Showing posts with label FalseCriesOfCensorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FalseCriesOfCensorship. Show all posts

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Media Sees Banned Books Week Hoax; True Censorship Ignored

Media is starting to see Banned Books Week for the bullying campaign and hoax it is.  They know keeping inappropriate material from children is not censorship; parents are allowed to challenge public schools without being labelled "censors."  They see the creator of Banned Books Week ignoring true censorship in colleges and by foreign governments and instead leading a bullying campaign to force communities to accept allowing school children to read sexually inappropriate and exploitive material it is perfectly legal under the law to keep out of schools.

I would like to think this is the result of my exposing the issue by listing many Banned Books Week hoax articles (link), but who knows.  By the way, the American Library Association is working to convince schools and the FCC to relax school Internet filtering restrictions, but that part of Banned Books Week called Banned Websites Awareness Day (BWAD) is a hoax to explain at another time.

Here are five recent articles on the "crock" that is called "Banned Books Week":

.... Every right-thinking person agreed: This was an outrage. 
.... But in feeding off of conflicts like Sims vs. the school board, Banned Books Week also traffics in fear-mongering over censorship, when in fact the truth is much sunnier: There is basically no such thing as a "banned book" in the United States in 2015. 
The statistics certainly sound alarming. Since Banned Books Week was instituted in 1982, the event’s website informs us, 11,300 books have been challenged. In 2014 alone, 311 books were banned or challenged in schools and libraries in the United States, with many more cases unreported. It would be easy to assume that the literal banning of books is still a routine occurrence in the United States. 
But take a closer look, and there's much less for freedom-loving readers to be concerned with. The modifier "banned or challenged" contains a lot of wiggle room, for one. A "challenge," in the ALA's definition, is a "formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness." By that definition, Sims' one-woman freak-out in Tennessee qualifies as a "challenge," despite the fact that it posed no real threat to Skloot's book, let alone the "freedom to read."

.... 
Much of the rhetoric around Banned Books Week elides not just the difference between the past and the present but some other important distinctions: the difference between "bans" from public libraries and from school libraries, and between inclusion in school curricula and general availability in a library. A parent merely questioning the presence of a book on a required reading list is the same, to the organizations that run Banned Books Week, as the book being removed from circulation at the local public library. But the former, I would argue, is part of a reasonable local conversation about public education (even if the particular parental preferences are unreasonable). The latter comes closer to a "book ban." 
.... 
Some, or even all, of these challenges may be misguided, silly, or narrow-minded. But even if you're firmly opposed to "banning books"—and I am!—it's hard to argue that parents should have no right to weigh in on what their children read at school. There's an enormous difference between parents saying a book shouldn't appear on their kid's required reading list and a citizen demanding that adults should have no access to a book at a public library. And it should shock no one that in a country of 300 million people, there are a few hundred cases each year in which someone objects to a particular book’s availability, especially to children.
....
This Banned Books Week, instead of hand-wringing about a nonexistent wave of censorship, let's celebrate the obvious: The books won.
.... 
Upon closer inspection, and a little bit of Googling, it turns out many of these banned books were merely "challenged" — which means one or two ignorant and/or censorious parents filed a complaint with their local school or library about some innocent tome. 
.... 
Claiming a book has been banned, or willfully misunderstanding the difference between a challenge and a ban, is no doubt good for business in a world that despises censorship. It certainly worked on this book buyer. 
But if you indulge in that sort of thing, not only are you making yourself less trustworthy (sorry, local bookstore), you're also flooding the market with fake stories — and reducing the amount of attention paid to real book censorship problems when they come along. 
.... 
So, nutty overprotective mom doesn't understand basic medicine. Big whoop. The challenge went nowhere — except the websites of the BBC, Salon, the Guardian, and dozens of other outlets. Skloot let her indignation be known on her Facebook page, and no doubt sold a few extra books. Imagine the furor if the Knoxville school district had actually agreed with the mom. 
As a Salon columnist noted, books simply aren't banned in the U.S. any more, calling the whole basis of Banned Books Week into question. (The most recent ban in any U.S. school, according to the ALA's own material, was in 1994.) 
Or rather, it begs this question: Why aren't we paying this much attention to parts of the world, including free-speech-friendly countries, where forms of book censorship are still in effect? Why aren't we paying this much attention to parts of the world, including free-speech-friendly countries, where forms of book censorship are still in effect? Why wasn't it news around the world when a book was burned by religious extremists in India, and the intimidated author gave up writing and asked his publishers for the book to be withdrawn? 
.... 
But we can't begin to discuss the real problems of censorship if our awareness is dulled by a focus on cranks who think they see a nipple in Where's Waldo. That's what got the famous kids' book briefly banned from a few pubic [sic, unless intended] schools in Michigan and one in New York in 1989 and 1993, respectively. 
I'm not trying to minimize the dangers of cranks, or say that there's no chance the overzealous and prudish could see their way clear to banning a book in the future. But by and large, those days are over. America, a few ill-informed attention-seeking parents notwithstanding, has learned its lesson. Let's stop fighting old battles, because there's a new global frontier where we could effect some change. 
In the war against book banning, it's high time we turned the page.
As we wrap up 2015’s Banned Book Week (September 27 – October 3), Ruth Graham at Slate rightly takes the American Library Association (ALA) to task for trafficking “in fear-mongering over censorship, when in fact the truth is much sunnier: There is basically no such thing as a ‘banned book’ in the United States in 2015.”
That’s true, but Graham understates the problem with the ALA’s campaign of disinformation. 
She points out that to maintain the semblance of relevance in an era of ever-freer access to books of all kinds, the ALA has begun to conflate the categories of banned books and challenged books. “The modifier ‘banned or challenged’ contains a lot of wiggle room,” says Graham. 
.... 
The ALA presents itself as championing freedom, but what the organization is really doing is waging a campaign of “fear-mongering over censorship” to make us feel grateful to them as guardians of our rights, when they are, in fact, the guardians of tax-funded librarians. 
....


This week is Banned Books Week, and in libraries all over the country, librarians are making displays of books on fire to illustrate the great danger we all face of Amazon setting its warehouse aflame, or something. Not really. There is no possible way for any book to be censored by any stretch of the imagination. Books are not censored. Period. Should one school library remove a book from its shelves because of parental concern or otherwise, that book is still readily available, well, everywhere. 
Libraries themselves take part in the censorship of books, except they say they "select" them. This is the process where they choose which books to make available to the public and which books to throw in the trash. It’s a joke of colossal proportion that librarians don’t censor. Here is a discussion I found on the American Library Association (ALA) Think Tank’s Facebook page during Banned Books Week, addressing this very issue.



