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Book banners active even in Massachusetts

The BU News Service reports the number of books people don't want other people's children to see in school libraries is still small here compared to, say, states shaped like a penis, but that the numbers are growing. One book-banning group, which has two chapters in Massachusetts, says they're not trying to ban anything, but rather trying to "curate" what other people's children can read.

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Rose: I got caught up at work and I barely had time to pick up this cake. I wanted to make Sven feel welcome.
Blanche: Rose! That cake is from the Get It While It's Hot Erotic Bake Shop!
Dorothy: [opening up the cake box and then quickly closing it] WHOA!!!!!
Blanche: Why, Rose Nylund, why, that cake is in the shape of...
Dorothy: Blanche, we know what it is.
Rose: I thought it was in the shape of Florida!
Blanche: That reminds me...I wanna give Charlie Milbourne a call.
Dorothy: If this cake reminds you of Charlie Milbourne we can both give him a call!

Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ2LB9ud6yI

Jokes aside. Awful that people are trying to do it here too. People really do have too much time on their hands if they are concerned with what OTHER children are reading.

PS - And speaking of Betty White, that penis state now wants to ban Betty White Kids Book. :(

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Ban the Bible. Seriously, have you read that thing? There are some super messed up things in there.

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"Nineteen Eighty-Four", too, so kids and adults alike don't learn to spot the bald-faced cynicism it takes to pretend that "curate" and "ban" aren't just Newspeak and English for exactly the same damned thing.

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Curation in School Libraries:
https://journals.ala.org/index.php/ltr/article/view/4791/5737

It's benign "weeding" or curating when Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird are removed, I gather.

https://www.slj.com/story/Little-House-Big-Problem-Little-House-Big-Prob...

The truth is, whether it's Huckleberry Finn, Gender Queer or The Godfather, removing a book from a school is not "banning" it. If parents or students want the book so much, they can buy it.

All libraries are "curated." Public school libraries are curated in a process responsive to democratic will through elections of school board members

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the point of libraries is that people dont have to buy books, since not everyone can.

knowledge and thought and creativity shouldnt only be available to people with resources.

but you know that.

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Some libraries allow you to suggest purchases for books they don't already have. I do this often, and I'd say it's about a 75% success rate.

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...if these sheet-sniffers are allowed to have their way.

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Suzie. Sorority Slut

Tom of Finland's rawest drawings

the latest Hentai comics

at the BPL? Do I have to BUY them?

This outrageous banning has gone too far

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You are asking about materials produced as pornography.

They do have a biography and copies of the biopic about Tom of Finland at BPL, I assume it would contain at least some of the artwork in it.

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I am surprised you even know who Tom of Finland is... and if BPL has biographies about him.

(for others.. Tom of Finland is a young gay man's wet dream)

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I looked it up on Google then I searched the BPL catalog for the name.

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For many young Gay men his drawings were as sexually appealing as the drag epitomized by Divine. Divine was funny; but as an image of sexual appeal, no. Tom's images of hyper-masculinity looked serious and full of gravitas. For some that worked. For others it was drawings of puffy men made to look sexy and severe but came across as over baked and silly.

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As a gay boy in the 90s growing up in rural america. Tom of Finland was a god send to my wet dreams.

Its Akin to looking at underwear ads in the Sears Catalog when you're 12. Those are not meant to be sexy at all, but to a 12 year old.. it does the trick. Overly orny teens will find anything that floats their boat.

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Where the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) standards recommend "age-appropriate" materials to support learning objectives.

Your acknowledgment that some things shouldn't even be in public libraries means you have lost the argument.

Once you say some things shouldn't be in libraries, all that remains is the process of how and who can exclude them.

In the USA, that means accountability to elected officials and ultimately voters.

In the case of school libraries, it means school boards (in Boston I guess it means the mayor or nobody being accountable).

