Opening General Session: Christie Hefner on Change, Business, and the First Amendment

Opening General Session speaker Christie Hefner drew a clear parallel between businesses and libraries in terms of what they need to do to survive. She noted how, as Playboy CEO, she came to the conclusion that the company "didn't want to be a magazine company—we wanted to be a company that represented a style of content." That led Playboy to expand to television in the 1980s, the internet in the 90s, and mobile devices today. Libraries, she said, can not simply fill the traditional roles of providing books and research materials. Hefner suggested several ways libraries can and are moving beyond those roles, including the online distribution of materials, instantaneous translation of materials, bridging the digital divide, and partnering with both for-profit and non-profit entities. "Who could you partner with to make having and using a library card really cool?" Hefner queried. She reminisced about the founding of the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards, which grew out of the magazine's 25th anniversary celebration in 1979. As part of the anniversary, the magazine bought the papers from the trial of John Peter Zenger at auction and toured them around the country, inviting students to enter an essay contest on what the First Amendment meant to them. At the end of that year, the award was founded. "Over those three decades, not surprisingly, we honored a number of librarians," she said. "Extraordinarily heroic people, and we got to know them through the close working relationship with the ALA, the Freedom to Read Foundation, and Judith Krug." Hefner called working with the Foundation the best perk of her position as Playboy CEO. "For me it was more fun doing banned book readings than to go to the Playboy Super Bowl Party," she said. Citing Iranian citizens' recent use of Twitter and Facebook to get out information that the government wanted to repress, as well as the six states where gay marriage is legal, Hefner argued that the digital revolution has generally made society more tolerant of diverse viewpoints. But she also observed that there's as much effort to ban information as there ever was. "I found that the way to respond to those is to be sure you're true to what you believe," Hefner said. "I would argue that the way to do that is to spend less time thinking about what you're doing and more time thinking about what you represent."