Notice the calls for these books about controversial topics to be thrown in the dumpster. These are the same people who wax sanctimonious about all the bad parents out there who want to "ban" books because they complained about violent sexual content in a reading assignment (a growing problem in public schools). This is a far cry from "banning" a book which would make it unavailable to the general public. A complaint is not a "ban." 
Modern librarians put themselves on pedestals, claiming to be champions of intellectual freedom and the First Amendment. They make no judgements (they claim) and fight against parents who would prefer that some judgements be made about the content that is given to their kids. 
In case you think it's extreme to suggest that librarians are fighting against parents, consider this. Titled Censorship and Intellectual Freedom, ALA acolyte and assistant director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom Kristin Pekoll laments the involvement of parents in book selection, among a litany of other complaints (because only librarians are allowed to throw books in the dumpster). 
Do I stand strong against the onslaught of vocal parents demanding cleaner libraries? 
If there was ever any doubt that ALA was concerned with the welfare of children, this should end that debate. The ALA prides itself on encouraging librarians to stand against parents, to put books that are rife with sexual violence, drugs, alcohol, abortion and other adult topics into the hands of your children without your permission or consent. 
Here is my favorite find on the ALA's website. This infographic shows you exactly what they are actively pushing on your kids during Banned Books Week.


Don't be fooled by Banned Books Week; it's just more trumped-up fakery to push cultural rot on your kids.
Banned Books Week, the American Library Association's annual self-advertisement, has now ended for this year. Bookstores will disassemble their earnest displays of "banned books," public libraries will return to the semblance of normality in public libraries. And we will be left with the sobering thought that, in 21st-century America, there remain people who would ban the works of Harper Lee or J.D. Salinger or Judy Blume, to give some favorite examples.  
Except that this year, I'm happy to report, a tiny crack appeared in the ALA's great Banned Books Week edifice. Slate, a publication not known for its skepticism toward liberal pieties, ran an essay with the intoxicating title "Banned Books Week Is a Crock." I was, and remain, astonished, and yet encouraged, that it should have been published—and not banned!—by the right-thinking editors at Slate.  
.... 
Yet what intrigues me about Banned Books Week publicity, and the likely political agenda over at ALA headquarters, is not what it features but what it excludes. For there is, in fact, an ongoing effort to ban books in America in 2015—that is, to exclude them from classroom reading lists, if not prevent their publication and sale – but it is taking place not on school boards in our nation's rural communities but on college campuses in some of the most progressive and sophisticated communities in the United States. At Columbia University in Manhattan, for example, Ovid's Metamorpheses has been excluded from the syllabus because of objections about sexual violence and replaced with—irony alert!—Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. Rutgers is considering the attachment of required "trigger warnings" for The Great Gatsby and Huckleberry Finn, and based on individual complaints, innumerable other colleges and universities are pondering the future of such works as Mrs. Dalloway or The Merchant of Venice on student reading lists. 
....


NOTE ADDED 8 OCTOBER 2015:

This story on how media has finally noticed Banned Books Week is a hoax has itself been noticed by the media:
Those bannings, while rare, did happen.  These days though, there aren't books being banned in America.  Those saying otherwise are repeating comforting lies.  Leftists, led by the weirdly extremist American Library Association, tell themselves these things so they can feel superior to others. 
The lack of a banned book problem is so striking though, Dan Kleinman points out that press outlets are starting to notice, who otherwise would just parrot the "banned and challenged books line."  That's the trick wording: The American Library Association is trying to get you to equate 'banned books' (which are a thing that mostly happens in the Islamic world) with 'challenged books.'

URL of this page: safelibraries.blogspot.com/2015/10/bbw.html

On Twitter: @ALALibrary @BannedBooksWeek @OIF

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Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Monday, September 8, 2014

Banned Books Week Nonsense Censorship Talk is Ridiculous, Says Library Journal

Banned Books Week is a hoax and fake censorship talk is ridiculous, all the while libraries justify censoring out works they don't like, like about ex-gays.  That's basically what the Annoyed Librarian at the Library Journal said when she discussed censorship versus selection.  I couldn't have said it better myself, so I'm reposting it in full:

