Sanders vs Biden: Libraries Edition
Which candidate has a better track record for library funding and support?
Now that we’re down to two Democratic presidential candidates, the first mano-a-mano debate, and the last rush of state primaries, let’s take a look at a topic nobody’s talking about: library funding and governmental support.
That’s not usually seen as a national issue, since most people think their public libraries are funded exclusively via local means, usually either county or city taxes. While local funding makes up the majority of most public libraries’ budgets, they also depend on federal grants not just for specialized programs, but for certain employee salaries and material maintenance for their general collection.
The U.S.’s Institute of Museum and Library Services is the major source of this national financial aid, and oh guess what, Trump has attempted to slashed its budget every year he’s been in office. (On a personal note, I dealt with this grant at my old job when we used it for tuition reimbursement for paraprofessional staff who were getting their master’s degree in library and info science. That included me for exactly one semester before it got cut.)
So it’s totally worth looking into what Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden plan to do with this if either becomes president.
Note on the reporting for this: I emailed the people who handle the press for both campaigns like two weeks ago to see if I could get any official statements, but no dice. Since that was in the eyewall of Hurricane SC/Super Tuesday, I ain’t mad. Just wanted to cover my bases.
I couldn’t find any official stance on either of their campaign sites, either, which, again, a little disappointing but not surprising or anything. So I dug through their legislative history instead, and also looked at Sanders’s time as mayor in Burlington, VT since that would reflect any local funding issues he influenced as well.
Here’s what I found out.
Bernie Sanders:
Patriot Act amendment. This is the most important. In 2004, Sanders proposed an amendment that would limit the government’s abilities to see people’s library checkout histories. Patron records are sacred, HIPPA-esque territory, not meant for anyone except those who have to work with them directly, and letting the government study these is a major violation of the tenets that prop up free speech. So Sanders proposed to make them stop, and it got through the House but died in the Senate.
Freedom to Read Act. The next year, Sanders introduced another amendment (this time to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978) that expanded on the idea of reading privacy. This one was meant to make it illegal for the FBI to search someone as a suspected terrorist just because of what they chose to read as noted by booksellers and libraries.
Co-sponsorship of the Andrew Carnegie Public Libraries Act in 2005, which created grants through the IMLS for public library upgrades through the country, and the Museum and Library Services Act of 2003, which extended the funding and types of services the IMLS would offer through the fiscal year of 2009.
Plus, he was the keynote speaker for the 2003 American Library Association conference to talk about his Patriot Act amendment.
Joe Biden:
Nothing in his legislative history.
Spoke at the National Library of Latvia in 2016 talking about NATO article 5 on the anniversary of Hitler and Stalin’s alliance.
Dedicated the Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library at the University of South Carolina in 2010. (I got to see that in person, and a drug dog singled out the banana in my book bag.) I don’t think this counts since this was totally a political thing because Biden was buddies with Hollings, but it’s one of the few things that come up when you search out Biden and libraries.
Winner: Bernie Sanders, by a long-ass shot. He’s been actively helpful in perpetuating library funding and library-based information privacy, both of which are vital in keeping these institutions alive and running the ways they need to to support the people who depend on them. (So, all of us!)
Both photos are from the candidates’ profiles on Congress.gov.
You left out something important...the fact that Joe Biden actually takes credit for the PATRIOT act based on how much it allegedly cribbed from his 1995 bill:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/andrewkaczynski/surveillance-joe