Wednesday, 18 November 2009 22:50
Should a library be able to tell children what they can and can not read? The issue is being highly debated in Jessamine County.
Two Jessamine county library employees were fired last month when they took The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: Black Dossier off hold so a 12 year old girl couldn’t check it out.
Many people support the women's decision and others say it’s censorship. The library heard from both sides Wednesday.
In front of a packed room Wednesday, the Jessamine County Library Board listened to people voice their opinion on whether or not they should be limiting what children are reading.
“If you only have things people agree with there is no room for development, change, consideration or debate," Jessamine County resident, Christine Powell, said.
"This material is graphic in content and it should be put in a part of the library where only adults can access it," former pastor, Kevin Hearn said.
The argument stems from last months firings of Sharon Cook and Beth Boisvert.
http://www.wtvq.com/news/1064-library-book-debate-continues
20 November 2009
Library keeps Sex, Etc. magazine in teen section
By Jennifer Meyer, Staff Writer
Published: Friday, November 20, 2009 11:49 AM CST
A magazine about sex will stay where teens can find it at the Ames Public Library.
The Library Board of Trustees voted 6-1 Thursday to support Director Art Weeks’ recommendation to continue openly displaying and offering free copies of Sex, Etc. in the teen section.
Trustee Melody Warnick, however, said she agonized over the issue before casting the dissenting vote.
“It is very frank and honest in a way that teens need,” Warnick said, “but I agree with the Bannantines’ complaint … that we’re privileging this magazine over everything else that we have in the library.”
http://www.amestrib.com/articles/2009/11/20/ames_tribune/news/doc4b05f6d68a99e797160561.txt
Published: Friday, November 20, 2009 11:49 AM CST
A magazine about sex will stay where teens can find it at the Ames Public Library.
The Library Board of Trustees voted 6-1 Thursday to support Director Art Weeks’ recommendation to continue openly displaying and offering free copies of Sex, Etc. in the teen section.
Trustee Melody Warnick, however, said she agonized over the issue before casting the dissenting vote.
“It is very frank and honest in a way that teens need,” Warnick said, “but I agree with the Bannantines’ complaint … that we’re privileging this magazine over everything else that we have in the library.”
http://www.amestrib.com/articles/2009/11/20/ames_tribune/news/doc4b05f6d68a99e797160561.txt
16 November 2009
Panel votes to remove book from library
Twenty years after the band Nirvana released its first album a District 192 review panel has decided a book about the band’s lead singer is inappropriate for elementary and middle school students.
The panel reviewed the book, “Kurt Cobain,” Nov. 4 after the parent of a Riverview Elementary School third grader filed a complaint. The book is from publisher Edge Books’ Rock Music Library series of books. According to administrative services director Rosalyn Pautzke, a member of the review panel, it is geared toward students from ages 12 to 15.
A summary at online bookseller bn.com describes the book as high-interest material “coupled with a reading level for middle elementary grades.”
But Pautzke said most on the review panel found the book’s material too dark for the elementary-age audience it was presented to. The first image inside the book’s cover is a glossy, full-color image of Cobain’s body being wheeled out of his home following his suicide in 1994.
http://www.farmingtonindependent.com/event/article/id/13049/
The panel reviewed the book, “Kurt Cobain,” Nov. 4 after the parent of a Riverview Elementary School third grader filed a complaint. The book is from publisher Edge Books’ Rock Music Library series of books. According to administrative services director Rosalyn Pautzke, a member of the review panel, it is geared toward students from ages 12 to 15.
A summary at online bookseller bn.com describes the book as high-interest material “coupled with a reading level for middle elementary grades.”
But Pautzke said most on the review panel found the book’s material too dark for the elementary-age audience it was presented to. The first image inside the book’s cover is a glossy, full-color image of Cobain’s body being wheeled out of his home following his suicide in 1994.
http://www.farmingtonindependent.com/event/article/id/13049/
Wichita Falls Parents Seek To Ban A Book
The book called The Egypt Game is part of a reading list in a fourth-grade class at Southern Hills Elementary. Some parents have a problem with the reading selection. The book has been an optional part of the Wichita Falls School District's curriculum for years. However, the Turnbow family said they won't stop until the book is banned.
