Dear Mr. Credi

Thank you for your letter of July 23, 1992 regarding your offer of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Your letter to Mrs. Young, Head of Adult Reader/Information Services, was not, as you state, unanswered. In fact, you referenced her answering letter in your own letter of June 24, 1992 which you attached for my attention. It seems more accurate to infer you were not satisfied with the answer.

Your points regarding the principles of access to information are well taken and stated, and of course we agree. You have not, however, established that the Library's collection denies access to the point of view available in the magazine you offered. To illustrate that in fact our patrons have ample access to opposing viewpoints on Mideast issues within the totality of this Library's collections, attached are the results of limited searches of our magazine and book indexes.

Further, you do not evidently appreciate the importance of magazine indexing. Lack of indexing means no one can look up articles by subject, and this makes the Washington Report useless for research purposes. Browsing and serendipity are not acceptable substitutes for subject access.

Some libraries, perhaps such as the one whose thanks you quoted, keep a browsing periodicals collection, often separate form indexed titles, often discarded with greater frequency. We do not attempt this, as a periodicals area as large as ours requires tremendous staff time to keep it organized and maintain acceptable levels of staff assistance.

We do not wish to accept the Washington Report merely to be accommodating, and once again refuse with tanks. We will continue to live up to our commitment to represent opposing viewpoints as new materials of all kinds are selected, as well as pay proper attention to criteria for usefulness and value.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sandra Miranda
Library Director