KKK video not up to par, say N.C. libraries

摘要

All four of the North Carolina libraries that received a videotape from local units of the Arkansas-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan group in January have declined to add it to their collections. The major reason given for its rejection was its poor technical quality, according to the January 16 Greensboro News and Record. The tape had been mailed to the Greensboro, High Point, and Forsyth County public libraries and the University of North Carolina/Greensboro library along with a note explaining that it was being sent "as a protest against the Martin Luther King Holiday." According to a press release appearing on the white-supremacist group's Web site, the January 7 donation was a 60-minute video in which "Pastor Thomas Robb, national director, along with Rachel Pendergraft, klan spokeswoman, discuss various erroneous views of the white rights movement in general." The News and Record reported that the video addressed interracial marriage, immigration, gays, abortion, and other issues that Robb categorized as "sins." A panel of librarians at the Greensboro Public Library reviewed the tape for relevance and quality, in light of the library's policy that no material should be rejected because its content is controversial or unpopular. However, Director Sandy Neerman announced January 15 that their final decision to refuse the tape was because it: * does not accomplish a valuable educational purpose; * does not satisfy community interest in learning about the KKK; * is of extremely poor technical quality; and * does not put forth documented facts and analysis. "We kept coming back to one bottom line," Neerman said in the January 16 High Point Enterprise. "We wouldn't have purchased this video for our community to view. It's very difficult to hear it. It's very difficult to see it.