Multimedia
It's a Newbery Award-winning story about a group of children who invent a game involving Egyptian gods, but the Turnbows said its not a game they want their child knowing about.
http://www.kauz.com/news/local/69721972.html
Multimedia
It's a Newbery Award-winning story about a group of children who invent a game involving Egyptian gods, but the Turnbows said its not a game they want their child knowing about.
http://www.kauz.com/news/local/69721972.html
Middle schools yank graphic cartoon book
A cartoon anthology filled with teenage angst, four-letter words and some drug and sexual references has been pulled from the student library collections at two Sioux Falls public middle schools.
The school district averages about one complaint per year concerning library material, but this is the first time since at least 2001 that a book has been made unavailable to students.
A committee that reviewed the graphic novel said unanimously that it's inappropriate for middle school students. The book's editor says the cartoons are true to life and could help struggling teens and pre-teens understand that they're not alone.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200911110155/NEWS/911110303
The school district averages about one complaint per year concerning library material, but this is the first time since at least 2001 that a book has been made unavailable to students.
A committee that reviewed the graphic novel said unanimously that it's inappropriate for middle school students. The book's editor says the cartoons are true to life and could help struggling teens and pre-teens understand that they're not alone.
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200911110155/NEWS/911110303
Novel will not be banned from Roanoke Co. school libraries
However, freshmen and sophomores will need parental permission to check out "The Perks of Being a Wallflower."
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/226161
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/226161
06 November 2009
Roanoke Schools Temporarily Removes 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'
By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 11/4/2009 2:05:00 PM
Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (MTV, 1999) is in trouble again—and this time it’s been removed from shelves as it goes through the review process outlined by Virginia’s Roanoke County Public Schools.
Read the full article at:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6705458.html
Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (MTV, 1999) is in trouble again—and this time it’s been removed from shelves as it goes through the review process outlined by Virginia’s Roanoke County Public Schools.
Read the full article at:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6705458.html
27 October 2009
Censor crosses out cussing
By CHRIS GRAHAM/chrisgraham@c-dh.net
Someone has been crossing out dirty words in books, and employees at the Maury County Library aren’t happy about it.
http://www.c-dh.net/articles/2009/10/26/top_stories/01censor.txt
Someone has been crossing out dirty words in books, and employees at the Maury County Library aren’t happy about it.
http://www.c-dh.net/articles/2009/10/26/top_stories/01censor.txt
'Caged Bird' the next book debate?
Board member challenges educator's qualifications to teach African-American culture
NEWMAN - The school district which found itself in the national spotlight and was widely criticized for pulling a controversial novel from its high school curriculum earlier this year has cracked open a new chapter of book debate.
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" may prove to be the sequel to the "Bless Me, Ultima" saga in the Newman-Crows Landing Unified School District.
You can access it at the following URL:
http://westsideconnect.com/content/view/2834/57/
NEWMAN - The school district which found itself in the national spotlight and was widely criticized for pulling a controversial novel from its high school curriculum earlier this year has cracked open a new chapter of book debate.
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" may prove to be the sequel to the "Bless Me, Ultima" saga in the Newman-Crows Landing Unified School District.
You can access it at the following URL:
http://westsideconnect.com/content/view/2834/57/
22 October 2009
Conyers, Nadler and Scott: Reform Patriot Act, Fight Terrorism While Protecting our Civil Liberties
(Washington)– House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) today introduced the USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009. The bill would amend and extend expiring Patriot Act and related provisions needed to combat terrorism, while at the same time better protecting Americans’ privacy and civil liberties. The same Committee leaders also introduced the FISA Amendments Act of 2009, which would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to safeguard the constitutional rights of Americans while ensuring that the government has the tools it needs to collect foreign intelligence.
“Over the past eight years, Americans grew tired of the same old scare tactics, designed to fool the public into believing that we needed to give up freedom to be safe from terrorism,” said Conyers. “It is a new day and an opportunity for reform. The truth is that we can protect our nation from terrorist threats by giving our government the tools it needs while also ensuring there are checks and balances to protect against abuses.”
“This legislation is borne of the necessity to reign in the overbroad provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and ensure that the law is consistent with constitutional standards,” said Nadler. “As we reauthorize expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act, it is essential that we protect our homeland without abusing executive power or unnecessarily compromising the privacy of American citizens. In particular, this bill includes provisions of my legislation to reform National Security Letters – the National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009 – which are critical for protecting Americans against government invasion of privacy and, generally, for restoring critical checks and balances to our government. Notably, the bill would allow Americans to use libraries and bookstores without fear that their choice of books will be monitored by overzealous federal agents.”
