The head of the Runnymede branch of the Toronto Public Library in Bloor West Village—an historic hub of Toronto’s Ukrainian community—is attempting to curtail Activist research and scholarship on the 26 April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which initially devastated Ukraine and nearby lands.

Not only does this obstruction depreciate our understanding and analysis of Chernobyl upon its twenty-fifth calendar anniversary, but such restrictions simultaneously impede Activist investigation of the new 3/11 Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan.

In Library Threatened, we demonstrated that:

• Vindictive Runnymede branch management lost bibliographic control over their Collins Shubun English-Japanese Dictionary, and;
• like-minded management of TPL’s nearby Annette St. branch was unable to fulfill my 4 March 2011 Fukushima-related request for an onsite print atlas of Japan, hours after the 3/11 tsunami/earthquake.

In truth, we must study Fukushima and Chernobyl utilizing best-available verifiable literature, supplementing volatile media headlines and overnight dispatches from network correspondents temporarily entering Fukushima and Chernobyl ground zero under official auspices.

Years ago, when I began patronizing Runnymede following its 31 January 2004-8 June 2005 “closure-renovation,” Toronto Public Library area management, two rungs above Runnymede branch level, endorsed a welcome suggestion of the former branch head authorizing Runnymede’s talented Ukraine-language reference librarian to dedicate limited one-to-one research assistance to my highly-focused Chernobyl literature inquiries.

Area management encouraged and expected the Ukraine-language librarian to utilize her professional judgment in allocating energy and effort to my Chernobyl-related inquiries. As far as I could tell, no time limits were imposed upon this informal collaboration. I would sense when the librarian was becoming occupied with other duties, and would return several days later.

This smooth reference collaboration led to Toronto Reference Library’s acquisition at my request of the 2009 US-published book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.

Chernobyl Consequences identifies and factually criticizes the grotesque Chernobyl-related collaboration between Geneva-based World Health Organization and Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

We spotlighted the international Geneva Action, organized to break the nuclear industry grip on healthcare and relief for all Chernobyl Hibakusha.

Grounded in our welcome, detail-oriented research collaboration with the Ukraine-language reference librarian, we planned a series of continuation articles on the C+25 anniversary in 2011 intended primarily to explore the relationship between Chernobyl and Fukushima, starting with: Nuclear regulator lauds licensees post Fukushima.

Vital in this effort was the Ukraine-language librarian’s request to Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St., for a “reference loan” of Chernobyl Consequences to Runnymede exclusively for in-branch research purposes.

TPL’s well-accepted “reference loan” process can help bring literature to neighborhood branches where requested like Runnymede and Annette St. The spirit of “library in the community” coheres well with the philanthropic behest of Andrew Carnegie - “Free to All!,” which launched Annette St. and several west Toronto TPL branches, including High Park, at the turn of the twentieth century.

Ms Beaton’s hateful “warning’ letter refers to a lengthy confrontation she initiated at Runnymede when she approached the reference information desk on 5 March 2011 seeking my departure during literature inquires. At no time then, or within the previous weeks when I requested her please to substantiate her “go away” message with written Toronto Public Library language imposing a time limit upon reader reference inquires at branch information desks, did Ms Beaton produce such official and apparently non-existent library policy. On 5 March 2011, I emphasized to Brenda Beaton that I would depart instantly upon her production of written library policy supporting her stance.

By unilaterally attempting to define resistance of a polite reader to willful verbal demands of a crusading, inflamed administrator unmindful of branch history as “intrusive and disruptive,” Ms Beaton impinges traditional public library norms of open inquiry and public documentation.