other times...not so much.
I'm finding this whole scrotum thing frenzy really irksome. People, it's a word. An anatomically correct word. And it happens to be on the first page of the 2006 Newberry-Award winner The Higher Power of Lucky. In context and, I feel, in a way that makes sense. A kid hears a word they've never heard before and it appeals to them; who among us that interact with children hasn't experienced that?
According to the Times article, librrians everywhere are freaking trying to figure out about how to "handle" the book. While not strictly true, some school librarians have actually said they’ll ban the book, and the debate has leaked out to numerous blogs and library sites.
This is just nuts, and I'm not talking only about the librarians. I love, for example, the way the Times implies a vaugely subversive air around YL authors.
A personal favorite quote:, “Authors of children’s books sometimes sneak in a single touchy word or paragraph, leaving librarians to choose whether to ban an entire book over one offending phrase.”
I'm sorry but SNEAK? A book is, at least as of today, ordinarily something printed, correct? Normally in black and white. And the contents are generally allllllll out there for anyone who wants to take a look. (Except for MadLibs, of course. They are specifically designed for you to incorporate your own "bad" words).
It seems to me that the only people past whom the contents of a book can be snuck are people who don’t read books. For example, those who stand leafing through them feverishly, looking for reasons to feel offended and thereby work to keep others from reading it.
Librarians, please don't go over to the dark side and ban this book from your schools. Get a grip and move on, there's nothing to see here.
Another paper down! I shall reward myself by reading something I actually consider interesting, or perhaps just get ot bed at a decent hour.
I realy thought I was done with the whole student life some time ago, but I only have 4 classes after this one so I can finally see the end.
Both of us have had nightmare stressful weeks, so I am hoping that over the next fews days we'll be able to hang out a bit and reaquaint ourselves. I miss my husband.
Trigger-happy world leader hits wrong target.
Although it would have been the ultimate irony if he'd shot Charlton Heston.
Rivkah Sass, Director of the Omaha Public Library, has been selected as the ALA's Librarian of the Year. She almost makes Omaha sound attractive...
I have half a mind to apply for one of these, just to see what they'd end me have having me do.
Today in the Guardian there was an article about a service provided by the Kenyan National Library Service. (Jessamyn over at librarian.net read it, too>) It's called the Camel Library Service, and that's pretty much what it is; a camel loaded up with books providing books to those who don't have easy access to them.
So now we officially can't live in Denver. First they do the whole deeply ignorant and tragically misguided Pit Bull Genocide, and now I come to find out that their libraries are apparently run by idiots.
See, it seems that these anti-immigration freaks have decided that, in order to try and stop people from being bi-lingual, they want to get any books in a language other than English from library shelves. The best way to do this, they seem to have decided, is to use a Music Man offence. You've seen the Music Man, right? Basically, a con man tries to push his personal agenda by taking advantage of some townspeople's ignorance about a new pool table in their town. The pool table, he tells them, is a harbinger of evil, and no good will come of it. This "organization" went into the libraries and looked around, then picked the one thing they knew would push people's buttons; pornography. Then they blew it out of proportion and ran with it.
Some of the Spanish-language collection contains graphic novels. Some of the graphic novels, which contain adult content and are not shelved in the children's section, contain foul language and nudity. Since these people assume that children are left alone in the library with no parental guidance (which may be sadly quite true), they have decided that poor, misguided white children are being force fed pornography without even having the benefit to be able to put it in context because it's in SPANISH! They had a big tantrum about how tax dollars were being spent on Hispanic pornography, and sadly the media ate it up. The libraries even pulled the novels, and are now concerned that other collections will come under fire. Because you see, the organization in question doesn't care about the other graphic novels (ever read Sin City?), only the Spanish ones. If that does not already shoot their credibility all to hell, I don't know what does.
I'd link to articles that have appeared in the Denver Post and to the radio station where the allegations were originally aired, but sadly they seem to have completely misunderstood the real issues at hand and appear to be coming down on the side of the extremists.
