readily pleads guilty. There's plenty of evil lurking on his shelves. "As a matter of fact," he adds, "a good library has something in it that would be horrible to anyone."

But the prospect of censorship is worse. "The library doesn't say that this is the correct idea," says Shelkrot. That decision is up to the reader to decide. Though, he adds, a library and its librarians can provide a context for evaluating all ideas.

While fending off the Censors, the current big showdown is Shelkrot's battle with the Budget Cutters, whose knives are poised to cut hours and services.

Open access to libraries is near and dear to Shelkrot's heart. Among the major accomplishments listed in his official bio, right in the second paragraph, is having all branch and regional libraries open at least six days a week "for the first time in the library's history."

Even with the advent of the Internet, Shelkrot argues, more people are coming to the library than ever. It is, he says, an essential institution for democracy. There is no other institution whose sole mission is to provide information to everyone.

But after 9/11, the ability of library users to seek knowledge freely is being threatened further by Shelkrot's latest nemesis, the USA Patriot Act. The act, he explains, makes it far easier for government investigators to check up on what people are reading.

Shelkrot says the library will comply with the law, but notes that the library computer systems are less than compliant.

"Our computer system is set up so that it doesn't keep the record of what a person has borrowed," says Shelkrot. "It's just none of our business."

"And in so far as we can do that, we continue to do that."

Hear more of what Elliot Shelkrot has to say about threats to the library, as well as the satisfactions of his work. Download an mp3 at http://schimmel.com/shelkrot_elliot.mp3.