We’ll trust commissioners on library controversy
To the Editor:
Mr. Dan Kowal’s second letter to the editor (April 12 edition of The Smoky Mountain News) is a doubling-down on the insults and distortions of his previous letter and requires a response. I’m glad he spoke with the Macon and Jackson librarians, but their account is only one side of the story. Ms. Hardison has only been the Macon librarian for about two months, and she was not involved in this controversy or personally knowledgeable about the vast majority of what occurred. Most of our dealings have been with the previous Macon head librarian and former FRL Director, Karen Wallace, and the newly-appointed director, Tracy Fitzmaurice.
Librarians are a reader’s best friend
To the Editor:
The first librarian that I remember was Sadie Luck, a grandmotherly type who dispensed Kleenex and wiped noses in a small room near the Lloyd Hotel in Sylva. I was still in the elementary grades, and I usually entered with several of my peers. Sadie knew us all.
Work together, resolve library controversy
To the Editor:
I was wrong in my previous letter (“Use common sense with library controversy,” April 5, SMN). The library has not been stonewalling the concerned citizens. After publication of my previous letter about our library, I spoke with the directors of the Macon and Jackson county libraries.
Use common sense with library controversy
To the Editor:
As a parent, as a teacher of elementary children and as a former member of the Macon County Library Board, I have some thoughts about the library controversy.
The road to tyranny starts with censorship
To the Editor:
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Franklin Roosevelt said this at his inauguration in 1933. Today we have a clear example of this.
Macon residents, commissioner float withdrawing from Fontana Regional Library
What started as a group of citizens concerned about certain LGBTQ books in the Macon County Library has turned into an effort to pull the library from the Fontana Regional Library system, a move that could get very complicated and very expensive, very quickly.
When they come for the librarians …
As Americans, we’re banning a lot of books these days, perhaps 1,650 in the past year, censoring others, and coming after librarians and teachers. In North Carolina, too, at least six attempts have occurred statewide and here in the mountains, one in Waynesville and another in Macon County.
Schools – and libraries – should bring communities together
It seems to me that when we talk about the spaces in our community for our children, we should be talking about what is safe, supportive and loving.
Residents object to LGBTQ literature at Macon library
A group of Macon County residents and library patrons attended a Feb. 7 library board meeting to air a plethora of concerns. Chief among them were that the library is promoting a sexual agenda to minors and the library’s affiliation with the American Library Association and the Fontana Regional Library System.
Travel Through Space
See and celebrate the images from the James Webb Space Telescope projected onto the big screen.