Another Problem with Banned Books Talk

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014 BY ; LIBRARY JOURNAL 
One of the many problems with the ALA approach to so-called banned books is that it opens the door to easy criticisms by raging homophobes like this person.
The general gist of the criticism is that while librarians talk a good game about intellectual freedom and are against “censorship” and “banning books,” in fact their entire collection development process effectively bans books that librarians disagree with politically.
Libraries use Collection Development Policies (CDP’s) to determine which books they will purchase with their limited budgets. CDP’s hold that librarians should purchase only books that have been positively reviewed by two “professionally recognized” review journals. Guess what folks, the “professionally recognized” review journals are dominated by ideological “progressives.”
That’s pretty hard to argue with, because she’s right and we all know it. It doesn’t even mention that a lot of times it’s other librarians reviewing the books anyway, thus guaranteeing that the choices will be kept within the profession and that books librarians don’t like won’t be reviewed and thus won’t be purchased.
Considering the way the ALA defines intellectual freedom and censorship, it’s hard not to agree with the homophobic crusader here. Librarians do effectively keep certain kinds of books out of the view of readers. They do it because of their beliefs about what books are good or bad, and those beliefs are occasionally political in nature.
If library patrons ask for a book to be moved or removed from the children’s section, it’s “censorship.” If librarians make sure a book never gets there in the first place through a deliberately rigged collection process, it’s “selection.” Double standards prevail, making librarians look like hypocrites.
It’s a pity that a profession that so upholds intellectual freedom can’t come up with better strategies and arguments than to whine about “censorship” while effectively doing the very thing they complain about.
It must be possible. One could argue that certain types of books are motivated by a kind of hatred that’s inappropriate for children to see.
Will they ask for picture books that show the joy a little birdie experiences when after the West Nile virus deaths of her two daddies, she’s finally adopted by a daddy and mommy?”
Anyone who writes a book where children are happy their parents died of a terrible disease because they hate gay people so much is a pretty horrible person, after all, and keeping the product of their sick minds away from the kiddies is probably a good idea.
But not all homophobic books are necessarily hateful. Fearful, probably, but that never stops libraries from buying books. If there’s a book warning about the dangers of rapid climate change, then there’s a fearful book in the library.
One could argue that some categories of books are just dumb, or that they’re so devoid of scientific evidence that they’re useless books. Praying away the gay is about as useful as praying away the stupid. It just doesn’t work.
But that’s never stopped libraries either. Plenty of libraries have books about UFO abductions in the nonfiction section, and yet the scientific evidence for them is almost nil. Libraries also buy books advocating homeopathy, crystal healing, and other new age nonsense. Same deal.
One could argue that the books are religiously motivated, which is somehow inappropriate for public libraries. Separation of church and state and all that.
But libraries purchase Bibles and Korans and other religious texts. Some public libraries probably purchase religious fiction like the Left Behind books. There’s no good reason they shouldn’t. Religious readers are library users, too. So that argument is out.
One could argue that libraries are about more than intellectual freedom, that they have some other sorts of political values as well. Equality, diversity, tolerance, etc.
The homophobic crusader might reply that not buying homophobic books signals a lack of diversity. After all, the homophobic position is one of the voices out there, if not a majority voice anymore certainly a popular one, and a truly diverse collection would include it in the “marketplace of ideas.”
That one’s hard to refute. Equality and tolerance might work better. Books that claim certain categories of people shouldn’t be allowed to marry or raise children can claim to be among the diversity of voices, but they can’t claim to support equality, tolerance, or even democracy in a lot of America these days.
There are librarians who talk about libraries as places to promote equality and tolerance, but that’s not the “official” line.
The ALA Library Bill of Rights talks about providing books for the “interest, information, and enlightenment of all people,” which sounds promising along those lines, but then immediately says libraries “should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues.”
That sounds like library collections are completely neutral collections, but obviously they’re not. Go to your local library and find some aggressively pro-racism books there. What? There aren’t any? Does that mean that there are no local racists around?
The homophobic crusader was discussing the Schaumburg Township District Library, which apparently had pictures of librarians holding up “banned books,” “you know, books that are widely available in virtually every community library.”
She then lists some antigay books that the librarians could also take pictures of themselves holding. Since none of those books are considered “banned” by the ALA, that’s a pointless suggestion, but her point is valid. “Unlike the books the librarians are holding this year, these books actually aren’t in their library. Hmmm, I wonder if they were banned.”
If there are no books in your library’s collection talking about how awful gay marriage is, then your library isn’t providing materials presenting all points of view.
Librarians tend to be true believers about the banned book nonsense, and it’s pretty hard to reason with them but I’m not giving up just yet. The censorship talk is ridiculous, and librarians would be better off promoting what they do in a smarter way.
Librarians should just own up to the fact that they have a broad political agenda, and one that promotes equality while fighting intolerance.
They don’t defend gay penguin books because they really believe all points of view should be represented in libraries. The defend gay penguin books because they believe that gay penguins should be treated equally to straight penguins, and their constituencies have both gay and straight penguins. Or something like that.
They don’t seek out homophobic children’s books because they’re opposed to diverse viewpoints in the library collection. They don’t seek them out because they don’t seek out children’s books that promote intolerance, hate, or inequality.
It’s the same reason they wouldn’t buy racist children’s books, and they probably wouldn’t buy racist children’s books even if a library patron requested the purchase. There are just certain viewpoints that people devoted to freedom, equality, diversity, and tolerance don’t consider worth buying.
So go on talking about censorship and banned books, librarians. I know what you’re really about. You’re really trying to promote intellectual freedom, equality, and tolerance for all types of library patrons. You’re just afraid to say it in your collection development policies.

# # #  30  # # #
Related post:

Through its de facto censorship mechanism, cunningly obscured behind the sterile nomenclature "Collection Development Policy," the American Library Association has become a corrupt, hypocritical organization committed to promulgating biased, subversive social and political views on the controversial topic of homosexuality. On this topic one thing's certain: if you're looking for intellectual diversity, stay out of your libraries.


URL of this page:  safelibraries.blogspot.com/2014/09/banned-books-week.html

On Twitter: @BannedBooksWeek @LibraryJournal @OIF @ProFamilyIL

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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

NCAC Pushes Porn on Libraries; Fifty Shades of Grey Propaganda: Brevard Buckles, Harford Holds

The National Coalition Against Censorship [NCAC] is now openly pushing pornography into public libraries:
  • "NCAC, Free Speech Groups Criticize M.D. Library's 'Porn' Ban," by National Coalition Against Censorship, National Coalition Against Censorship, 12 June 2012, emphasis added:
    The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) united with other freedom of expression organizations again today on behalf of E.L. James' best-selling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey (Vintage), this time in Harford County, Maryland.

    In a joint letter (below) issued to the county library's board, NCAC has arrayed co-signers representing publishers, authors, booksellers and journalists from across the nation to urge Harford County to reconsider the thinking behind its generic ban on "porn," a subjectively and selectively defined category.

    "There is no justification for the wholesale exclusion of books with sexually explicit content, whether called 'erotica' or 'pornography'," [sic] the letter states.
Given those statements, it is now safe to say the NCAC is openly pushing pornography into public libraries.


The NCAC, ALA, ACLU, PEN, AAP, ASJA, ABFFE, and IBPA All Push Porn in Public Libraries:

Along with the NCAC are other groups in its letter to Harford County, including the American Library Association [ALA], the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], the PEN American Center [PEN], the Association of American Publishers [AAP], the American Society of Journalists and Authors [ASJA], the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression [ABFFE], the Independent Book Publishers Association [IBPA], and more.  The ALA is not a direct signatory of the NCAC letter, but the AAP representative, Judith Platt, is also the Vice President of the ALA's Freedom to Read Foundation that lists her ALA and AAP posts.

As they all signed the letter saying there is no justification for libraries to exclude porn, this means the NCAC, ALA, ACLU, PEN, AAP, ASJA, ABFFE, and IBPA are all pushing pornography into public libraries.


The ALA Pushes Porn in Other Ways As Well:

By the way, the ALA has taken no significantly visible, public stand supporting libraries that follow selection policy to keep out pornography.  It has not and will not support Harford County Public Library Director Mary Hastler, for example.  Telling, no?

Au contraire, the ALA gave huge support, even an award, to school librarian Dee Venuto who supported keeping her students exposed to inappropriate material, including a picture of two men having anal sex while two Boy Scouts looked on:


And with respect to public library computers, the author of the Children's Internet Protection Act has recently spoken out about how the ALA endangers children in a third of American libraries:


Evaluating the Veracity of the NCAC Claims Supporting Library Pornography:

Is it true that "there is no justification for the wholesale exclusion of books with sexually explicit content, whether called 'erotica' or 'pornography'"?  After all, it is the leading argument in support of forcing various communities to accept pornography into their public libraries.  "A policy that excludes an entire category of works that are protected by the First Amendment is a censorship policy, impermissible in a public library," they say.  But is it true?