This is, no doubt, partly in reaction to a discussion by the Denver Public Library system about making some of their branches primarily Spanish language. I'm not sure what I think of that, but I certainly don't think that it's completely wrong if that's who your population serves.
What really makes me sad is that, for a long time, I really loved the Denver area. My grandparents and family friends lived in Colorado, and I spent a lot of time there growing up. I had considered moving there as recently as last year, when the husband and I began looking for a place to relocate once I finish Grad School. But things change as you get older; ice cream no matter tastes as good as it once did, and Denver reveals itself to be a deeply reactionary metropolitan city full of unreasonable fears.
Crap; and the mountains are so pretty, too.
Since I am not an actual librarian yet, I didn't go to ALA this year. Which sucks, as it sounds like everyone is having a great time from the blogs and wikis I've been reading. It seems strange in a way, I'm nearly done with school and I've no idea what kind of librarian I want to be!
Anyway, I'm always interested in things that make me think about various aspects of the profession, such as this wonderful article by Chris Dodge former Hennepin County [MN] librarian and current Utne Reader Librarian. It discusses how commerce can impact public service and is, I think, also relevant to fields far beyond librarianship.
While most libraries are (rightly) striving to protect patrons who use their computers from government snooping, which includes purging user information once the patron has logged off, one library is taking things in a different direction. Naperville Public Library, based in a Chicago suburb, will employ US Biometrics to use fingerprint scanners in place of a library card to allow patron access to computer workstations. They will utilize this data to allow and monitor computer access. Note in the article how teens and young adults are scapegoated as justification for this wrongheaded and unnecessary compromise of citizen privacy. Last I heard, public librarians were neither in loco parentis nor agents of the State.
Cost for the library? $40,646. Cost for the FBI? Priceless.
In Tulsa, they're moving the gay-themed kid's books. Not to an "Adults Only" section, but to a "parenting collection".
Parenting Collections, in my experience, can be one of two things. Often times, they're collections of adult books of the "bringing up baby" variety, housed in the in the children's room for the convenience of parents.
The other kind of parenting section, the kind of parenting section that they're building in Tulsa, is different*. Basically, it's a section where you stash books written, designed, and published for children, about which the adults in your community are willing to throw a hissy fit. It is not a perfect compromise, not by a long shot. We know that in Tulsa, that shelf will be where the books with gay characters will go; other places it'll also be books with illustrations of naked people, books about puberty and pregnancy, maybe even books about death and evolution. By setting those aside, we're saying, "This stuff is special, dirty, dangerous. This stuff could hurt your children. Be careful." Are there parents who won't go look at the scary shelf? Yes. Are there parents who will yell at their kids for looking at the scary shelf? Yes. It's also clear that moving such books into a special section says, "If you are like this, you are not completely welcome here". On some level, it is the community condoning bigotry, under the rhetoric of preserving 'parental choice'.
I'm glad the books aren't being withdrawn; I'm glad they're not being sent to an Adults-only section; I hope the 'parenting section' is accessible and non-intimidating. I hope the librarians make sure the stuff that gets ripped off and defaced gets replaced. I will send them an e-mail shortly and tell them just that.
I also hope there's a public outcry, and the citizens of Tulsa say they don't want their libraries condoning this crap. Although I highly doubt it.
Why, when I think of this strange type of segregation, do I think of U.S.-based Internment camps during WWII?
* Some might say it's a cop-out, and there are moments when I'd agree. But the good librarians working in Tulsa are working under siege as far as I'm concerned, and while I don't support this compromise, the fact of the matter is that they're doing a job I am not willing to do, and I'm not interested in adding to their burden. Better to work to defeat the folks that backed them into this corner.
Good. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Tom Udall (D-CO) have reintroduced the Freedom to Read Protection Act. I hope it goes through this time; the government is getting a little too interested in people's personal lives since 9/11. Those interested in reading more about this legislation can visit the Campaign for Reader Privacy.
I wish I had checked out this exhibit when it was up in SF, but I'm glad it' available online. It's art created from vandalised books with gay, lesbian, transgendersed, and HIV/AIDS among other subject matter.