“Benjamin Franklin got it right when he said, ’those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,’” said Scott. “These bills assure that we secure our liberties and our freedoms without diminishing either.”
A short summary of the USA Patriot Amendments Act and FISA legislation follows. Section-by-section summaries of both bills are attached.
H.R. 3845, USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 Brief Summary
Title I: Patriot Act Related Amendments
Roving Wiretaps
• Clarifies roving wiretap laws in order to ensure that the government only conducts surveillance on a single, identifiable target.
Section 215 Orders
• Improves the standard for issuing a Section 215 order by requiring specific and articulable facts to show that the tangible things sought are relevant to an authorized investigation, other than a threat assessment.
• Provides recipients of Section 215 orders with the ability to immediately challenge both the underlying order and any gag order associated with it.
• Facilitates compliance with already existing minimization procedures to ensure proper safeguards pertaining to information collected via Section 215 orders.
• Prohibits a request for Section 215 records to a library or bookseller for documentary materials that contain personally identifiable information concerning a patron.
Criminal “Sneak and Peak” Searches
• Adopts safeguards against abuse of searches where notice to subject of search is delayed by shortening the initial 30 day delay period to 7 days, requiring that any application for an extension in the 7 day delay be made by the Senate confirmed US Attorney in the district where the delayed notice warrant was originally obtained, and removing ability to obtain delay by merely alleging that notice would “otherwise seriously jeopardize an investigation or unduly delay a trial.”
Pen Register and Trap and Trace Device
• Requires more specificity in the application for pen register and trap and trace and establishment of minimizations procedures.
Nationwide Court Orders
• Allows a provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service to challenge a subpoena, order, or warrant requiring disclosure of customer communications or records in either the district in which the order was issued or the district in which the order was served.
Audits, Reports, and Sunsets
• Requires annual Inspector General audits and reports to Congress on the use of Section 215 orders, NSLs, and Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices through the end of 2013.
• Provisions pertaining to Section 215, NSLs, and roving wiretaps will sunset on December 31, 2013.
Lone Wolf
• Allows the Lone Wolf provision to sunset at the end of this year (December 31, 2009).
Title II: NSL Reform
• Ensures that the FBI can obtain basic information without a court order, but also adds reasonable safeguards.
• Improves the issuance standard for NSLs by requiring specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the information sought pertains to a foreign power or agent of a foreign power, and requires the FBI to record them in a written certification.
• Improves procedures which provide an opportunity for an NSL recipient to challenge the NSL itself and any gag order associated with it.
• Authorizes meaningful, constitutionally sound judicial review of NSLs and associated gag orders.
• Requires the Attorney General to authorize the use of any information acquired or derived from an NSL in a criminal proceeding.
• Requires the Attorney General to establish minimization and destruction procedures to ensure that information obtained pursuant to an NSL regarding persons who are no longer of interest in an authorized investigation is destroyed.
H.R. 3846, FISA Amendments Act of 2009 Brief Summary
Telecommunications Immunity
• Repeals the retroactive immunity provision in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, leaving it to the courts to determine whether telephone companies that complied with the illegal warrantless wiretapping program acted properly under the laws in effect at the time and therefore deserve immunity.
Bulk Collection
• Prevents the government from using the warrantless collection authorities of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to conduct “bulk collection,” which could include the collection of the contents of all communications between the United States and the rest of the world.
Reverse Targeting
• Places additional limits on the warrantless collection authorities of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to ensure that they are not used as a pretext when the government’s real goal is to target the Americans with whom the ostensible foreign target is communicating.
Use of Unlawfully Obtained Information
• Limits the government’s use of information about U.S. persons that is obtained under FISA Amendments Act of 2008 procedures that the FISA Court later determines to be unlawful, while still giving the FISA Court flexibility to allow such information to be used in appropriate cases.
Protections for International Communications of Americans
• Permit unfettered acquisition of foreign-to-foreign communications and of communications of suspected terrorists into or out of the United States, while creating safeguards for communications not related to terrorism that the government knows have one end in the United States.
“Over the past eight years, Americans grew tired of the same old scare tactics, designed to fool the public into believing that we needed to give up freedom to be safe from terrorism,” said Conyers. “It is a new day and an opportunity for reform. The truth is that we can protect our nation from terrorist threats by giving our government the tools it needs while also ensuring there are checks and balances to protect against abuses.”