Second, you mention "pornography." A vague term, means different things to different people. Even the legal standard of "obscenity" is tough to define as "community standards."

But the "most banned" book in school libraries, Gender Queer is seen by this movement Moms for Liberty as pornography.

https://twitter.com/CaitlinPacific/status/1653494094415659008

You can look it up for yourself. The illustrations and excerpts are out there. Fair to say it's a story of "transgressive" adolescent sexuality. It would have been prosecuted by the Watch and Ward Society and DA Garrett Byrne not too long ago.

Parents might not want their pubescent 12 or 13 year olds to be exposed to it. Not just exposed to it informally, but with the implied endorsement and "imprimatur" of their schools.

It's not worth arguing whether Gender Queer or Huckleberry Finn should be out of public school libraries here at UHub.

The question is whether school boards have legitimate power to curate school libraries in response to parents' and voters' demands.

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Your acknowledgment that some things shouldn't even be in public libraries means you have lost the argument.

Will you, for once, stop with the weak noob "you lost the argument cuz I say so" nonsense?

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I wasn't involved in any of the debate on this topic until I saw a fallacious statement being put forward. Unless they want to dispute my claim that they are making a bad faith argument, I've got nothing to lose on here.

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As far as I can tell, "Curation" is when I remove a book from the shelf and "Censorship" is when they do, for any values of "I" and "They".

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There's only so many books a teacher can assign so choices will need to be made as to what to formally teach in a class.

But why remove books from libraries? Or why not provide them, in the case of the classics or student requested titles. If a student has the time and desire to read a book, make it available to them.

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All libraries are "curated." Public school libraries are curated in a process responsive to democratic will through elections of school board members

Horsefeathers. Once a book's been thrown out due to pressure and threats by a minority of bucket bangers, any "response" will mean at best forcing the library to purchase another copy of the book that you just threw out.

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looks like an extremist right-wing group that is already notorious for using harassing and threatening tactics. Their idea of "curation" smells like book-burning mixed with violence.

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1. Frame dissidents and protesters as violent

2. Frame any decision elected bodies make in response to protests as illegitimate, as done under duress.

See, "outside agitators," "the criminal left," etc etc

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than a blanket dismissal of documented incidents that don't fit your worldview. Maybe read the article first? Let me help:

https://www.poconorecord.com/story/news/crime/2023/03/17/monroe-county-m...

https://www.mediamatters.org/critical-race-theory/moms-liberty-leader-th...

https://www.livingstondaily.com/story/news/2023/03/03/livingston-gop-cha...

https://newrepublic.com/article/166373/moms-liberty-schools-nightmare-mi...

https://www.postandcourier.com/education-lab/charleston-school-board-mem...

Sorry if you feel "framed" by a welter of evidence that Moms for Liberty is an extreme right-wing fringe group that uses intimidation and threats of violence to achieve their ends. Them's just the facts.

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Out of all your links, there's one "true threat," which is being prosecuted.

The rest includes one very tendentious portrait of Moms for Liberty and Moms for Social Justice, including denigrations of religious belief, in the New Republic, which now follows the standard "Resistance" liberal line as it once followed the neocon line.

and a few stories about intemperate statements inadvertently revealed which don't come close to true threats. 2/10 waste of my time.

When there are hot controversies in American life, there is often intemperate talk and action.

Elected bodies maintain power, and what you posted does not come close to delegitimizing the actions of elected school boards "banning" or "curating" books in school libraries.

Violence concurrent with the BLM protests didn't delegitimize police reform measures voted by city councils after that, nor did bombings and threats during the Vietnam War delegitimize congressional votes to defund the war and bring the troops home.

You don't see how rhetoric, politics and law work. You just see your side as righteous and want to win.

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It's an astroturf "movement". Why are you caping for it? Are you part of it?

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But continue to bray on about rainbows.

Got it.

