Cuban "independent" libraries

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, June 28, 2003
A Library in Cuba: What Is It?
By FELICIA R. LEE

One of the last places you might expect a debate over free expression is
the American Library Association, the world's oldest and largest
organization of its kind and a longtime champion of open access to
information. But when the subject is as politically charged as Cuba,
anything is possible.

So during the association's annual conference in Toronto, which ended
Wednesday, a little cultural cold war broke out among members over what are
known as independent libraries in Cuba. Small lending libraries run out of
people's homes, they circulate materials that the librarians say are banned
by the government. To some members, the association has been ignoring the
repression of their colleagues and the cause of intellectual freedom; to
others, a small group has been trying to hijack the organization to pursue
an anti-Castro agenda.

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Mark Rosenzweig, the director of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies,
a research center in New York City, contends that Cuba has one of the
finest library systems in the developing world and that no books are
officially banned by the government.

He said he believed that the independent librarians had no connection to
professional librarians and were supported by American anti-Castro groups.
"These are a ragtag bunch of people who have been involved on the fringes
of the dissident movement," Mr. Rosenzweig said of the independent librarians.

Mr. Freedman, the former library association president, said some
association members had even accused the independent librarians of being
"paid agents of the U.S. government."

Mr. Kent acknowledged that some of his 10 trips to Cuba were paid for by
Freedom House, a human rights group, and the Center for a Free Cuba, an
anti-Castro organization, which have received grants from the United States
Agency for International Development. And the co-founder of the Friends
group, Jorge Sanguinetty, is a Cuban exile and economic consultant whose
main client is the aid agency. But those government ties, Mr. Sanguinetty
said, do not change the reality of government-confiscated materials and the
harassment of librarians and their families.

Brigid Cahalan, a librarian at the New York Public Library and a member of
the Friends group, says she hopes that by the January meeting, tempers will
have cooled, and more details will have been clarified. "Many in A.L.A.
have not seen it as an intellectual freedom issue," she said. "Maybe
they've started to rethink things, based on what they've heard and read."

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/28/arts/28LIBR.html


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