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L.A.C.K. & Censoround
March 31, 2004
"Intellectual freedom is the basis of freedom."
In a speech at the University of North Texas, Coordinator of User Education and Outreach Frances May told students she has found book challenging has been on the rise in the past few years.
[TT] North Texas Daily via LISNews.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
8:08:41 PM
March 30, 2004
"Some parents think we can do a better job parenting their children than they can."
Check out Hilary Flower's article about the sort of butchering Great Illustrated Classics does to classic kid lit. This isn't necessarily censorship related, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.
Meanwhile, a Shorewood, WI parent is angered to find out his son was able to check out R-rated films from the library. I was hoping to discover that a noble librarian took the name of this website seriously (ed. note: back when the site was called "Librarians Are Corrupting Kids"), but the father explained that "... they have a self-checkout system so he didn't even have to experience the embarrassment of handing it over to the librarian behind the desk."
The kid rented Striptease, Woman on Top and Leaving Las Vegas, by the way. The poor little guy.
Incidently, I'm using Mozilla Firefox as my browser now. Internet Explorer got hijacked once again by some neferious pop-ad virus, and I'm frankly getting fired of debugging it. Microsoft seems to be aware this is a problem, but besides that I'm in danger of losing my indie librarian street cred by continuing to use it.
[TT] Salon.com
[TT] Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via LISNews.com
[TT] Akron Beacon Journal via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:29:29 PM
March 29, 2004
"Do we really want books about oral sex in our schools?"
Jay Ramirez, bishop of Kingdom Life Christian Church in Milford, CT, asked the Milford School District to "audit" its libraries for books with sexual and occult content. Among the titles he found objectionable are Beware This House Is Haunted and The Berenstain Bears and the Ghost of the Forest.
[TT] American Libraries
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
12:40:00 PM
March 26, 2004
"The book will be placed under lock and key..."
The Freeman Elementary School Media Advisory Committee has voted to restrict access to King & King to parents and teachers. The Hartsells expressed satisfaction with the decision.
[TT] Wilmington Star via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
6:46:00 PM
"It is obvious that the politicians who are behind this are doing it to make political capital ..."
The Maharashtra government has asked Interpol to help them arrest James Laine for slandering Shivaji. Actually getting the author in Indian court won't be easy.
[TT] BBC News & Rediff.com via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
6:43:00 PM
March 25, 2004
"(no more late blogging nights)"
Steve Cohen has returned. Be well, and it's great to have you back.
[TT] Library Stuff
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
6:49:51 PM
March 23, 2004
"...it would be dangerous to publish the book."
British Random House division Secker & Warburg has decided not to publish Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud, fearing a lawsuit by the Saudi Arabian government.
[TT] Salon.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
10:10:00 AM
March 22, 2004
" I had to ... say, 'God made Adam and Eve, not two men.'"
Updating the King & King controversy in North Carolina, the Hartsell family said they will return the book to Freeman Elementary when they deliver their formal protest against its presence in the library. They originally planned to hold the book until the school promised to take it out of circulation.
Culture and Family Institute director Bob Knight told the Hartsells to "raise Cain" over King & King, saying:
"Parents should understand that homosexual activists are very serious about taking over schools and indoctrinating children into the idea that homosexuality is normal and healthy, and that anyone who says otherwise is a narrow-minded bigot."
[TT] AgapePress via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
5:26:00 PM
"We not only condemn it, but also warn the foreign author not to play with our national pride."
Indian PM Atal Behari Vajpayee told ralliers he supports the Maharashtra region's ban on James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, saying the book hurts "national pride."
Shivaji is a touchy subject these days: former Maharashtra Chief Minister Gopinath Munde called for a ban on Jawaharlal Nehru's The Discovery of India for including disparaging remarks about the 17th century Maratha king that don't actually exist in any edition of the book.
[TT] HiPakistan & Times of India via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
2:02:00 PM
"I do not understand why ... you have chosen to spend tax dollars to purchase a how-to-crime manual."
A Wilson, WY resident is upset his local library has a book on how to grow marijuana. Teton County Library director Betsy Bernfeld said the book can be a valuable resource to parents and local authorities researching drug abuse.
