
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 20, 1994                   TAG: 9410210009
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-16   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ROBERT M. FELTON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CENSORSHIP? YES, FOR A GOOD CAUSE

WAS IT editorial design or happenstance that when you published Jeannine Parnham's plea (Oct. 3 letter to the editor, ``Help turn kids' eyes away from violence'') for help in controlling unwholesome influences inundating her children, you also published two other letters that said, in essence, ``Don't look at me''?

I share Parnham's sense that she isn't getting the help she should. I agree that the common culture is bigger than parents' good intentions, and worry that in many respects the common culture is downright harmful to children.

Thus it was with dismay that I read Jay Stephens' Oct. 3 letter (``Who controls access to information?'') condemning the suggestion that some library materials shouldn't be circulated to children without parents' consent. Restricted library stacks were commonplace only 25 years ago. Where I grew up, librarians applied a simple, sensible and serviceable rule: Something they wouldn't want their own kids to read went into the restricted area. Serious philosophical works, controversial or not, went into the accessible-to-everyone area.

Stephens calls this censorship. He's right. What's wrong with restricting materials available to children? They're not grown-ups, and no one has suggested materials he cites shouldn't be made available to emancipated adults.

It is disingenuous almost to the point of dishonesty for Stephens, president of the Roanoke Valley Library Association, to say that monitoring the reading of children is the job of parents, not his. He knows parents can't be everywhere all the time. Further, he's our employee; it's his job if we, the people, say it is. The proposal isn't one that injures children's rights. It affirms parents' rights, the taxpayers' - Stephens' employers - to know their reasonable desire for the exercise of some sensible discretion isn't being subordinated by their employees.

Nor can Stephens take refuge behind his implicit suggestion that the proposal originates with uptight religious types bent on establishing a theocracy. Blockbuster Video is the nation's largest renter of movies because it provides a method for parents to restrict movies made available to children. Many parents want materials for their children to be restricted, and will pay to have their wishes carried out.

Public libraries and schools are operated by taxpayers under a common charter: preservation of democracy. When librarians and educators so charged ask, ``But who shall decide?,'' they aren't playing an unanswerable trump card but a deadman's hand, because they reject all standards outright and reject the answer inherent in their mission: The public who writes your paycheck will decide, silly. That's what the democracy you're supposed to defend is all about.

Now, let's not have any howling that it looks like we'll have a public referendum every time the library wants to add to its collection. It didn't happen when restricted stacks were commonplace, and there's no reason to think it will happen now.

Indeed, as Claudia Johnson notes in her Oct. 3 commentary (``There's no right to be free from offense''), challenges to materials presented to youngsters have increased only recently. Why? Because many educators and librarians refuse to consider them with a parent's eye.

Robert M. Felton of Roanoke is a civil engineer.

by CNB