Diedre Conkling of the Lincoln County Library District in Oregon made a comment on the Social Responsibilities Round Table list that I thought might be of interest to librarians, and also to journalists, especially when confronted with questions about "balance" and "neutrality."

I think that we all make an error when we talk about "balanced" collections. This really is not what libraries do or can do. We create diverse collections. We bring in many view points. We are never going to have a balanced collection because there are not an equal number of items published on each view point. When we embrace diverse collections then we can really bring in a wider assortment of view points.

Quoted by permission.
[srrtac-l] Re: Gaza & lib'ship
Sun, January 18, 2009 3:48 pm
"SRRT" srrtac-l@ala.org