No.  It is not true.  Further, the NCAC and its fellow travelers know it is not true and purposefully fail to inform communities.  They say a "censorship policy" is "impermissible in a public library."  That is true.  But to make the stretch that pornography is being "censored," and to say that is "impermissible," is intentionally misleading.  The NCAC left out critical information that would make its propagandistic claims completely evaporate.  As Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz said, "a half truth is regarded by the law as a lie."  Simply put, the NCAC cabal is lying to local communities.


US v. ALA Says Libraries Traditionally Exclude Pornography and Libraries Have Broad Discretion to Make Selection Decisions:

Proof?  There is a United States Supreme Court case that addressed the issue of pornography in public libraries, and among the interested parties were the ALA, ACLU, and the AAP.  The point being they knew about this case as they were directly involved, and knew its outcome, yet now they choose to leave out key information about the case from the letters they sign that are sent to communities and from the interviews they have with the media.  Remember, a half truth is a lie.

Truth?  United States v. American Library Association, 539 US 194, 2003:  "The decisions by most libraries to exclude pornography from their print collections are not subjected to heightened scrutiny...."  "[H]eightened judicial scrutiny [is] ... incompatible with the discretion that public libraries must have to fulfill their traditional missions.  Public library staffs necessarily consider content in making collection decisions and enjoy broad discretion in making them."

Contrast the NCAC et alia:  "Our concerns are heightened by the library's effort to justify the exclusion as part of a categorical ban on 'porn.'"  The Court will not use heightened scrutiny to review a library's selection policy discretion, but the NCAC knows better and its "concerns are heightened."

Truth?  US v. ALA:  "A library's need to exercise judgment in making collection decisions depends on its traditional role in identifying suitable and worthwhile material....  Most libraries already exclude pornography from their print collections because they deem it inappropriate for inclusion."

Contrast the NCAC:  "There is no justification for the wholesale exclusion of books with sexually explicit content, whether called 'erotica' or 'pornography.'"  So the US Supreme Court found "most libraries already exclude pornography from their print collections because they deem it inappropriate for inclusion," but communities are told by the NCAC that "there is no justification for the wholesale exclusion of books with sexually explicit content, whether called 'erotica' or 'pornography'"?


Another Double Standard:

By the way, the argument is made that the book should be allowed in because so many other libraries allow it in.  The NCAC says, "Libraries all over the country, including Anne Arundel County, Carroll County, Howard County and the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Maryland, have purchased the book and have long waiting lists of patrons eager to borrow the book."  But that's a double standard.  When the US Supreme Court says, "Most libraries already exclude pornography from their print collections because they deem it inappropriate for inclusion," that broad exclusion of porn by so many other libraries suddenly no longer applies.  Suddenly, merely on the weight of the vociferousness and audacity of the NCAC and gang and the media storm they generate, libraries are to ignore what most other libraries do in keeping out porn, while at the same time follow what many other libraries do in allowing in porn.  We're all supposed to jettison hundreds of years of common sense that libraries don't stock porn because the NCAC says so.


Deception/Half Truths by the NCAC is Designed to Push Pornography on Communities:

The NCAC actually cites the US Supreme Court to say that "no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion," but then leaves out another US Supreme Court case that is directly on point.

And communities are supposed to take the NCAC seriously?  It pushes pornography on libraries and does so by deceptively leaving out key information that would lead communities to be fully informed and make a decision opposite the one the NCAC wants.  As Alan Dershowitz would say, "She should go back to law school, where she will learn that it is never appropriate to submit an affidavit that contains a half truth, because a half truth is regarded by the law as a lie, and anyone who submits an affidavit swears to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."  And any organization seeking to push a community to allow porn in its public library better tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The NCAC, ALA, ACLU, PEN, AAP, ASJA, ABFFE, and IBPA have failed in that regard.


Case Study in Effect of NCAC Propaganda/Threats on Communities:

Be that as it may, when the NCAC propaganda is combined with legal threats, communities might fall right in line.


Harford County is Under Attack Right Now:

One such community under threat right now is the one involving the Harford County Public Library in Maryland.  Here is the NCAC cabal's first propaganda salvo across that communities' bow:
I just wrote about that library myself, and definitely read what the Annoyed Librarian said:

Notice how the NCAC uses the folding of Brevard County, Florida, to the NCAC's propaganda and legal threats as a basis for moving like locusts to the next community, in this case Harford County, Maryland:  "NCAC publicly opposed the removal of Fifty Shades of Grey in Brevard County, FL in May, writing three letters to public officials there.  After reading NCAC's letters, the library reconsidered their decision and once more allowed the books to circulate.  There are now almost 500 holds on 15 copies of the book."  That was no "reconsideration."  That was the NCAC and the ACLU holding a gun to the heads of the community leaders who feared looking like "censors."

And look, the letter sent by the NCAC group to Harford County is substantially similar to the letter sent to Brevard County.  This is what I meant by "moving like locusts to the next community," in addition to attempting to denude the community of its library selection policy.


A Look at the Brevard County Case:

Let us examine that Brevard County case in more detail.  It illustrates the propaganda razzle dazzle, the effect of threatening local communities, the full court press that is placed on a community (that is just now starting in Harford County).  Brevard County caved.  Let's examine why so we can learn how its done so the NCAC will have a harder time of fooling the next community.


Setting the Stage:

First, let me set the stage with the numerous relevant people, places, policies, cases as knowing this ahead of time will make things easier to understand.  You see, to see through the razzle dazzle, you have to see all relevant sources of information, not just those of the NCAC's choice.  Informed consent only happens when people are informed, not misinformed:


The People and Places:

American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] @ACLU
ACLU Florida [ACLUFL or ACLU since it is a state affiliate] @ACLUFL
American Library Association [ALA] Office for Intellectual Freedom [OIF] @OIF:
  • "On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library.  In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials.  If it doesn't fit your material selection policy, get it out of there."  [Source:  "Marking 25 Years of Banned Books Week: An Interview with Judith Krug," by Curriculum Review, 46 Curriculum Review 1, September 2006, p.12.]
  • "The baggage that [the ACLU] carr[ies] with them ... [j]ust because of who they are and what their reputation is and what they do.  They bring a lot of baggage to court."  [Source:  "Speaking Our Minds: Conversations With the People Behind Landmark First Amendment Cases," by Joseph Russomanno, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, 2002, p.420.]
Brevard County, Florida, USA @BrevardCo_FL:
  • "Brevard is home to the Kennedy Space Center and major space-related industries and employs a highly technical labor force."
Brevard County Libraries:
Catherine Schweinsberg, Library Services Department Director
E.L. James, author of the Fifty Shades trilogy @E_L_James
National Coalition Against Censorship [NCAC] @NCACensorship:


