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
21 September 2009
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.
12 September 2009
'Racy' Twilight books banned from schools in Australia
'Racy' Twilight books banned from schools September 12, 2009
Twilight books "too racy" for children have been removed from libraries"Goes against religious beliefs" http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26062002-421,00.html
PRIMARY school students have been banned from reading the teen cult classic Twilight books because they are too racy. Librarians have stripped the books from shelves in some junior schools because they believe the content is too sexual and goes against religious beliefs, The Daily Telegraph reports. They even have asked parents not to let kids bring their own copies of Stephenie Meyer's smash hit novels - which explore the stormy love affair between a teenage girl and a vampire - to school. Santa Sabina College at Strathfield was so concerned about the Twilight craze that teachers ran a seminar for Year 6 students to discuss sexual and supernatural themes in the books. The school's head librarian Helen Schutz said: "We don't have a policy of censorship but the issues in the Twilight series are quite different from the Harry Potter classics.
Twilight books "too racy" for children have been removed from libraries"Goes against religious beliefs" http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26062002-421,00.html
PRIMARY school students have been banned from reading the teen cult classic Twilight books because they are too racy. Librarians have stripped the books from shelves in some junior schools because they believe the content is too sexual and goes against religious beliefs, The Daily Telegraph reports. They even have asked parents not to let kids bring their own copies of Stephenie Meyer's smash hit novels - which explore the stormy love affair between a teenage girl and a vampire - to school. Santa Sabina College at Strathfield was so concerned about the Twilight craze that teachers ran a seminar for Year 6 students to discuss sexual and supernatural themes in the books. The school's head librarian Helen Schutz said: "We don't have a policy of censorship but the issues in the Twilight series are quite different from the Harry Potter classics.
10 September 2009
Libraries and the First Amendment exhibit
In July, the McCormick Freedom Museum in Chicago created a brand new exhibit: Libraries and the First Amendment. The exhibit explores the many ways that libraries are both bastions and battlegrounds of First Amendment freedoms. Libraries and the First Amendment has two main components. First is the virtual exhibit at www.FreedomInLibraries.org that features case studies, interactives, and comment boards. The second is a versatile poster show that transforms any public library into an exhibition space.
The exhibit is offered as a free service to any library.
The exhibit is offered as a free service to any library.
08 September 2009
Yale criticized for nixing Muslim cartoons in book
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writer John Christoffersen, Associated Press Writer – Tue Sep 8, 10:41 am ET
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Yale University has removed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from an upcoming book about how they caused outrage across the Muslim world, drawing criticism from prominent alumni and a national group of university professors.
Yale cited fears of violence.
Yale University Press, which the university owns, removed the 12 caricatures from the book "The Cartoons That Shook the World" by Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen. The book is scheduled to be released next week.
A Danish newspaper originally published the cartoons — including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban — in 2005. Other Western publications reprinted them.
The following year, the cartoons triggered massive protests from Morocco to Indonesia. Rioters torched Danish and other Western diplomatic missions. Some Muslim countries boycotted Danish products.
Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
"I think it's horrifying that the campus of Nathan Hale has become the first place where America surrenders to this kind of fear because of what extremists might possibly do," said Michael Steinberg, an attorney and Yale graduate.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090908/ap_on_re_us/us_prophet_drawings_yale
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Yale University has removed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from an upcoming book about how they caused outrage across the Muslim world, drawing criticism from prominent alumni and a national group of university professors.
Yale cited fears of violence.
Yale University Press, which the university owns, removed the 12 caricatures from the book "The Cartoons That Shook the World" by Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen. The book is scheduled to be released next week.
A Danish newspaper originally published the cartoons — including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban — in 2005. Other Western publications reprinted them.
The following year, the cartoons triggered massive protests from Morocco to Indonesia. Rioters torched Danish and other Western diplomatic missions. Some Muslim countries boycotted Danish products.
Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
"I think it's horrifying that the campus of Nathan Hale has become the first place where America surrenders to this kind of fear because of what extremists might possibly do," said Michael Steinberg, an attorney and Yale graduate.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090908/ap_on_re_us/us_prophet_drawings_yale
EPIC seeks to intervene in Books settlement, says privacy policies are no solution
While the CDT finds Google’s new privacy promises a good first step, the Electronic Privacy Information Center apparenty feels differently. Not content to file a brief on the matter, EPIC is actually seeking to intervene in the case (PDF), since, it says, none of the parties are representing the public’s interests, which are massively impacted by the settlement.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5366
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5366
Congress weighs landmark change in Web ad privacy
Congress weighs landmark change in Web ad privacy
By JOELLE TESSLER (AP)
WASHINGTON — The Web sites we visit, the online links we click, the search queries we conduct, the products we put in virtual shopping carts, the personal details we reveal on social networking pages — all of this can give companies insight into what Internet ads we might be interested in seeing.
But privacy watchdogs warn that too many people have no idea that Internet marketers are tracking their online habits and then mining that data to serve up targeted pitches — a practice known as behavioral advertising.
So Congress could be stepping in. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, is drafting a bill that would impose broad new rules on Web sites and advertisers. His goal: to ensure that consumers know what information is being collected about them on the Web and how it is being used, and to give them control over that information.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jDu3Jz5Pe_pkSNm1gHftBmK1AzdQD9AIHAP00
By JOELLE TESSLER (AP)
WASHINGTON — The Web sites we visit, the online links we click, the search queries we conduct, the products we put in virtual shopping carts, the personal details we reveal on social networking pages — all of this can give companies insight into what Internet ads we might be interested in seeing.
But privacy watchdogs warn that too many people have no idea that Internet marketers are tracking their online habits and then mining that data to serve up targeted pitches — a practice known as behavioral advertising.
So Congress could be stepping in. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, is drafting a bill that would impose broad new rules on Web sites and advertisers. His goal: to ensure that consumers know what information is being collected about them on the Web and how it is being used, and to give them control over that information.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jDu3Jz5Pe_pkSNm1gHftBmK1AzdQD9AIHAP00
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