The conference was attended by more than 17,500 librarians, exhibitors, educators, writers, publishers, and special guests from the United States and Canada, and other countries such the United Arab Emirates, Cuba, Slovenia, Lebanon, Argentina, Brazil, and the United Kingdom as well as Puerto Rico.

To encourage use of Pathfinder’s online catalog and ordering system, a laptop displaying the website was part of the exhibit. This was the first experience in Canada with using pathfinderpress.com with potential customers. Those staffing the display were prepared to guide clients through the process of setting up new accounts online, but since most librarians don’t actually process their own orders, the internet hookup was used more to browse through the catalog. Around 350 flyers advertising a selection of Pathfinder titles that included the website address and Toronto distribution information were handed out.

Between 80 and 100 visitors to the booth left their business cards or signed the guest book indicating they would like Pathfinder representatives in their area to contact them. The list of contacts collected there was evenly divided between visitors from Canada and from the United States.

Pathfinder representatives in Toronto have been conducting follow-up visits and calls since the Ontario Library Association conference in January and have continued to receive orders from this work. Several librarians came by the Pathfinder display as a result of phone calls received during the weeks before the conference. A representative of Library Bound, an Ontario wholesaler who has been dealing with Pathfinder for some time, told one of the staffers, “I don’t know what you guys have been doing but we’ve been getting more orders for Pathfinder.”

A woman from one of the major school library wholesalers expressed interest in featuring both Malcolm X Talks to Young People and Pathfinder’s version of the Communist Manifesto in its fall promotion catalog. Three reviewers indicated they would like to include reviews of Pathfinder titles in publications that cater mostly to librarians.

The right to privacy and the importance of intellectual freedom were widely addressed at the conference by keynote speakers Bernard Sanders, Gloria Steinem, and Ralph Nader, as well as in several workshops. Discussion centered around the 2001 U.S.A. Patriot Act provision that allows law enforcement agencies to gather data on what library patrons are reading and the 2000 Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), requiring libraries to install filters on every terminal with internet access in order to receive federal funds. Librarians cannot maintain adults-only terminals or rely on librarians monitoring children’s use of “inappropriate” websites.

On June 23 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld CIPA, ruling against a challenge to the law filed by the ALA. In a press release issued the day of the Supreme Court decision, the ALA stated that filtering companies are not following legal definitions of “harmful to minors” and “obscenity.” In a statement issued at the conference, they argued that “The public library is the number one access point for online information for those who do not have Internet access at home or work. We believe they must have equal access to the Information Superhighway.”  
 
Libraries and librarians in Cuba
Part of Washington’s four-decade-long policy aimed at overthrowing the Cuban Revolution includes a campaign that charges the Cuban government with censorship and repression of so-called independent libraries. The U.S. government launched “Friends of Cuban Libraries” in 1999 under the guise of being a private initiative independent of Washington. Its main public spokesperson in the United States is Robert Kent, a reference librarian at the New York Public Library with a long history of activity against the Cuban Revolution.

There has been ongoing discussion in the ALA over the past several years about this issue. At its annual conference in 2001, the ALA refused to endorse the so-called independent libraries in Cuba and instead adopted a resolution opposing Washington’s efforts to “limit access to informational materials by Cuba’s libraries.” In addition, the ALA international relations committee established a “protocol of cooperation” with the Library Association of Cuba (ASCUBI).

At a workshop on “Libraries and Librarians in Cuba” five Cuban librarians gave presentations about their work in Cuba. Marta Terra, president of ASCUBI, and Eliades Acosta Matos, director of the José Martí National Library, addressed the issue of the so-called independent Cuban libraries. Several of those attending the workshop, including Robert Kent and Ramon Humberto Colás, a founder of the Independent Libraries of Cuba Project and an opponent of the revolution who left Cuba in 2002, attempted to dominate the discussion period. Colás pointedly asked Acosta, “What I want to know is, when could we have a discussion like this in Havana?” Acosta answered “We can have this discussion as soon as you decide to return to Cuba.” The 64,000-member ALA was asked to pass a formal resolution denouncing censorship in Cuba and demanding the release of the 14 jailed “librarians,” which was tabled until its next meeting in January. Organizers argued that ALA members needed more information.

Mark Rosenzweig, the director of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, a research center in New York City, contends that Cuba has one of the finest library systems in the developing world and that no books are officially banned by the government. He said he believed that the so-called independent librarians had no connection to professional librarians and were supported by U.S.-based anti-Castro groups. “These are a ragtag bunch of people who have been involved on the fringes of the dissident movement,” Rosenzweig said, referring to the “independent librarians.”

About 50 conference participants attended a party for the librarians from Cuba sponsored by the ALA’s Round Table for Social Responsibility. Acosta, who was recently interviewed by the Militant (see April 28, 2003, issue), said he was glad to find out that Pathfinder Press had a display at the conference. He visited the booth the following day, as did several of the other librarians from Cuba who had not been previously familiar with Pathfinder.

On the last day of the conference, Pathfinder joined other exhibitors in selling off some of their display stock. A librarian from Gwinnett, Georgia, was delighted to see the Pathfinder display, explaining that she met Pathfinder volunteers in Guadalajara where she bought Thomas Sankara Speaks and a book by Che Guevara. This time she purchased Che Guevara Speaks and Marianas in Combat: Teté Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women’s Platoon in Cuba’s Revolutionary War, 1956-58.  
 
 
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