Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

“Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” by William Steig was my favorite book as a child. I must have had my mother read it to me a thousand times. As a Christmas gift last year, my mother gave me the Restored Deluxe Edition, which included my very own magic pebble charm. (I have yet to find it’s magical powers, but I’ll keep you posted)

For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it is a talking-animal fantasy about a young donkey named Sylvester who finds a magic pebble. By a very unlucky turn of events, which includes a very scary lion, Sylvester accidentally turns himself into a rock with no way of transforming himself back into a donkey. The characters in the book are all depicted as animals: chickens, dogs, cats, wolves, donkeys, and pigs.

The controversy and subsequent banning came about because of Steig’s depiction of policemen as uniformed pigs. In 1977 (seven years after Steig won the Caldecott Medal for Sylvester and the Magic Pebble), the Illinois Police Association wrote to many Illinois librarians asking them to remove the book from their shelves. Apparently, Illinois policemen were not the only ones offended because similar requests were made in eleven other states. The International Conference of Police Associations agreed that the depiction of policemen as pigs was derogatory and the book was banned in several places.

In my opinion, the policemen pigs are depicted in a positive light…they are the first animals that Sylvester’s parents went to for help and they are actually quite cute. Obviously Steig denied any political intention. He told Time magazine that he viewed pigs as a good symbol for all mankind. He stated that they are ''a creature surrounded with filth and danger, a victim of circumstances created by himself, unwilling and unable to do anything about his condition -- and even, perhaps, in a way enjoying it''. It seems silly now to think about banning a book for this reason, but tensions were very different in 1970 than they are today. In any account, all of the publicity was extremely helpful to book sales and it is still popular today, almost 40 years later.

One of my favorite quotes from Steig came from his acceptance speech for the Caldecott Medal. I feel like it sums up his playful and imaginative nature that so obviously shines through in his stories.
“Art, including juvenile literature, has the power to make any spot on earth the living center of the universe; and unlike science, which often gives us the illusion of understanding things we really do not understand, it helps us to know life in a way that still keeps before us the mystery of things. It enhances the sense of wonder. And wonder is respect for life.”

Intellectual Freedom Cannot Exist Without Privacy

I work in the interlibrary loan department of an academic library. Although our privacy policy is quite strict (in the liberal sense), until recently, this policy has not filtered over into the ILL department. After doing a little research, I found that this seems to be the case in most academic libraries. Many progressive academic libraries have overlooked privacy concerns when it comes to ILL. As a result, very little research has been done with privacy concerns in ILL.

In the Library Bill of Rights, the ALA affirms that rights of privacy are necessary for intellectual freedom and are fundamental to the ethics and practice of librarianship. Yet many ILL databases have no privacy barriers in place. In the worst case, access is open to any and all employees with no barriers to prevent nosy people (or government subpoena) from looking at infinite personal requests.

I am lucky to work in a progressive library where this issue is in the process of being solved. We are currently working towards decoupling old ILL requests with our patron’s records. As you can imagine, this process has been long and difficult, but we are thrilled to be in the final phase. When the decoupling is complete, our database will hold records for 90 days after which point the patron’s information will automatically be purged from the request. Obviously this is not a perfect solution. In a perfect system, a request would be completely separate from the patron, but for now, this is the best that we can do.

One of the most difficult parts of this process has been explaining to our patrons why they will no longer have access to their old requests. Some patrons, many of whom have hundreds of requests and use the database as a personal reference point to their research, have been quite upset at this inconvenience. It was even suggested by one upset patron that they would like to waive their right to privacy. Although painful to hear, I have tried to use this opportunity to educate patrons on the importance of privacy as an integral component to intellectual freedom. Without privacy, there can be no intellectual freedom.

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