The level of fear and ignorance of people continues to stun me. Do you think that if you destroy a book, you have destroyed the idea? Actually that gives books a lot of power, which is nice, but this type of censorship sickens me.
Book of the Night: The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, by Brady Udall.
Well, okay, not quite. But I suppose anyone who wants to jump on the "You don't need a Master's degree to be a Librarian" wagon can certainly look no further than this missive against blogs by none other than ALA President Michael Gorman. It's shockingly ignorant and ill-informed, especially coming from someone who is meant to be educated. I don't know if he's just really worried about people taking blogs as "gospel" for sources of information and can't express that accurately or what, it's just strange coming from a librarian.
Most of the blogs I read, policial or otherwise, speak about their opinions or thoughts and then link to something relevant. That's what I try to do, at least. But I know that my opinion is hardly law, nor should it necessarily be taken as gospel no matter how many sources I have to back it up. I do think people are taking blogs too seriously as a new source, but the whole blog phenomenon fascinates me. It tells me that there are so many people in the world who don't feel that they're heard, so they create a place in cyberspace where they can feel visible. I don't think this is a bad thing necessarily, except of course for those poor people whose lives are so empty they use the web as some kind of online diary to bare their deeply personal business.
I, personally, don't feel heard, and that's part of why I have a blog. That has a lot to do with my upbringing, which is really not the main topic of conversation here at BotNC (nor should it be; that's why I prefer e-mails to comments). It also keeps me in touch with people around the world that, otherwise, it would be hard to chat with. Lets them know what's on my mind, and helps me see what's on my mind when I look back at the entries.
While I certainly don't pretend to be a very eloquent person, most of the people whose blogs I read are, and express themselves very nicely, thanks. Although in a resonse on the ALA Countil ListProc he contends that he was merely being satirical just isn't ringing true to me. I just wish poor Mr. Gorman had his own medium of online expression that could help him reach others...
If Gorman were not the President-Elect of a major professional organization, I'd not be as het up. I've read more concentrated bad-mouthing about libraries, librarians and the ALA the past two days than I've ever seen, and that's not okay with me. I'm trying to think of it as a growing pain within the profession. I mean, we're long overdue for a growth spurt. But then I keep thinking...do I really want to deal with ANOTHER idiot President?
Jinfo, which will be helpful should we ever move to the UK
General Good Reference Book: Web Search Garage, by Tara Calishain. I keep it at work and check it out when I can, since I'm taking Online Searching this semster and need all the help I can get! Not just for searcheads like me. She discusses more than Google and more than just the basics and offers some really good step-by-step approaches to ferreting out tough-to-find information, specifically things that are not just Googleable. Check out the preview chapter and a few freebies on her web page for starters.
Book of the Night: Now May You Weep, by Deborah Crombie
Michael McGrorty has provided a (hopefully) comprehensive list of public libraries that are currently endangered. Endangered in this case is being defined as suffering major cuts in service, facilities or personnel, and sadly these do seem to fit the bill.
Remind me again why I'm in Graduate School? Because surely there should be a better way to spend my money. It seems like this degree might end up being useless by the time I graduate, but hope springs eternal. Maybe one day people will realize how valuable their public libraries are and that even with the Internet, you still need both libraries and Librarians. I really hope so, and not just so my degree won't go to waste.
Book of the Night: The Children's Blizzard, by David Laskin. Graphic descriptions of the process the body goes through while one freezes to death was unnecessary, however.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
--George Santayana
The past is the luxury of proprietors.
--Jean-Paul Sartre
The Globe and Mail has an interesting story about how reports on the effects of increasingly restrictive permissions costs on documentary filmmaking (registration required, natch).
As a big fan of documentaries, I find this a bit sad. I certainly believe in copyright protection, but they may be right that certain types of history could, in fact, become a commodity. So much else has.
Book(s) of the Night: Lucky Child : A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind by Loung Ung (review). AND Welfare Brat: A Memoir, by Mary Childers (review). Both read on Sunday.