President’s Perspective by Dan Burgard

Wow! What a year ... While it looks like we may finally be emerging from a pandemic that upended every bit of our personal and professional lives (stay vigilant, by the way!), we also need to recognize that we are under attack by very visible and very powerful individuals and groups who are questioning our work and worth with a ferocity rarely seen. The Texas library community’s response has been strong and righteous and becomes more so each day as librarians stand up to those who want to silence us and make our libraries less useful to our communities.

When I started my term as TLA President about a year ago, I was steadfastly focused on marshaling association resources and services to help library staff as they recovered, rebalanced, and reconnected with their colleagues and communities. Little did I know that we were going to need to stand up in response to individuals who want to undo our work in making Texas libraries representative of all members of our communities. Thanks to the hard work of TLA staff and the hundreds of librarians who volunteer their time to support our organization each year, we have maintained a focus on offering an awesome in-person conference in late April while also creating a new coalition, Texans for the Right to Read. We hope the coalition can be a focal point for all of our efforts to positively engage with members of our communities and let them know our principles and motivations in building our collections and offering our services.

The 2022 Annual Conference is promising to be a wonderful get-together that will offer many health-themed sessions. It will feature outstanding keynote speakers who represent perhaps the three hottest issues currently facing TLA and who are happy to stand before you and with you as we navigate our way through tricky times. TLA is committed to an intentional approach to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion which makes us very excited to host Dr. Ibram X. Kendi as he discusses his forthcoming book, How to Raise an Antiracist. A second great general session will feature Nadine Strossen who served as President of the ACLU for 17 years. She will be guiding us through a discussion of why free speech and open dialogue are the best responses to hate. Quite timely!

Last and certainly not least, while giving a nod to all of us needing to center our lives and affirm ourselves as strong people and professionals, writer and actress Melissa Gilbert will be discussing her latest book, Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, A Life Rediscovered. I expect that we will all identify with her journey of personal discovery over the past few years and hope that she will help us validate our own experiences as we focus on what is truly important and put our lives and careers on a path that makes sense for our times.

We have an all-star lineup of thoughtful and powerful general session speakers who are very much on topic for the personal and professional concerns that are consuming much of our time and brainpower. I can’t wait to hear them.

I want to specifically highlight the fact that Nadine Strossen’s talk directly connects with TLA’s recent activities to support librarians and libraries across the state as they stand against forces that would degrade and destruct libraries’ intentional efforts to build representative collections and services. I mentioned the new TLA-sponsored coalition, Texans for the Right to Read, and I encourage you to check out RightToReadTexas.com. I think it can very much serve as a clearinghouse of information that can help you and your colleagues when standing up and speaking out against censorship and challenges to intellectual freedom across the state.

I hope that you are with me in having a sense of dogged determination coupled with optimism for overcoming our current challenges. We are reconnecting with each other and our communities and reenergizing our important role as defenders of free speech and intellectual freedom. I know we will triumph. We are strong when we stand together, and our passion and ideas ensure that the future is bright for Texas libraries.

Daniel Burgard 2021-2022 TLA President

Inserted poetic lines by Tammy Gomez, Senior Library Assistant, Gibson D. Lewis Health Science Library, University of North Texas Health Science Center