“This legislation is borne of the necessity to reign in the overbroad provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and ensure that the law is consistent with constitutional standards,” said Nadler. “As we reauthorize expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act, it is essential that we protect our homeland without abusing executive power or unnecessarily compromising the privacy of American citizens. In particular, this bill includes provisions of my legislation to reform National Security Letters – the National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009 – which are critical for protecting Americans against government invasion of privacy and, generally, for restoring critical checks and balances to our government. Notably, the bill would allow Americans to use libraries and bookstores without fear that their choice of books will be monitored by overzealous federal agents.”
“Benjamin Franklin got it right when he said, ’those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,’” said Scott. “These bills assure that we secure our liberties and our freedoms without diminishing either.”
A short summary of the USA Patriot Amendments Act and FISA legislation follows. Section-by-section summaries of both bills are attached.
H.R. 3845, USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 Brief Summary
Title I: Patriot Act Related Amendments
Roving Wiretaps
• Clarifies roving wiretap laws in order to ensure that the government only conducts surveillance on a single, identifiable target.
Section 215 Orders
• Improves the standard for issuing a Section 215 order by requiring specific and articulable facts to show that the tangible things sought are relevant to an authorized investigation, other than a threat assessment.
• Provides recipients of Section 215 orders with the ability to immediately challenge both the underlying order and any gag order associated with it.
• Facilitates compliance with already existing minimization procedures to ensure proper safeguards pertaining to information collected via Section 215 orders.
• Prohibits a request for Section 215 records to a library or bookseller for documentary materials that contain personally identifiable information concerning a patron.
Criminal “Sneak and Peak” Searches
• Adopts safeguards against abuse of searches where notice to subject of search is delayed by shortening the initial 30 day delay period to 7 days, requiring that any application for an extension in the 7 day delay be made by the Senate confirmed US Attorney in the district where the delayed notice warrant was originally obtained, and removing ability to obtain delay by merely alleging that notice would “otherwise seriously jeopardize an investigation or unduly delay a trial.”
Pen Register and Trap and Trace Device
• Requires more specificity in the application for pen register and trap and trace and establishment of minimizations procedures.
Nationwide Court Orders
• Allows a provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service to challenge a subpoena, order, or warrant requiring disclosure of customer communications or records in either the district in which the order was issued or the district in which the order was served.
Audits, Reports, and Sunsets
• Requires annual Inspector General audits and reports to Congress on the use of Section 215 orders, NSLs, and Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices through the end of 2013.
• Provisions pertaining to Section 215, NSLs, and roving wiretaps will sunset on December 31, 2013.
Lone Wolf
• Allows the Lone Wolf provision to sunset at the end of this year (December 31, 2009).
Title II: NSL Reform
• Ensures that the FBI can obtain basic information without a court order, but also adds reasonable safeguards.
• Improves the issuance standard for NSLs by requiring specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the information sought pertains to a foreign power or agent of a foreign power, and requires the FBI to record them in a written certification.
• Improves procedures which provide an opportunity for an NSL recipient to challenge the NSL itself and any gag order associated with it.
• Authorizes meaningful, constitutionally sound judicial review of NSLs and associated gag orders.
• Requires the Attorney General to authorize the use of any information acquired or derived from an NSL in a criminal proceeding.
• Requires the Attorney General to establish minimization and destruction procedures to ensure that information obtained pursuant to an NSL regarding persons who are no longer of interest in an authorized investigation is destroyed.
H.R. 3846, FISA Amendments Act of 2009 Brief Summary
Telecommunications Immunity
• Repeals the retroactive immunity provision in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, leaving it to the courts to determine whether telephone companies that complied with the illegal warrantless wiretapping program acted properly under the laws in effect at the time and therefore deserve immunity.
Bulk Collection
• Prevents the government from using the warrantless collection authorities of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to conduct “bulk collection,” which could include the collection of the contents of all communications between the United States and the rest of the world.
Reverse Targeting
• Places additional limits on the warrantless collection authorities of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to ensure that they are not used as a pretext when the government’s real goal is to target the Americans with whom the ostensible foreign target is communicating.