NCAC as Previously Exposed by SafeLibraries:

Articles I have written about the NCAC injecting itself into other matters are relevant to helping people understand the prior actions of the NCAC.  That may be relevant to deciding who much weight to give to NCAC pronouncements or demands in local community matters:


The Cases:

US v. American Library Association, 539 US 194 (2003) [US v. ALA], is mainly about Internet filters, but the plurality and various dissents discuss book selection policies, says that libraries have broad discretion to make decisions under these policies if not ideologically driven, anything-goes policies are not appropriate for public libraries, and most libraries exclude pornography from print collections:

     Public libraries pursue the worthy missions of facilitating learning and cultural enrichment.  Appellee ALA's Library Bill of Rights states that libraries should provide "[b]ooks and other ... resources ... for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves."  201 F. Supp. 2d, at 420 (internal quotation marks omitted).  To fulfill their traditional missions, public libraries must have broad discretion to decide what material to provide to their patrons.  Although they seek to provide a wide array of information, their goal has never been to provide "universal coverage."  Id., at 421. Instead, public libraries seek to provide materials "that would be of the greatest direct benefit or interest to the community."  Ibid.  To this end, libraries collect only those materials deemed to have "requisite and appropriate quality."  Ibid.  See W. Katz, Collection Development: The Selection of Materials for Libraries 6 (1980) ("The librarian's responsibility ... is to separate out the gold from the garbage, not to preserve everything"); F. Drury, Book Selection xi (1930) ("[I]t is the aim of the selector to give the public, not everything it wants, but the best that it will read or use to advantage"); App. 636 (Rebuttal Expert Report of Donald G. Davis, Jr.) ("A hypothetical collection of everything that has been produced is not only of dubious value, but actually detrimental to users trying to find what they want to find and really need").
....
A library's need to exercise judgment in making collection decisions depends on its traditional role in identifying suitable and worthwhile material....  Most libraries already exclude pornography from their print collections because they deem it inappropriate for inclusion.  We do not subject these decisions to heightened scrutiny....
.... 
[Justice Stevens dissent:]
      As the plurality recognizes, we have always assumed that libraries have discretion when making decisions regarding what to include in, and exclude from, their collections.  That discretion is comparable to the " 'business of a university ... to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.' "  Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 263 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in result) (citation omitted).4  As the District Court found, one of the central purposes of a library is to provide information for educational purposes: " 'Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves.' "  201 F. Supp. 2d, at 420 (quoting the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights).  Given our Nation's deep commitment "to safeguarding academic freedom" and to the "robust exchange of ideas," Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y., 385 U. S. 589, 603 (1967), a library's exercise of judgment with respect to its collection is entitled to First Amendment protection. 
[Justice Souter dissent, Justice Ginsburg joining:]
     Public libraries are indeed selective in what they acquire to place in their stacks, as they must be.  There is only so much money and so much shelf space, and the necessity to choose some material and reject the rest justifies the effort to be selective with an eye to demand, quality, and the object of maintaining the library as a place of civilized enquiry by widely different sorts of people.  Selectivity is thus necessary and complex, and these two characteristics explain why review of a library's selection decisions must be limited: the decisions are made all the time, and only in extreme cases could one expect particular choices to reveal impermissible reasons (reasons even the plurality would consider to be illegitimate), like excluding books because their authors are Democrats or their critiques of organized Christianity are unsympathetic.  See Board of Ed., Island Trees Union Free School Dist. No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U. S. 853, 870-871 (1982) (plurality opinion).  Review for rational basis is probably the most that any court could conduct, owing to the myriad particular selections that might be attacked by someone, and the difficulty of untangling the play of factors behind a particular decision.

Board of Education v. Pico, 457 US 853 (1982) [Pico]:

[Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall and Justice Stevens, concluded:]
(c) Petitioners possess significant discretion to determine the content of their school libraries, but that discretion may not be exercised in a narrowly partisan or political manner. Whether petitioners' removal of books from the libraries denied respondents their First Amendment rights depends upon the motivation behind petitioners' actions. Local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 . If such an intention was the decisive factor in petitioners' decision, then petitioners have exercised their discretion in violation of the Constitution. Pp. 869-872. 
[Justice Blackmun concluded:]
[A] proper balance between the limited constitutional restriction imposed on school officials by the First Amendment and the broad state authority to regulate education, would be struck by holding that school officials may not remove books from school libraries for the purpose of restricting access to the political ideas or social perspectives discussed in the books, when that action is motivated simply by the officials' disapproval of the ideas involved.  Pp. 879-882

The Media:




How the ACLUFL/NCAC Letter Misleads Local Populations:

The NCAC letter to Brevard County dated 8 May 2012 misleads people by claiming a book's removal under the library's selection policy violates the First Amendment because the book had already been selected under the policy and cannot now be removed.  Besides, it claims, the library already has other similar books, and the book is extremely popular.  It also argues people should not "have their choices limited or dictated by the subjective and moralistic views of library or other public officials."  In support it cites an inapposite US Supreme Court finding about "prescrib[ing] what shall be orthodox," although removing material that does not meet the library's selection policy has nothing to do with that.  Allow me to address some of these issues later with regard to a subsequent NCAC letter.

The next NCAC letter was dated 15 May 2012.  It gathers many groups together to bring further pressure to bear on the library.  It claims, "A policy that excludes an entire category of works that are protected by the first amendment is a censorship policy, impermissible in a public library."  It then repeats the "political orthodoxy" case as if repeating it will suddenly make it relevant when it was not before.  It then presupposes that it knows better than the local community and the US Supreme Court by saying, "The idea that 'erotica' should be categorically excluded from public libraries has no merit."  Then the popularity mantra is repeated.  Why have local library policies at all if reliance on popularity is the standard to be used?  Lastly, they "strongly urge" the library to change its decision based on its view on the matter.

Then a third letter from the NCAC hit, this time with the ACLU's Florida branch, and this time with an open or implied legal threat.  I will discuss this third letter in detail as it is apparently the one that scared the community into doing as the ACLU/NCAC demanded in their "demand letter."


SafeLibraries Response to the "Demand Letter" of the ACLU/NCAC:

The following is my response to the ACLU/NCAC "demand letter":

The ACLU/NCAC starts out saying obvious truths: "Public libraries enrich our lives.  Books teach us; they entertain us; they confound us; and they challenge us.  And sometimes, they make us uncomfortable."  So far so good.  Then they take a turn down the road of attacking people, Brevard County people, Brevard County librarians, for being un-American censors:
But there is no room on library shelves for censorship.  The County's removal of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' from circulation simply because some readers may find its content offensive is un-American; it violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Section 4 of the Florida Constitution; and it exposes the County Commission to potential liability for violations of those rights. 