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As you may have guessed from my user handle, I've worked in libraries (and archives) a very long time-- almost 30 years, with breaks. Most of that has been in public libraries and government archives. You have some misperceptions about library work that I'm happy to clear up.

Most public school libraries don't really use the term "curation" so much as "collection development," which encompasses selection and deaccessioning (aka weeding), among other things. Curation is used more in museums and special collections (like rare books or music libraries). Not to say it's never used, but it's not as common in general libraries as it is in other institutions.

The overwhelming majority of books that are weeded are replaced. That element is often missed by patrons who are not aware of the full process.

Three examples:

1. A copy of To Kill a Mockingbird with a broken spine and loose pages is removed from circulation. TKAM is a perpetually popular book and a new copy is ordered-- perhaps hardback, perhaps an ebook, perhaps both. By the way, every school library in Boston has ereaders if a student needs to check one out.

2. The Encyclopedia Brittanica, once a staple of library collections, stopped being printed in 2010 and is now only fully available via a website subscription. Most libraries that want the EB got rid of the last print copy by 2020 (and reclaimed that shelf space for better purposes) and pays for an annual subscription now instead.

3. Medical books, text books, travel guide books, Windows 95 for Dummies-- a lot of books have material with built in obsolescence. Most are replaced with the most recent edition. Libraries work with professional alliances to make sure copies of out-of-date books are retained and available somewhere, for historic interest, but there's no need for every single book to be in every single library.

~
School libraries serve the school, and are run by professionals, just as schools themselves are run by professionals. Lucky for us, we no longer live in a world where we ask the barber to remove the tumor growing on your hip, because we have recognized that some tasks and responsibilities require time, study, and dedication, that they should not be done half-assed. In short, they should be done by experts and professionals.

School boards hire professionals to do work so that not every damn decision is handled via "democratic will." Of course, some of that is because the sheer scale of decisions is time consuming-- no one wants to have to vote on whether sloppy joe day will be Tuesday or Thursday.

But other decisions require people who have become experts in pedagogy, who understand learning capacity and methodology by age, who can figure out the best practices for building knowledge. If you spend your entire day doing brain surgery, that is wonderful, and that does not make you an expert on teaching long division to a 4th grader. Being a firefighter requires expertise but not the type that is needed to teach a dyslexic child how to read. Bankers are not the right people to decide if cellular biology courses should be taught before chemistry courses or vice verse.

School librarians spend 6-8 years learning how to select books for student populations, how to work with teachers to support their classes, how to provide readers advisory and research skills in K-12. They have masters degrees in this, and some have PhDs.

School librarians are paid for their expertise and skills, not to just do whatever they're bullied into doing by parents who cannot make a logical argument for why a book should be removed.
That's because if a good and informed argument is made for removing a book, then the librarian will consider a book challenge.

Below is a book challenge request form. This is updated from the 2021 ALA form, and I will cut & paste it in full. I think it’s very reasonable. The reference to the cost of a challenge is the cost to the school or library-- often hundreds or thousands of dollars in time and materials. While this was written for a public library, it is intended to be tweaked for a school library as necessary.

What to include on a challenge policy

Include here a short explanation of what the procedure is for challenging a book, the estimated cost of a challenge, and the timeline from form submission to decision. Be clear that only one form from a household is accepted at a time, and that material being challenged must be read in full. The form must also be completed in full.

A short line here about the purpose of the library collection and its commitment to the rights of individuals to read and access materials they would like to is a fundamental principle of the institution.

Part 1: The basic information. This looks like ALA’s 2021 reconsideration request form with some adjustments.

  1. Requester’s name, contact information, and if they are affiliated with any group
  2. Type of material being addressed
  3. Title, author, year of publication
  4. How did you learn about this material?
  5. Did you read/listen/view the material in full?

For “no” responses on the final question, no further action is needed. The resolution is simply that the material in question was not considered in full and therefore cannot be put through the reconsideration process.