Use of Unlawfully Obtained Information
• Limits the government’s use of information about U.S. persons that is obtained under FISA Amendments Act of 2008 procedures that the FISA Court later determines to be unlawful, while still giving the FISA Court flexibility to allow such information to be used in appropriate cases.
Protections for International Communications of Americans
• Permit unfettered acquisition of foreign-to-foreign communications and of communications of suspected terrorists into or out of the United States, while creating safeguards for communications not related to terrorism that the government knows have one end in the United States.
As Congress Prepares to Reauthorize the Patriot Act, Reader Privacy Must be Protected
by Judy Platt
While I love to talk books with friends and colleagues, reading for me is a private and personal matter. Government agents secretly privy to what I read might be a fact of life in a dictatorship but it isn't anything I need to worry about in this country. We have a First Amendment that entitles us to read and think freely. Right?
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-platt/as-congress-prepares-to-r_b_324329.html
While I love to talk books with friends and colleagues, reading for me is a private and personal matter. Government agents secretly privy to what I read might be a fact of life in a dictatorship but it isn't anything I need to worry about in this country. We have a First Amendment that entitles us to read and think freely. Right?
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-platt/as-congress-prepares-to-r_b_324329.html
Controversial Book Series Banned From Wicomico Public Schools
Wicomico County Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Fredericksen on Thursday announced that a controversial series of Japanese graphic novels has been removed from all public school media centers. http://www.wboc.com/global/story.asp?s=11321353
15 October 2009
Church to burn books (and records) for Halloween
There is video here as well: http://www.kbmt12.com/news/local/63968712.html
North Carolina church to burn ‘Satan’s books,’ including works of Mother Teresa Raw Story
By Kathleen MillerWednesday, October 14th, 2009 -- 11:50 am
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http://rawstory.com/2009/10/n-c-church-to-burn-satans-books-including-works-of-mother-theresa/
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning" to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.
The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."
Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to "Satan's popular books" such as the work of "heretics" including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren.
"I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.
Grizzard's parish website explains that the Bible is the "final authority concerning all matters of faith and practice," for Amazing Grace Baptist Church. In the Parish doctrinal statement, Grizzard expounds that "the Scriptures shall be interpreted according to their normal grammatical-historical meaning, and all issues of interpretation and meaning shall be determined by the preacher."
The event also seeks to destroy "Satan's music" which includes every genre from country,rap and rock to "soft and easy" and "Southern Gospel" and" contemporary Christian."
David Lynch, a resident of nearby Asheville, N.C., told Raw Story "it's a little disconcerting how close this is to my home."
"They are burning so much stuff I've dubbed them the hypocritical Christian Taliban," Lynch said in a phone interview with Raw Story. "Just the scope of all the information they want to destroy is pretty disturbing."
Church leaders did not respond to Raw Story's requests for comment, but the website notes they will be providing "bar-b-que chicken, fried chicken and all the sides" at the book burning.
North Carolina church to burn ‘Satan’s books,’ including works of Mother Teresa Raw Story
By Kathleen MillerWednesday, October 14th, 2009 -- 11:50 am
Share on Facebook Stumble This!
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/n-c-church-to-burn-satans-books-including-works-of-mother-theresa/
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning" to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.
The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."
Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to "Satan's popular books" such as the work of "heretics" including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren.
"I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.
Grizzard's parish website explains that the Bible is the "final authority concerning all matters of faith and practice," for Amazing Grace Baptist Church. In the Parish doctrinal statement, Grizzard expounds that "the Scriptures shall be interpreted according to their normal grammatical-historical meaning, and all issues of interpretation and meaning shall be determined by the preacher."
The event also seeks to destroy "Satan's music" which includes every genre from country,rap and rock to "soft and easy" and "Southern Gospel" and" contemporary Christian."
David Lynch, a resident of nearby Asheville, N.C., told Raw Story "it's a little disconcerting how close this is to my home."
"They are burning so much stuff I've dubbed them the hypocritical Christian Taliban," Lynch said in a phone interview with Raw Story. "Just the scope of all the information they want to destroy is pretty disturbing."
Church leaders did not respond to Raw Story's requests for comment, but the website notes they will be providing "bar-b-que chicken, fried chicken and all the sides" at the book burning.
30 September 2009
Banned Books Week
posted by Peter Rothberg on 09/29/2009 @ 4:23pm
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/478684/banned_books_week
I wasn't surprised to read that the American Library Association (ALA) reported at least 513 actual and attempted book bannings in the US in 2008. Here's the list of the ten most frequently challenged books of last year.