In my experience, ACLU/NCAC letters are occasionally accompanied with some kind of legal threat, actual or implied.  And there it is: "exposes the County Commission to potential liability for violations of those rights."  This is intended to frighten the local community into action they want, instead of what the community wants or instead of no action.

For example, when the public library in Nampa, ID, finally, after years of effort trying, placed sexually explicit books behind the counter to prevent access by children, the ACLU sent a threatening letter that such action violates the First Amendment because people would be embarrassed to ask to see the books and the ACLU would sue.  The library, within a single week, reversing three years of effort, returned the books to the shelves.  But what the town did not have the time to realize, given the legal threat and the misinformation provided by the ACLU, was that the ACLU had already lost on that very same issue of embarrassment before the US Supreme Court in US v. ALA in which the ACLU was a party.  The ACLU never advised Nampa about that case, as it does not now advise Brevard County.  The ACLU raised an issue it knew it had already lost but that the local population would not know about.  That is deceptive to the core, and now the ACLU/NCAC is making similar demands with similar threats, right in Brevard County.  (I spoke with The Joy of Gay Sex co-author Felice Picano about this incident, but that's an aside [ safelibraries.blogspot.com/2008/10/dear-felice-picano-joy-of-gay-sex-co.html ].)

Where's the deception?  In the very claim that frightened the library into giving in to the ACLU.  Embarrassment.  You see, the ACLU had made that very same claim five years earlier in that Supreme Court case I mentioned above and lost on that issue.  The Court said, "the Constitution does not guarantee the right to acquire information at a public library without any risk of embarrassment."  So exactly why did the ACLU demand five years later that Nampa back down due to the embarrassment issue?  Obviously it had no substantive argument, thanks to US v. ALA, so legal threats and demand letters sufficed to fool the community, and it did, and the children suffered as a result.


Notice the ACLU/NCAC tugs on the community's heart strings, using the library's own words against it:
Many Brevard residents rely on the library.  Some cannot afford books; they don't own e-readers or tablets to which they can download books.  They rely on the "over one million, two hundred and fifty thousand books, periodicals and newspapers," in your seventeen brick and mortar branches, to "think more and become smarter."  
The ACLU/NCAC is mocking Brevard County, in case anyone did not notice.

Now comes the peer pressure—everyone else loves the book, what's wrong with you?:  "'Fifty Shades of Grey' is an international phenomenon, a love story about two consenting adults who express their passion for each other in ways that may startle some readers and offend others."  Then they name several serious literary works, some of which they point out are on Brevard County Libraries shelves.  Is Brevard County supposed to be a cookie cutter of everywhere else that peer pressure will cause it to violate its own book selection policy?  I hope not.

It's like the ACLU/NCAC cares not that local communities have selection policies in place or that local librarians get to make decisions based on that policy; rather, for them, it's anything goes: "None of these books is obscene; none, including 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' should be removed from circulation.  One reader's pleasure may be another's pain; 'one man's vulgarity is another's lyric.'  Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 26 (1971)."

Now what they say next is most significant, in part because it appears legitimate on its face, like the embarrassment claim in Nampa, and in part because it is completely false, like the US Supreme Court having already told the ACLU the embarrassment theory is not viable.  One can no longer trust the misinformation coming from the ACLU/NCAC after learning what I am about to expose—the media have totally missed this. The "demand letter" says:
In this case, those decisions had been made:  the book had already been purchased with the approval of the library selection committee.   Once a book of fiction is purchased and made available to the public, county officials and those acting on their behalf cannot remove the book from circulation based solely on its content.  That is government censorship, which is prohibited by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

That is flat out false.  First, common sense says librarians do not read and approve each book before it goes on the shelves.  Common sense says if you realize you have made a mistake and allowed a book that policy would otherwise have precluded, you can remove the book later.  That's just plain common sense.

But there is more damning evidence that will prove the ACLU/NCAC is flat out lying.  That evidence comes from an impeccable source, a source the ACLU/NCAC would never oppose because this person used her ACLU leadership position and knowledge to create the policy that anything goes in public libraries.  She's the reason why we are here looking at this issue.  This person even created Banned Books Week, created the American Library Association [ALA]'s Freedom to Read Foundation.  She created the ALA's OIF.  This person is Judith Krug.  Judith Krug said something that 1) the ACLU/NCAC did not even tell Brevard County, and that 2) says the exact opposite of the ACLU/NCAC's false claim that once a library selects a book, it may never be removed.  And that is why they did not tell Brevard County about this.

But I will.

Judith Krug pointed out that if you look at a book in a public school and you find it does not meet the selection policy, "get it out of there."  That's right, "get it out of there."  The ACLU/NCAC says the exact opposite, that once it's there, it stays.  The ACLU/NCAC just advised Brevard County of false information and failed to advise of contrary information.  This shows they are intentionally misleading communities to force their way on that community.

Let's look at that exact Judith Krug quote.  When Krug is asked, "Are there ever instances when you think it's appropriate for a school to ban a book?," she replies:
On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library.  In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials.  If it doesn't fit your material selection policy, get it out of there. 
See "Marking 25 Years of Banned Books Week: An Interview with Judith Krug" at http://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2011/09/marking-25-years-of-banned-books-week.html for the entire quote in full context.  The following sentence after what I quoted is about when a book does indeed fall within the selection policy, but that is not the present situation.

The ACLU/NCAC has not advised of this.  Instead, it advised the exact opposite.  How trustworthy is any organization that only gives part of the story, omits other parts, twists the part it gives, and threatens legal activity?

Notice how ACLU/NCAC goes on about all the law suits protecting "ideas" and "free speech" as if erotica/pornography is an "idea" instead of material of prurient interest, as if every library must allow in everything so as not to violate "free speech."  Listing all those law suits is supposed to impress people with their knowledge and experience.  This from the people who just misled and hid material on the issue of removing books after they have already been selected.

Think about it.  Libraries have materials reconsideration policies.  Why even have these policies if it an "un-American" violation of the First Amendment to remove anything already selected for the library?  Common sense, right?

And they also did not tell you that libraries are not open public fora where anything goes--rather, they are quasi public fora where the government gets to make decisions.  See US v. ALA in the context of Internet filters, http://laws.findlaw.com/us/539/194.html, although book selection is discussed there as well.  See?  You are making the decisions you may make that are perfectly legal and constitutional.  "The right to receive information, the right to read the chosen written word, is not subject to a majority vote.  The Bill of Rights protects our freedom to read what others may find offensive or vulgar."  Correct.  But it's a quasi public forum and you have the right to have a selection policy, apply it, then remove material that you later find does not meet that selection policy. Why even have a selection policy if you are will only end up being brow beaten by the ACLU/NCAC to allow in the very material your policy precludes?

