Jason Hatton
Bartholomew County Public Library Director Jason Hatton hopes to see hundreds of people supporting the freedom to read from 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesday for what he is billing as a Community Read-In.
The gathering, encouraging people to bring a chair and a book to read, will unfold outside at the library plaza at 536 Fifth St. in downtown Columbus. The forecast at press time included partly cloudy skies and a high temperature of 61 degrees.
The event will include Hatton and his staff, and an advocacy table with information about banned books and the freedom to read. Viewpoint Books, Columbus’ independent bookstore downtown, also will be there.
The library’s Book Express, that gives away thousands of books annually, will be there, too, giving away books.
A children’s storytime will be happening throughout the event.
“We will also be making sure that teachers know about the event and hope they will also be there to lend their voices,” Hatton said.
Indiana House lawmakers are considering a Republican-backed bill that aims to restrict minors from accessing what it calls “harmful materials” at libraries. The measure cleared the Senate in a 34-15 vote. Five Republican senators joined Democrats in voting against it.
Senate Bill 17 would strip away protections that public libraries and schools currently have against prosecution, librarians around the state say.
Hatton added that he generally avoids political issues, since the library serves a broad cross-section of people. But he spoke out strongly against the measure in a Feb. 6 Republic news story, calling the proposal “chilling.”
“This really isn’t a political thing to me at all, but a fundamental right in a free society — and that is the freedom to read and the freedom to access information, and it’s so important to show support for that,” Hatton said. “Yes, it’s important to show that we have that right to state legislators, but also to others to say that, in Bartholomew County, we support teachers and we support librarians.
“This is about speaking with numbers.”
In a lengthy post on the library’s Facebook page, Hatton said he’s gotten strong support from the community after his comments in The Republic.
“From the comments I have received after the article … I am confident that we have a very large contingency within our community that feels that our educational institutions are under attack,” he wrote. “Daily it seems that we hear from so many areas of the state and country that the professionals working within these libraries and schools are somehow trying to corrupt our youth.
“However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. There is nothing that we hold more dear than the patrons and students we serve. They are why we got into this profession.”