What did surprise me is this interactive map showing exactly where the bannings have taken place. Would you have guessed that many of the bluest states have been just as guilty as the cradle of the Confederacy? New England's puritanical heritage seems to be holding sway with the Eastern Seaboard awash in incidents of censorship.
Along with the locations of each incident, the map notes the offending titles and offer brief summaries of the cases against these tomes. The controversies range from predictable fears about magic-related YA fiction to traditional opposition to classics like Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The transgressions range from the use of profanity and slang, to allegedly offensive depictions of racial or religious groups, to portrayals of homosexuals as anything other than mentally ill.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/478684/banned_books_week
I wasn't surprised to read that the American Library Association (ALA) reported at least 513 actual and attempted book bannings in the US in 2008. Here's the list of the ten most frequently challenged books of last year.
What did surprise me is this interactive map showing exactly where the bannings have taken place. Would you have guessed that many of the bluest states have been just as guilty as the cradle of the Confederacy? New England's puritanical heritage seems to be holding sway with the Eastern Seaboard awash in incidents of censorship.
Along with the locations of each incident, the map notes the offending titles and offer brief summaries of the cases against these tomes. The controversies range from predictable fears about magic-related YA fiction to traditional opposition to classics like Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The transgressions range from the use of profanity and slang, to allegedly offensive depictions of racial or religious groups, to portrayals of homosexuals as anything other than mentally ill.
Worried about provacative books, Leesburg votes to separate collection by age groups
Activists ask Leesburg commissioners to move racy books for teens at library
By Christine Show
Sentinel Staff Writer
September 28 2009, 7:29 PM EDT
LEESBURG -- Responding to a call by parents, church and community leaders concerned about provacative books available to teens at the Leesburg Public Library, city commissioners tonight voted 4-1 to separate all books based on age groups.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-racy-book-controversy-092809,0,3897922.story
By Christine Show
Sentinel Staff Writer
September 28 2009, 7:29 PM EDT
LEESBURG -- Responding to a call by parents, church and community leaders concerned about provacative books available to teens at the Leesburg Public Library, city commissioners tonight voted 4-1 to separate all books based on age groups.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-racy-book-controversy-092809,0,3897922.story
Banned Books Week: Still Needed in the U.S.
Joan E. Bertin
This piece was co-authored by Chris Finan, President of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
For a country that venerates its First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, the United States tries to ban books with alarming frequency.
Stick a pin in each place where there's been a challenge to a school or library book, and you'll have a map of the United States that looks like a hedgehog in need of a haircut.
This year already, challenges have been reported from Montana to Indiana to Texas, in high schools and libraries, and from classics like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, to newer books like Brent Hartinger's The Geography Club and Chris Crutcher's Chinese Handcuffs.
This February in West Bend, Wisconsin, a local couple filed a petition calling for the Library Advisory Board to remove or label several Young Adult titles, including Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be Bop and Stephen Chobsky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, because they felt that all the books in the young-adult section that dealt with homosexuality were "gay-affirming." The couple also requested that the library build a collection of books by "ex-gays" in order to achieve an ideological balance.
As this debate raged on, four members of the library board were not reappointed because of accusations that they were "promoting the indoctrination of the gay agenda." Then the Christian Civil Liberties Union Milwaukee branch filed a lawsuit against the city of West Bend, complaining that the mere presence of some of the young adult books in the library caused "mental and emotional harm" to the elderly plaintiffs. The CCLU seeks $30,000 in damages per plaintiff, the mayor's resignation, and the removal of the books for a public burning (literally!).
As the late, great, and much-censored author Kurt Vonnegut would say: And so it goes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-e-bertin/banned-books-week-still-n_b_302248.html
This piece was co-authored by Chris Finan, President of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
For a country that venerates its First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, the United States tries to ban books with alarming frequency.
Stick a pin in each place where there's been a challenge to a school or library book, and you'll have a map of the United States that looks like a hedgehog in need of a haircut.
This year already, challenges have been reported from Montana to Indiana to Texas, in high schools and libraries, and from classics like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, to newer books like Brent Hartinger's The Geography Club and Chris Crutcher's Chinese Handcuffs.
