Librarians for Fairness is, indeed, sponsored by StandWithUs. However, we have a substantial amount of autonomy...we are the librarians (and archivists) and we know library-related issues best. All of the librarians involved in it volunteer their time and work. None of us receive any financial remuneration of any kind for our involvement. Some of us have the computerized code for posting articles on our excellent (this is no time for modesty) website, and others simply recommend articles and links to be added.
The basic idea for Librarians for Fairness originated back in 1992, at the time the ALA Council passed two very strong condemnations of Israel. In fact, no other nation in the world has been condemned so many times by the ALA Council, which has passed anti-Israel resolutions in 1984, 1992, and 2002. The ALA's SRRT also sponsored one in 1998. After the 2002 condemnation, several very pro-Israeli librarians decided to stop discussing the matter, moved ahead and organized. We knew that none of us had the time and resources to put LfF together on our own, so we contacted a number of Zionist groups. StandWithUs was the third we contacted and it liked the idea of Librarians for Fairnress. We have been growing and have members in both Israel and the United States, including an increasing number who also belong to AJL. We had a recruiting table at the 2004 AJL convention, which was held in Brooklyn. I think we were more open about things then...that was before we started getting hate mail...some of which has practically made my hair stand on end. There are some librarians who are most unfriendly to Israel who have been trying to find out who is involved in our organization. Not all of us work in Judaica libraries and some of us have legitimate concerns that belonging to LfF could hurt our careers. There are two Zionistic librarians I personally know of who have been effectively muted by anti-Israel activists in our profession. One of these pro-Israeli librarians even received anonymous, threatening phone calls, at the time he was most active on behalf of the Jewish State. We seek out members who work as professionals in libraries and archives. Those having at least an M.L.S. are preferred, but nobody has to mail us a photocopy of it. Liking Israel is not a sufficient enough emotion for acceptance. We are looking for library and archive professionals who LOVE Israel! Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