[TT] Casper Star-Tribune via Library Underground
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
10:28:01 AM
March 19, 2004
"My child is not old enough to understand something like that, especially when it is not in our beliefs."
Parents of an elementary school student in Wilmington, NC, were shocked to discover the school library has a copy of King & King, about two princes who fall in love. Michael and Tonya Hartsell are filing a complaint about the book and may transfer their daughter to another school.
[TT] CNN.com via Library Underground
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:36:00 PM
March 17, 2004
"You're going to answer to God Almighty for your decision."
Crusaders for Christ has asked the Bartow County (GA) Board of Education to remove such controversial books as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird from school libraries. They had already been okayed, but the board is reconsidering the original decision.
[TT] WRAL.com via LISNews.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
4:12:00 PM
March 16, 2004
"It seems that the author is not willing to give in to this condition."
The government of Tibet has banned Oser's Notes on Tibet for being too sympathetic towards the Dalai Lama. The author has left the country for China in protest. This strikes me as odd since Tibet is technically under Chinese rule, isn't it?
[TT] Phayul.com via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
3:28:14 PM
"The Indian tradition also never favoured shutting out ideas..."
Indian Deputy PM L.K. Advani said the government will look into the Maharashtra region's ban on James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India. He asserted that the Indian government is generally against book banning.
[TT] The Hindu via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
3:28:00 PM
March 15, 2004
"The f-bomb has to be used for a very good reason."
Wal-Mart briefly pulled the Salt Lake City Weekly from its shelves after a customer complained it contained the f-word. The publication's editors argued for reinstatement, saying they only use the f-word in quotes that have a valid reason for being printed.
[TT] Salt Lake Tribune via Romenesko
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
2:20:17 PM
March 12, 2004
L.A.C.K. Redesign & Library Blogs Dine-Around
I swear I'm not in a competition with LibraryPlanet.com for the most redesigns award. Anyway, I hope you like the new look. The one drawback to the redesign is that the older, handcoded archives are no longer online. I didn't feel like recoding all those old files, but don't worry, though: the links were probably broken at this point.
Meanwhile, the Computers in Libraries conference was in Washington, DC this week. One of the events was the Library Blogs Dine-Around, which was organized by Steve Cohen, Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens at Thaiphoon.
Greg Schwartz of Open Stacks, Michael Sauers, and the mysterious PrettyDaises were amongst those in attendance. Greg did a good job of keeping the topic on library blogs, at least for a few minutes. It was nice to finally meet people that I know from websites or have talked to via email for the longest time.
One last note: Steve - take care, rest up, and I'll see you online again soon.
[EDITOR'S NOTE] I eventually got around to adding the hand coded archives to Blogger.
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
11:10:45 PM
March 11, 2004
"So have those district policies and challenge committees current and at the ready."
Disney has bought the rights to some Judy Blume books, which may star Hillary Duff. (I think I made that last bit up, but who knows?)
[TT] LISNews.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
2:52:53 PM
March 9, 2004
"I just always wish the parents would read the book in full before they challenge it."
"God Is Not Pleased With You" is my column in the latest issue of Bookslut.
[TT] Bookslut
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
1:17:43 PM
March 5, 2004
"It will not stop children reading her books; it would just say her books are suitable for pre-schoolers."
Read Aloud Australia is a new government initiative that would supply parents with two million books over the next four years to promote literacy. Mem Fox, the person hired to promote the program, however, is upset that a spokesperson for Mark Latham, the person who sponsored the program, supports a national book rating system. Fox believes this amounts to censorship. Freda Briggs, who proposed the system, believes this will "help parents understand the nature of the material their children are reading."
[TT] The Australian via LISNews.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
5:13:41 PM
March 3, 2004
"...a serious national problem that is causing irreparable injury to our most important resource: our children."
The Supreme Court heard arguments on the Child Online Protection Act. Solicitor General Theodore Olson said that 70% of minors who visited porn sites did so accidentally. That's right, 70% of our nation's children support John Boozman for Congress.
[TT] USA Today via The Earlybird
[TT] Times Record via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
10:09:21 PM
March 1, 2004
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