This February in West Bend, Wisconsin, a local couple filed a petition calling for the Library Advisory Board to remove or label several Young Adult titles, including Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be Bop and Stephen Chobsky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, because they felt that all the books in the young-adult section that dealt with homosexuality were "gay-affirming." The couple also requested that the library build a collection of books by "ex-gays" in order to achieve an ideological balance.
As this debate raged on, four members of the library board were not reappointed because of accusations that they were "promoting the indoctrination of the gay agenda." Then the Christian Civil Liberties Union Milwaukee branch filed a lawsuit against the city of West Bend, complaining that the mere presence of some of the young adult books in the library caused "mental and emotional harm" to the elderly plaintiffs. The CCLU seeks $30,000 in damages per plaintiff, the mayor's resignation, and the removal of the books for a public burning (literally!).
As the late, great, and much-censored author Kurt Vonnegut would say: And so it goes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-e-bertin/banned-books-week-still-n_b_302248.html
Don't read that! The secret lives of book banners
Julia Keller
CULTURAL CRITIC
September 27 2009
My childhood was a bloodbath.
The blood stayed safely confined within the covers of books, but still: I relished gore. I ate up stories of serial killers and ax murderers and remorseless poisoners. I couldn't get enough of gun-toting hoodlums. Supernatural creatures, such as the vampires that currently flit and hover over pop culture, did not intrigue; my passion was strictly reserved for true crime, for the real-life roguery that imperils our every step -- or so one might think, from these lurid accounts.
My obsession worried my mother, who feared she had hatched a monster. One day, while I was busy toiling in a fourth-grade classroom at Geneva Kent Elementary School in Huntington, W.Va., she went into my room and gathered up my true-crime stash. I returned home, discovered the theft and confronted her: What had she done with my precious books?
"I threw them away," she replied with an infuriating calmness.
Oh, the outrage! Seething, I resolved then and there to run away from home -- Alaska sounded nice -- and get a head start on my destiny, which involved the establishment of a detective agency. What especially rankled was that my mother's fears had been wrong-headed: I didn't identify with the killers. I identified with the cops, the sleuths who cracked the case. I wanted to solve the crime -- not perpetrate it.
That day marked my first encounter with banned books.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0927-lit-life-banned-bookssep27,0,2766625.column
CULTURAL CRITIC
September 27 2009
My childhood was a bloodbath.
The blood stayed safely confined within the covers of books, but still: I relished gore. I ate up stories of serial killers and ax murderers and remorseless poisoners. I couldn't get enough of gun-toting hoodlums. Supernatural creatures, such as the vampires that currently flit and hover over pop culture, did not intrigue; my passion was strictly reserved for true crime, for the real-life roguery that imperils our every step -- or so one might think, from these lurid accounts.
My obsession worried my mother, who feared she had hatched a monster. One day, while I was busy toiling in a fourth-grade classroom at Geneva Kent Elementary School in Huntington, W.Va., she went into my room and gathered up my true-crime stash. I returned home, discovered the theft and confronted her: What had she done with my precious books?
"I threw them away," she replied with an infuriating calmness.
Oh, the outrage! Seething, I resolved then and there to run away from home -- Alaska sounded nice -- and get a head start on my destiny, which involved the establishment of a detective agency. What especially rankled was that my mother's fears had been wrong-headed: I didn't identify with the killers. I identified with the cops, the sleuths who cracked the case. I wanted to solve the crime -- not perpetrate it.
That day marked my first encounter with banned books.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0927-lit-life-banned-bookssep27,0,2766625.column
22 September 2009
Intellectual freedom videos from 2009 ALA Annual Conference now online!
OIF has four new videos up featuring programs from the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Check them out!
http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=552
“My, those novels certainly are… graphic!”
One of the most popular intellectual freedom programs in years, this panel discussion was sponsored by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee, Association of American Publishers, and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Speakers: Neil Gaiman, Terry Moore, and Craig Thompson. Moderated by Charles Brownstein of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
“Privacy in an Era of Change”
An engrossing conversation about the status of privacy under the new administration. Cosponsored by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and the ALA Washington Office. Speakers: Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; David Sobel, Senior Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and Craig Wacker, program officer for the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media & Learning initiative.
“Libraries, Librarians, and America’s War on Sex”
Sex ed advocate Marty Klein discusses the importance of having sexual information available to all library users. Sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table.
