Good observation.

Years ago, I pointed this out in a university forum, where a lot of the students didn't know this history of public librarians as intellectual defenders of freedom (e.g., promoting access to information by all, protecting privacy of records against tyranny, resisting censorship and book burnings).

I don't know whether this awareness-raising was net-positive, because it turned out that had painted a target on their backs, for a bad-apple element who was opposed to all those things, in that microcosm.

With that anecdote in mind, at the moment, with all the misaligned craziness going on the last few months especially, and the brazen subverting of various checks&balances against sabotage... I wonder how to balance communicating to the populace what remaining defenses we have against tyranny, balanced against the possibly of adding to an adversary's list of targets to neutralize.

In the specific case of public libraries, techbros have already insinuated themselves, and partially compromised some of the traditional library mission, before the more overt fascists have even started to use their own tools. (Go check your local library Web site or computerized catalog, and there's a good chance you'll find techbro individual-identifying cross-Web tracking added gratuitously, even for the physical copy media. I just did in mine. And the digital-only lending may have to be thrown out entirely.)

But when we happen to realize non-library ways to further good ideals, in a period of being under occupation by comically evil adversaries with near-ubiquitous surveillance (again, thanks in part to techbros), we might have to figure out discreet ways to promote the goodness.