Library bloggers have understandably expressed disappointment and incredulity over the overwhelming vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 25 in favor of H.R. 5319, DOPA, the Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006. A more descriptive name for the bill would be the Deleting Online Tools and Users Act. It is yet another attempt to use a nuclear bomb to solve a limited (albeit genuine and serious) problem–in other words, a solution that creates far many more problems than it solves. If the Senate compounds the House’s error by passing DOPA, it will “amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.”

Among early respondents were LibrarianInBlack Sarah Houhgton, Jessamyn West, Walt Crawford, Rochelle Hartman, and the American Library Association’s Washington Office.

Posturing politicians may win this battle against intellectual freedom, but as long as there are libraries, they can never win the war. Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, has said “The Net is not about technology, it’s about people.” Congress doesn’t seem to appreciate that. Libraries are far more about people than they are about technology. They are also places that, as ALA president Leslie Burger so eloquently explains, transform communities.

I recently read Ian McEwan’s Saturday, his novel set in London during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. It can be read in many ways. And undoubtedly it has been discussed by many a book group in many a library. Henry Perowne, its main character, relies a bit too much on technology (in this case his BMW) and gets into a difficult situation in which there is plenty of blame to go around. He also gets into that situation by accepting at face value a bit of information about a road closing and by assuming that everyone else knows and interprets that information the way he does. Violence is averted thanks to his daughter’s recitation in a very tense situation of Matthew Arnold’s melancholy “Dover Beach,” implying that art and philosophy are every bit as important as technology. The climactic scene (I hate plot spoilers and won’t be one myself) finds Perowne taking responsibility for his part in creating the situation and making it better (but not perfect–some damage has been done). I read the novel as a cautionary tale about relying too much on the latest technology, about assuming a single interpretation of information is the sole interpretation, and about the value of taking a measured and well thought-out approach to conflict. I wonder how many readers who have borrowed Saturday from a library or who have met with their book group in a library to discuss the novel have come to similar conclusions–conclusions that I doubt Donald Rumsfeld would endorse.

Even if DOPA severely limits online access to and interaction with others in libraries that cannot afford to give up e-rate funds, those libraries will still be gathering places, places where people come together and exchange ideas. The library is the Ellis Island of ideas, welcoming them from all quarters and allowing people to mix and share ideas and generate new ones. So does the Internet. DOPA would deprive some library users of the opportunity to engage in that free exchange of ideas online at their libraries, but it cannot deprive them of the opportunity to exchange ideas and be exposed to ideas at their libraries. Some of those ideas might even be considered subversive by others!