Recall how the ACLU/NCAC left out important information from the ALA.  Now, the ACLU/NCAC finally cites the ALA when it suits their purposes: "'And Article III of the 'Library Bill of Rights' mandates that '[l]ibraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.'  The Brevard Public Library is doing the opposite:  it is embracing censorship and abdicating its responsibility to the public."  So now the ACLU/NCAC uses the ALA to tell you that you are practicing censorship and abdicating your responsibility to the public.  Before they failed to tell you the ALA says it is perfectly okay to remove a book after it has already been selected.  Deceptive, no?

By the way, the "Library Bill of Rights" is just a fancy name for a set a principles the ALA wants local libraries to follow.  And they still say it is "age" discrimination to keep children from inappropriate material even though the US Supreme Court has said at least twice that the ALA's age discrimination rule it buried in its "Library Bill of Rights" is false and should be edited out.  Board of Education v. Pico http://laws.findlaw.com/us/457/853.html and US v. ALA.

The ACLU/NCAC "urge[s] you to overturn the Library Board’s decision, return the volumes of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' to their rightful place on the public library shelves, and let your constituents decide for themselves what books they will read out of the 'over one million' books the Brevard County Library has purchased.  To do anything less will amount to a continuing constitutional violation."   They urge you to do this based on false information, misinformation, omitted information, and personal attack about your being "un-American" censors.  Then they threaten legal action to help nudge you to do what they want despite the legality of having, using, and applying book selection policies.  Don't fall for it.

And if they do sue you?  Don't cave in--their pleading will be filled with the very same misinformation already displayed because there is no legitimate reason why a library cannot apply its selection policy or its material reconsideration policy.  Instead, countersue for treble damages for their bringing vexatious litigation, just like in Nampa where they knew they already lost on the very issue that claimed applied in Nampa.

Feel free to contact me at any time should you wish to speak with me personally.  Contrary to the negative things the ACLU/NCAC said about you, you and your librarians are all to be commended for standing up to the pressure and doing what is right by your community, not what is demanded by the ACLU/NCAC based on false information and legal threats.

Sincerely yours,
           
Dan Kleinman
Library Watchdog
SafeLibraries


Brevard County Reaction to ACLU/NCAC Pressure:

The Brevard County reaction to the NCAC empty threat was to give in to the pressure, and fast.  These graphics will tell the story—basically you shout loudly about censorship and the local community members will cower under the weight of the false "censorship" charges:




"The ... elites have convinced themselves that they are taking a stand against cultural tyranny.  ....  [T]he reality is that it is those who cry 'Censorship!' the loudest who are the ones trying to stifle speech and force their moral world-view on others."  That is by Dan Gerstein, an independent consultant, former communications director for Joe Lieberman and a senior strategist for his presidential campaign. Clearly that is exactly what happened in Brevard County.  They did not want to "appear to be censoring," even though they were not, they were fully supported by the US Supreme Court and the library's own policy, and common sense says keeping porn out of libraries is not censorship.  Only the tempest in a teapot that the NCAC stirred up gave the appearance that it was censorship to keep porn out of a library, and the library folded.  Sad.


By The Way, Fifty Shades of Grey May Be Copyright Infringement:

A boss of mine told me that when people say, "by the way," that means pay attention as that may be the most important point.

By the way, Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James ("a pseudonym for London-based television executive Erika Leonard") may have violated the copyright of another.  If so, the book should be removed from every single library anywhere.

Here are articles that address this possibility of copyright infringement.  You decide:



Conclusion—What Will Your Community Do When the NCAC Comes Calling?

So this is how the NCAC pushes local communities and their libraries.  1) Write a letter threatening legal activity.  2) Make false statements designed to mislead/frighten local citizens, politicians, librarians.  3) Omit information that presents a completely opposite view.  4) Contact media in the area to repeat the NCAC misinformation to apply more pressure on the library to reverse its position.  5) Argue law and facts that may be correct but that are not applicable to the local situation.  6)  Attempt to bring pressure from all sources so fast and furious that local communities unfamiliar with the law and frightened of the national attention cave in as fast as possible.  7)  Above all, the ends justifies the means, so if you have to flat out lie to a local community such as with legal information you know to be false, do it; after all, most communities cave and, if not, there are almost no negative consequences for the NCAC, ACLU, ALA, etc.

Communities must not take NCAC threat letters as authoritative or legitimate.  They must not cave in immediately (or ever).  They must take the time to evaluate the NCAC statements to see if they are truthful, presenting the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  Further, ensure that the NCAC letters are applicable.

In my experience, such letters have never been truthful.  They intentionally mislead local communities.  Think about this.  You write false and misleading letters to communities nationwide, get the media to repeat what you said without the slightest bit of fact checking, and with hardly lifting a muscle you just forced a community out of fear to do what you what.  And if in the rare case it doesn't work, then all you lost was an envelope and a stamp but you still got lots of press attention for use in the next community.

Don't let the media scare you either.  False claims of book banning and censorship help sell newspapers.  Besides, the NCAC misleads the media so they likely are not even aware they are merely repeaters instead of reporters.

So Brevard buckled and Harford is still holding.  I urge Harford County to continue holding and I wrote this hoping it may help.

What will your community do when the porn pushing NCAC sends the boilerplate propaganda group letter?

And if the book infringes someone's copyright, all copies everywhere should be removed and destroyed forthwith.  Interesting thought, no?


Debate Challenge and Offer of Media Availability:

I challenge the NCAC, ACLU, ALA, etc., to debate me on these issues, or Mary Hastler, or any of the other librarians they ignore or suppress.  They never debate because they know they are wrong.  In a rare case when a reporter confronted an ALA leader with accurate information from a library director, the ALA was surprised and admitted it made things up.  This is why they avoid debate.  They are paper tigers.

I invite media to contact me so they can report accurately instead of repeating the dogma.

THIS JUST IN
THE ALA DISAGREES WITH "BANNING" PORN FROM LIBRARIES




NOTE ADDED 13 JUNE 2012:

Fifty Shades of Grey author Erika Leonard, writing as E.L. James, has blocked my ability to follow her @E_L_James Twitter account.  I had been following for quite a while, tweeting about the topic occasionally, even sending her a heads up message here and there (like the one about Dr. Ruth), but never doing anything other than normal, polite Twitter activity that is common on Twitter.