Part 2: Understanding the material being challenged. Note here that incomplete responses or no responses to questions will void the form.

  1. Explain the purpose of this material
  2. What positive qualities does the material present
  3. What are your concerns about the material, including citations and quotes
  4. How has the material been assessed in professional review sources (include citations)
  5. Provide citations in support of your objections
  6. How does the material fail to comply with district educational objectives
  7. In what ways does the material fail to meet state educational objectives
  8. Explain how the material fails to meet Intellectual Freedom standards
  9. Who would be negatively impacted by this material and how (citations and evidence required)
  10. What would you replace the material with (include titles and professional reviews of replacement)
  11. Why do you believe you should be able to restrict the reading choices of community members, including children?

End your form with a short line reiterating the purpose of the library and that parents always have the right to educate their own children about the books that may be best for them. Make the filer sign this line.

Signed ___________________________
Dated ____________________________

*Forms that are not signed will be void.

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Thank you for this informative post, what a breath of fresh air.

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What books are they trying to ban? Is there a list?

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Say it ain't so, next thing you know we'll have spies and white supremacists.

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Abington.

Newburyport.

Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester - lists some examples of the books in question.

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Abington

From the article:

She acknowledges that she has not read the books and only saw excerpts of questionable content identified by others.

Sorry, that's an automatic disqualification -- particularly when these "others" are not friends and neighbors, but are homophobic bigots from who knows where trying to trick you into astroturfing yourself.

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.

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School committees, accountable to the voters, having open discussions about the books and making decisions.

TINA - There Is No Alternative to that process.

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School committees, accountable to the voters, having open discussions about the books and making decisions.

School committee members, being doxxed and having targets painted on them by right wing extremists funded by a national astroturf anti-LGBTQ/white supremacist movement, receive death threats and resign, leaving the remaining "committee" to have an "open discussion" and decide to ban books that include representation of marginalized groups and truthful portrayals of historical events.

No one could have possibly drunk enough koolade to believe some of the bullshit you've been spouting here. Your disingenuousness reeks to high heaven.

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No need to ban books. We can just rewrite them and ban their authors.

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If a private copyrights holder decides to edit their book to make it less "offensive" because they think that will make them more money, that sucks but it's their right.

If a PUBLIC school library buckles under to a brigade of homophobic white supremacists and removes books from a PUBLIC library because it might make children aware of...say...the existence of same-sex couples, or Ruby Bridges, or the holocaust just to name 3 current examples in Florida... that's hurting everyone.

See the difference? I'm sure you do.

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until 21? Modern science has proven that sexuality does not begin until the age of 21. Just any Focus on the Family expert or its offshoots. Someone presses a button and boing, the person is sexually aware. Until then obviously there is no need for books written about pre-21 things such as sexuality. Right?

The shame that Moms for Liberty embody about sexuality is nothing new. Where I grew up the local high school's student government wanted to show The Graduate. Adults were up in arms.

In my high school in the 1970s the drama teacher chose as the annual school play a Broadway play that included topics that would give Moms for Liberty the vapors, if not make their bloomers rise up and down in fast succession: a comedy that included the representation of a diminished sex life in a straight couple, homosexuality and suicide (Murray Schisgal's Luv). The academic teachers favored the play; the vocational teachers were appalled.

The play ran for only two nights. Sold out. And funny. Who knew that sex life, repressed homosexuality and suicide could make for a comedy (but don't rely on the movie with Jack Lemmon; that movie was a lemon).

There were and always will be parents who choose to pretend that their teenage kids have no sexual feelings until they are married.

The culture war aspect is different. This one sided war is a confluence of lusts for social dominance and control, raw power and money. Power as exemplified by McConnell and Trump. Social dominance exemplified by the various BS mom's for whatever and the Evangelicals and Southern Baptists who pretend they are God's chosen and the mullah that Rupert Murdoch, etc. earn from using media to maintain a state of constant strife, rage and hatred.

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