Comments on: Celebrate “Librarians Trying to Make Themselves Feel Important” Week!

By: Me

Me — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 01:32:20 +0000

I went to Coventry High School in RI. It isn’t “podunk”.

By: JimBob

JimBob — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:55:52 +0000

The real moral of the story is not whether these books should be on our shelf or not, but whether librarians need to pay any attention to the ALA. I can’t wait till they go the way of the dinosaur.

By: Elena

Elena — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:07:20 +0000

It’s a slippery slope. Gone with the wind was taken away from a smattering of kids in 1978? Probably not in therapy today I am sure. But that’s the wrong thinking. On a big picture level there is always the possibility of these things gaining momentum. Turn your back and yea. There’s Hitler, a two-bit artist in Austria, who somehow got bigger and bigger. Glad we do highlight these silly little things.

By: teetop

teetop — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:28:45 +0000

@Dan–You do understand that Amnesty International and the American Library Association are very different organizations with very different missions, right? They should approach this and other occasions with differently targeted campaigns. International government repression is rightly AI’s focus, whereas the ALA is correct to highlight issues facing American Libraries. When they focus on things going on in other countries, it tends to be mocked in places such as this blog.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 06:01:06 +0000

Book challenges are usually cast in the form of government censorship. Someone petitions a school or library board to remove a book from the shelves or the curriculum. Just because a government agency doesn’t initiate the process, the idea is that the government (in the form of a governing board or public employee) shall enforce the views of the petitioner. People wanting to remove books from shelves target libraries because they know that it’s relatively easy to get the power of government on their side. The same people organize boycotts and protests at bookstores with laughable results.

These books aren’t “banned” in the traditional sense in that they are still readily available elsewhere but you have to wonder why the challengers continue to make the effort if they also know that they’re ultimately not successful?

By: Roger Verdi

Roger Verdi — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:48:32 +0000

From the Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nations-teens-disappointed-by-banned-books,401/

Hilarious.

By: KSC

KSC — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:04:28 +0000

I recently became the teen librarian at a public library. When I was talking with the former teen librarian, she told me that she would not buy books that dealt heavily with homosexuality. She had had a bad experience over 20 years ago with a book challenge and she didn’t want to go through that again so she avoided buying anything “controversial.” I had another recent discussion with a librarian who refused to recommend LGBT books to parents with teens. She was afraid of creating a “controversy”. This isn’t happening in “podunk high schools” but in upper-middle class Chicago suburbs.

I agree a lot with what you say here and I might recommend that instead of congratulating ourselves this week, we should be discussing how we censor ourselves and own collections. This would be a nice opportunity to remind everyone that we live in a free society and should not be afraid of potential book challenges. Patrons rarely go all the way with challenges and it’s even rarer for the books to be banned from the library. We shouldn’t be worrying about this.

By: Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries

Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 01:48:12 +0000

AL, compare the ALA's joke of celebration to the serious opposition to true censorship as celebrated by Amnesty International: "Banned Books Week 2011," by Amnesty International. The difference between how Amnesty International treats Banned Books Week and how the ALA treats "Banned" Books Week is striking. Wouldn't it be nice if the ALA start treating the issue seriously, instead of doing what you described in this post and many others. And the OIF marches on. Exactly when will ALA members stop the OIF from making a joke of the ALA. Amnesty International BBW = serious. ALA's OIF BBW = "pretending that librarians are heroes fighting against the censorship bogeyman."

By: Rosa

Rosa — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 20:03:12 +0000

Perhaps the Annoyed Librarian should talk to Michael Moore about his book “Stupid White Men.” Hey, I’ll even be helpful and include a link to a story about how he “attributes the publication of his book to the efforts of a lone librarian” – http://www.slis.indiana.edu/news/story.php?story_id=443

Not all censorship is ancient. And it still goes on, more and more, it seems. Try having a kid in public school, and finding out what they won’t allow in the few school libraries that still exist these days.

By: Boozehound

Boozehound — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:54:06 +0000

I like talking about censorship and freedom of ideas, but I agree that librarians go about this whole thing very foolishly. I think that we can use our efforts to promote attention to the fact that in the not so distant past (and really in most of recorded history) books and ideas were censored or outright “adapted” to suit the stories that were deemed acceptable. Take a look at the history of the Native American, slavery or the immigration struggles that continue unto this day. Pointing this out and promoting debate on these issues is a good thing to do if done right.

That said, the fact that we continue to exclaim how books are regularly “banned” given the current age seems trite in comparison to the very real evidence of what came before. Most librarians would be well served to remember the difference.