After publication of this blog post that contains links addressing her possible copyright infringement, she has blocked my SafeLibraries Twitter account.

Is that a tacit admission of guilt confirming the copyright infringement?


NOTE ADDED 17 JUNE 2012:

Oh look.  Here's a local library director now emulating the big bullies to push porn on her community in NJ.  It illustrates an example of the NCAC and gang's propaganda and how it spreads:
  • "Hot Romance in Hudson County; Local Libraries Have Long Wait Lists for 'Shades of Grey,'" by Vanessa Cruz, Hudson Reporter, 17 June 2012:
    In response to the controversy about the book, [Hoboken Library Director Lena] Podles said, "I heard that some libraries that have in their policy that they do not purchase 'erotica.'  I personally do not think the libraries should have official policies on banning specific genre.  People's definitions and opinions are different; it is up to a person to make that choice."
So no more need for library selection policies, right?  Anything goes.


NOTE ADDED 18 JUNE 2012:

I just found a written ALA statement on the matter, as opposed to the more recent, spoken one promoting porn above.  This written statement does not promote porn and appears to take a reasonable tone, even leaving the final decision to the library, as it should.  I am republishing it here since, for reasons I do not understand, the web page on which it appeared is not longer accessible, at least not for the last day or so:


The American Library Association supports libraries and librarians across the country, who face difficult decisions every day about how to allocate scarce resources in order to meet the wide-ranging information needs of their communities.

To guide decisions about what materials to select for a collection, libraries develop selection policies, which outline the principles and priorities they will follow in selecting items for the library.  Libraries also strive to be responsive to the requests of community members in choosing materials.  Selection is an inclusive process that seeks out those materials that will best satisfy the community’s needs for information, entertainment, and enlightenment.

Recent controversy over the novel "Fifty Shades of Grey" has sparked discussion about the line between selection and censorship in libraries.  Where selection decisions are guided by the professional ethics of librarianship – which emphasize inclusion, access, and neutrality – libraries choosing not to purchase materials that fall outside their defined collection policies and needs are not censors.  Where partisan disapproval or doctrinal pressure guides libraries' decisions to select or remove materials, then censorship can result.

Materials like "Fifty Shades of Grey" challenge libraries' professional ideals of open, equitable, unbiased access to information.  They raise important questions about how libraries can best include and reflect the diversity of ideas in our society – even those which some people find objectionable.  In all circumstances, ALA encourages libraries making decisions about their collections to keep in mind their basic missions and the core values of intellectual freedom and providing access to information.

NOTE ADDED 19 JUNE 2012:

Another ALA statement on the matter, this one saying excluding "erotica" is "censorship, plain and simple."  It also says nothing about the US Supreme Court findings including that libraries traditionally exclude porn.  Then notice the very subtle legal threat:
  • "Controversy in Fifty Shades of Grey," by Barbara M. Jones, American Libraries, 15 May 2012:
    The IF Manual also contains information on how to write a good collection development policy—one that will not contain such statements as "no erotica."  Remember: Most library collections already contain literature with erotic passages that are constitutionally protected for adults.  Excluding all such sexually explicit material is censorship, plain and simple, and could cause legal problems for library management and the board.
I have placed a comment there, and in case it is "censored," I'll republish it here:

Here are some problems with this ALA statement:

1) "The IF Manual also contains information on how to write a good collection development policy—one that will not contain such statements as 'no erotica.' Remember: Most library collections already contain literature with erotic passages that are constitutionally protected for adults. Excluding all such sexually explicit material is censorship, plain and simple, and could cause legal problems for library management and the board."  Excluding erotica is not "censorship, plain and simple."

2) This ALA statement completely omits what the US Supreme Court said in US v. ALA that essentially says the exact opposite of what the ALA is saying.  SCOTUS says A) most libraries exclude pornography and B) libraries have broad discretion to apply their selection policies.  ALA says A) excluding erotica is "censorship, plain and simple," and B) libraries better look out for potential law suits for making bad selection decisions.  The ALA and SCOTUS statements are polar opposites.  Barbara M. Jones completely failed to disclose and address the SCOTUS statements that go against what she wants people to think.  It is not an unintentional omission precisely because her statements are effectively the opposite of those made by SCOTUS in the very case the ALA lost big legally and financially.  And the legal threat is empty because libraries have broad discretion afforded them as shown by the SCOTUS decision.

Those problems go to the very heart of the ALA statement and evidence that it may be substantially false and misleading.  And omitting the SCOTUS statements borders on dishonest.

Should anyone wish to read more, please see what I have written here:

NCAC Pushes Porn on Libraries; Fifty Shades of Grey Propaganda: Brevard Buckles, Harford Holds

http://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2012/06/ncac-pushes-porn-on-libraries-fifty.html

NOTE ADDED 27 JUNE 2012:

And another library properly applied its policy against erotica, despite the NCAC and what ALA said about "such statements as 'no erotica'":

  • "Fifty Shades of Grey Banned From Mobile's Library as 'Erotica,'" by Rena Havner Philips, Press-Register, 27 June 2012:
    [Library spokeswoman Amber] Guy said the library's selection criteria specifically prohibits "erotica," and, besides that, the book hasn't gotten very good reviews in various library and publishers' journals.

    The library's board was made aware that library officials chose not to purchase the book at this time, and its members "are in agreement with that," Guy said.
So Mobile Public Library sets another example for libraries to ignore ALA efforts to mislead communities into including erotica and porn in public library collections.


By the way, it is not "banned."  That's the media making up the news again.  Repeaters, not reporters.  The library simply applied its existing selection policy.




NOTE ADDED 17 JULY 2012:


For the many libraries deciding to allow Fifty Shades of Grey despite the law, policy, community standards, common sense, limited resources, poor quality, etc., consider the following, because you may be contributing:

  • "On 50 Shades of Grey and the Erotization of Male Domination," by Smash, Liberation Collective, 2 April 2012:
    In fact, BDSM practices actively oppress women.

    ....

    There is nothing transgressive or feminist about BDSM erotica or sexual practices.  The popularity of this new novel, as well as the Twilight series, show the way in which women cope with male violence and oppression by eroticizing male dominance.

NOTE ADDED 28 JULY 2012:

A major anti-porn advocate has come out against the book.  "This is a very retrograde and dangerous world for our daughters to buy into, and speaks to the appalling lack of any public consciousness as to the reality of violence against women."  Libraries that lend the book contribute to this.  Are you proud, librarians?

GAIL DINES is a professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston.  Her latest book is Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality (Beacon Press). She a founding member of Stop Porn Culture (stoppornculture.org).


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Location: Harford County Public Library, Edgewood, MD 21040, USA
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