“Intellectual Freedom on the Front Lines”
Librarians and library supporters from West Bend, Wisconsin share their perspective on the protracted censorship challenges going on in their community at this issues briefing session, sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Freedom to Read Foundation. (See a blog post on the session from American Libraries’ Inside Scoop here.)
http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=552
“My, those novels certainly are… graphic!”
One of the most popular intellectual freedom programs in years, this panel discussion was sponsored by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee, Association of American Publishers, and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Speakers: Neil Gaiman, Terry Moore, and Craig Thompson. Moderated by Charles Brownstein of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
“Privacy in an Era of Change”
An engrossing conversation about the status of privacy under the new administration. Cosponsored by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and the ALA Washington Office. Speakers: Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; David Sobel, Senior Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and Craig Wacker, program officer for the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media & Learning initiative.
“Libraries, Librarians, and America’s War on Sex”
Sex ed advocate Marty Klein discusses the importance of having sexual information available to all library users. Sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table.
“Intellectual Freedom on the Front Lines”
Librarians and library supporters from West Bend, Wisconsin share their perspective on the protracted censorship challenges going on in their community at this issues briefing session, sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Freedom to Read Foundation. (See a blog post on the session from American Libraries’ Inside Scoop here.)
21 September 2009
Your librarian, the freedom fighter
September 21, 2009
By Guy Tridgell Southtown Star
Nothing about Diane Norris indicates a freedom fighter is at work. As assistant director of youth services at the Orland Park Public Library, Norris helps to oversee the section containing children's books and juvenile literature. It's a quiet comfortable environment on the building's ground level, where most of the noise comes from kids still unwise to the ways of library etiquette.
"Controversial" is not the word that comes to mind describing the place and her job.
But if you need help finding "And Tango Makes Three" or "King & King" - two books for children that have been asked to be pulled from libraries throughout the country for their gay overtones - Norris will help. Happily.
To read the full story, click here: http://www.southtownstar.com/news/tridgell/1781568,092109tridgell.article
By Guy Tridgell Southtown Star
Nothing about Diane Norris indicates a freedom fighter is at work. As assistant director of youth services at the Orland Park Public Library, Norris helps to oversee the section containing children's books and juvenile literature. It's a quiet comfortable environment on the building's ground level, where most of the noise comes from kids still unwise to the ways of library etiquette.
"Controversial" is not the word that comes to mind describing the place and her job.
But if you need help finding "And Tango Makes Three" or "King & King" - two books for children that have been asked to be pulled from libraries throughout the country for their gay overtones - Norris will help. Happily.
To read the full story, click here: http://www.southtownstar.com/news/tridgell/1781568,092109tridgell.article
14 September 2009
School book ban raises censorship concerns in PR
By MANUEL ERNESTO RIVERA (AP)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4QmRHmriAQs3Jsy13LgLMGU-RtgD9AM19RG1
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Several university professors in Puerto Rico are protesting a decision to ban five books from the curriculum at public high schools in the U.S. territory because of coarse language.
The Spanish-language books previously were read as part of the 11th grade curriculum, but proofreaders this year alerted education officials about "coarse" slang, including references to genitalia in "Mejor te lo cuento: antologia personal," by Juan Antonio Ramos.
Also among the banned books is the novel "Aura" by Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, one of Latin America's most prominent contemporary writers. The other four authors affected are from Puerto Rico.
Magali Garcia Ramis, a communications professor at the University of Puerto Rico, expressed concern Saturday about how books are being evaluated by the island's Department of Education.
"This kind of mentality rejects everything that is art and only associates sexuality with inappropriateness," Garcia Ramis said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4QmRHmriAQs3Jsy13LgLMGU-RtgD9AM19RG1
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Several university professors in Puerto Rico are protesting a decision to ban five books from the curriculum at public high schools in the U.S. territory because of coarse language.
The Spanish-language books previously were read as part of the 11th grade curriculum, but proofreaders this year alerted education officials about "coarse" slang, including references to genitalia in "Mejor te lo cuento: antologia personal," by Juan Antonio Ramos.
Also among the banned books is the novel "Aura" by Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, one of Latin America's most prominent contemporary writers. The other four authors affected are from Puerto Rico.
Magali Garcia Ramis, a communications professor at the University of Puerto Rico, expressed concern Saturday about how books are being evaluated by the island's Department of Education.
"This kind of mentality rejects everything that is art and only associates sexuality with inappropriateness," Garcia Ramis said.
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