After introducing Hildreth and Johnson as “two powerful women in California arts and education,” interviewer Jeffrey Callison shot the agency leaders tough questions about state funding, Internet filtering, censorship, the USA Patriot Act and discrepancies in arts and library services between poor and affluent California neighborhoods: neither Hildreth nor Johnson flinched.

Hildreth astutely turned the popular afternoon show into a vehicle for promoting the excellence of California’s libraries and its librarians. Answering how the Internet “has changed librarianship,” Hildreth said everyone who works in libraries has “embraced” the Internet, yet every library customer with Google thinks himself a librarian. As a result, Hildreth said, the librarian is no longer the “gatekeeper” outside the door of information and research but the facilitator, the “navigator on the sea of information.”

Responding to a question about the funding drop for libraries, Hildreth didn’t bemoan cuts but used the question to highlight the importance of school libraries. California, she said, ranks 48th nationally for public schools with dedicated school librarians. As a result, California “pays the price.” Though public libraries serve “as many children as possible without school library services,” what those young people really need for successful college careers are in-school libraries and librarians, Hildreth said.

Callison asked Hildreth about the value of Internet filtering. Calling it a “tricky issue” and “a local one,” Hildreth said that filters are not “perfect” and that parents must educate their children on inappropriate Internet sites. Callison then hit on the USA Patriot Act, asking Hildreth if the Act is “a threat to people’s privacy.” Hildreth responded that the “United States public really values its libraries and feel strongly that library borrower information should be protected and remain private.”