While it seems that the majority of books that are challenged have some fairly explicit content, or some other type of "trigger" - I have been noticing that Graphic Novels have been gaining steam in the ways that they are being presented. In our library, I always thought that the placement of these novels in the very back of the library in the least accessible corner was a bit suspect and not necessarily convenient. On more than one occasion, when an individual has asked me where our graphic novel collection is located and I show them, they make a comment about its location. This is usually after I ask them if they want 'adult' graphic novels or 'young adult' graphic novels...so I was not surprised to see a well thought out page by the ALA that is specifically dedicated to challenges to graphic novels.
While some of our class lectures have touched on the 'media response,' I wonder why there is a specific section dedicated to it on this particular ALA page? Is it just sort of standard for the challenges against various materials?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
AS IF!
While scanning the information super highway looking for something to pontificate on, I came across a rather interesting group of individuals that many of you have probably heard of. It is the group AS IF! (Authors Supporting Intellectual Freedom) and if I am reading the information correctly, it was formed when the board of trustees at Austin's St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Texas turned down a $3 million gift because the donor wanted Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain" removed from the optional reading list for 12th-graders.
They maintain a blog, but it has not been updated for a while - but the link to the original story can be found here
What interests me about this story is that is runs completely opposite of another story that I read about a few months ago about some zany New Zealand author named Brian Edwards who thinks that libraries are committing 'grand theft' by loaning out books. He has since removed the post from his blog because he took a pretty severe cyber-beat down, but parts of it can be found here.
While these two stories touch on different themes of Intellectual Freedom and Intellectual Property, it gave me warm fuzzies to read one and chills o read the other.
They maintain a blog, but it has not been updated for a while - but the link to the original story can be found here
What interests me about this story is that is runs completely opposite of another story that I read about a few months ago about some zany New Zealand author named Brian Edwards who thinks that libraries are committing 'grand theft' by loaning out books. He has since removed the post from his blog because he took a pretty severe cyber-beat down, but parts of it can be found here.
While these two stories touch on different themes of Intellectual Freedom and Intellectual Property, it gave me warm fuzzies to read one and chills o read the other.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse
WOW!
I know that this was assigned reading, but I feel that it is worthy of a blog post due to the complexity of the site and the depth that they choose to use in exploring the issue. I would imagine that one of the most daunting tasks that faces somebody when responding to an issue relevant to this topic is where do they derive their primary authority? If you are in a library system that has not quite defined this avenue or has not yet had to implement this type of policy, the OIFC is a great place to start.
As I was reading the list of 2009 challenges, I was not to surprised at some of the titles and the subject matter that they dealt with. I know that this report does not go into the depth necessary to understand both a patron and library point of view, but some of the challenges seemed fairly far-fetched. 17 of the 18 challenges for the reporting period were retained without any revision to their original classification. The one item that was removed was done so as a result of inaccurate factual information.
One thing that troubles me - why would the OIFC choose to identify one of the challenges as being initiated by a religious organization and the rest as 'patron challenges?' There is no way that you can tell me that the 17 other challenges were exclusively made by individuals who somehow stated explicitly that there challenges were not because of religious motives. Granted, the one that was identified probably did so formally, but by singling it out in their report, the OIFC intentionally creates an unnecessary form of animosity. I would like to know more about this reporting decision...
I know that this was assigned reading, but I feel that it is worthy of a blog post due to the complexity of the site and the depth that they choose to use in exploring the issue. I would imagine that one of the most daunting tasks that faces somebody when responding to an issue relevant to this topic is where do they derive their primary authority? If you are in a library system that has not quite defined this avenue or has not yet had to implement this type of policy, the OIFC is a great place to start.
As I was reading the list of 2009 challenges, I was not to surprised at some of the titles and the subject matter that they dealt with. I know that this report does not go into the depth necessary to understand both a patron and library point of view, but some of the challenges seemed fairly far-fetched. 17 of the 18 challenges for the reporting period were retained without any revision to their original classification. The one item that was removed was done so as a result of inaccurate factual information.
One thing that troubles me - why would the OIFC choose to identify one of the challenges as being initiated by a religious organization and the rest as 'patron challenges?' There is no way that you can tell me that the 17 other challenges were exclusively made by individuals who somehow stated explicitly that there challenges were not because of religious motives. Granted, the one that was identified probably did so formally, but by singling it out in their report, the OIFC intentionally creates an unnecessary form of animosity. I would like to know more about this reporting decision...
Monday, February 8, 2010
Burning Man and IF?
I am taking some advice....and taking a vacation from heavy IF reporting on the front lines and going to spin a yarn about something else...
The town that I grew up in is probably best known for two things - the annual rodeo that fills our streets with horsecrap for a week in September and a certain brand of wool blankets. However, there is a sub-culture that exists that you only hear whispers about among the hippies that hide in the mountains. They are the Burning Man Alumni. For such a small town, you would be surprised to see the heavy traffic in the well-worn tracks that lead from Eastern Oregon to the Nevada desert. So having heard rumors (and many entertaining stories that are on the verge of legality) of this festival growing up, I was equally surprised to see it come across in the literature of the profession that I have chosen. This article is from the current edition of the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the ALA and is worth the next 5 minutes of your life. (click on the latest issue)
What caught my attention the most was not the fact of the individuals involved/profiled, but the statement that IFRT made in comparing the activities of the two seemingly unlikely roommates on the IF front.
The Burning Man mission statement reads - "Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society."
Now doesn't that just scream IF? WTF? Sure, there are some catchy library speak phrases in there that can be parsed out and doled to the intellectual freedomistas - aka "civic life," "society" something or other...but to make the leap from that to a blind endorsement of IFRT support of Burning Man is even too much for this reformed University of Oregon dropout. (There is a reason why the Dead would always pass through Eugene!)
There are some pretty enticing topics in this edition, and it is worth it to read about the Pornography Panel as well. But if this is the core of what I have to inspire me this week, then I think I'll hit the snooze button one more time.
The town that I grew up in is probably best known for two things - the annual rodeo that fills our streets with horsecrap for a week in September and a certain brand of wool blankets. However, there is a sub-culture that exists that you only hear whispers about among the hippies that hide in the mountains. They are the Burning Man Alumni. For such a small town, you would be surprised to see the heavy traffic in the well-worn tracks that lead from Eastern Oregon to the Nevada desert. So having heard rumors (and many entertaining stories that are on the verge of legality) of this festival growing up, I was equally surprised to see it come across in the literature of the profession that I have chosen. This article is from the current edition of the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the ALA and is worth the next 5 minutes of your life. (click on the latest issue)
What caught my attention the most was not the fact of the individuals involved/profiled, but the statement that IFRT made in comparing the activities of the two seemingly unlikely roommates on the IF front.
The Burning Man mission statement reads - "Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society."
Now doesn't that just scream IF? WTF? Sure, there are some catchy library speak phrases in there that can be parsed out and doled to the intellectual freedomistas - aka "civic life," "society" something or other...but to make the leap from that to a blind endorsement of IFRT support of Burning Man is even too much for this reformed University of Oregon dropout. (There is a reason why the Dead would always pass through Eugene!)
There are some pretty enticing topics in this edition, and it is worth it to read about the Pornography Panel as well. But if this is the core of what I have to inspire me this week, then I think I'll hit the snooze button one more time.
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