DEAR EDITOR:
In a column published Friday, Cynthia Walker wrote about a truly
horrible sexual assault on an 8-year-old girl that took place in a
Philadelphia library.
DEAR EDITOR:
In a column published Friday, Cynthia Walker wrote about a truly horrible sexual assault on an 8-year-old girl that took place in a Philadelphia library. She detailed the connection to Internet porn and used this example as reason to vote no on Measure B. She disagrees with the “ALA policy of all materials to all patrons, regardless of age.”
I don’t think this is a good enough reason. A single case does not prove the generality. Libraries are safe places in general. It does no good to withhold library funding in Gilroy because a deranged individual in Philadelphia committed a grievous assault in a library.
Bad things do happen, and as dangerous as it may seem to some that others are free to view whatever they choose, the library is still overwhelmingly a place of valid learning and a necessity in a free society. I understand the fear that some feel on hearing shocking news as in Cynthia’s example, I have children too, but surely this is no argument against a better financed library system.
Jack Penkethman, Gilroy
Submitted Monday, Feb. 16 to ed****@****ic.com
