Showing posts with label James LaRue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James LaRue. Show all posts

Thursday, August 23, 2018

EBSCO Advertises 'P-rn and S-x Toys' to K-12 School Kids

EBSCO advertises porn and sex toys to school children, reports Concerned Citizens for School Databases, "p*rn and 's*x toys' are ADVERTISED TO KIDS thru #EBSCO K-12 DATABASES!":

"Easy access to porn on school devices creates a culture of sexual harassment #BackToSchool https://bit.ly/2Plcmlh  https://endsexualexploitation.org/?p=22658  via @ncose":

"Learn the truth about porn in schools #BackToSchool":

Here's guidance from Safe Schools, Safe Libraries, brought to you by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), including detailed examples of what EBSCO serves to children:

Send this packet of information to your local Parent Teacher Association:
Lest we think school librarians are not directly involved in ensuring school children remain exposed to inappropriate material provided by EBSCO and similar school database companies, I am reporting that the American Library Association is actively working to silence parental opposition to the porn industry indoctrination by claiming, like it does with Me Too, Times Up sexual harassment it calls "dubious," that the problem doesn't exist—it's an "unsupported belief."

None other than the so-called "Freedom to Read Foundation," a part of the American Library Association, is proud to report that its "trustees and liaisons" strategized about "a new movement calling for censorship or filtering of research databases, arising from an unsupported belief that the databases allow children to access pornography...."
....


Lastly, here are related tweets and a video from a number of sources:





—
URL of this page: 
safelibraries.blogspot.com/2018/08/ebsco.html

On Twitter: 
@ALALibrary @CCSDConvo @FTRF @EBSCO @NCOSE #BackToSchool

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Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Laura Ingalls Wilder Out, Drag Queens In, Say Librarians for Children

Libraries are promoting drag queen story hours while at the same time censoring references to Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House On the Prairie.  This hypocrisy is done in the same publication for librarians for children by the Association for Library Services to Children [ALSC] while claiming it's not censorship:
  • No doubt you have heard that the ALSC Board voted unanimously to change the name of the Wilder Award to the “Children’s Literature Legacy Award”.  Unfortunately, there has been quite a bit of confusion and misinformation circulating about this decision.  It is well worth your time to read the entire ALSC Statement about its decision,  and to follow up with the blogpost by Jamie LaRue, Director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, here.   The title of the award now aligns more closely with one of ALSC’s core values, inclusiveness, and should not be interpreted as an attempt to censor Wilder’s books.  
  • ....
  • Interested in bringing Drag Queen Storytime to your library? ALSC Committee Members received tips for optimizing success from library pioneers who have already done it.  We also had the chance to meet a Drag Queen who talked about the value of offering this program, including fostering empathy, tolerance, creativity, imagination and fun.  Drag Queen Story Hour is a non-profit and you can find out more at its homepage. 
I love this response from "Gary Hondel":
I read the statement and there’s no confusion or misunderstanding. It’s clear to me (as it is to many others) that the ALA is giving in to overly sensitive, popular hype. The award has been given away since 1954, as I understand it, and just now, all of a sudden, it’s “insensitive?” Maybe you should have thought of that decades ago. Now it just appears disingenuous and an attempt to appease opposing forces that are imagined. I promise you, most of the reasonable world does not have a problem with the award being named after Laura Ingalls Wilder. To think that you all deal in knowledge for a living yet are behaving with such unreasonable irrationality. This organization has become willing slaves to its emotions.
I'm pointing out the censorship on the one hand and the promotion on the other, both being in the very same publication for librarians who serve children.  The subject matter of what was promoted is irrelevant.  The point is the hypocrisy to censor one topic and promote another, and the brazenness to report it all in the same publication, same story, limited to librarians.

I'm reporting this hypocrisy because it further illustrates that the American Library Association is disingenuous when it promotes Banned Books Week as if it was really interested in stemming censorship.  This kind of organization deserves no credence.  Besides, ALA is homophobic: "Gay Hate @ Your Library."


For your interest, here are some drag queen story hour news reports in chronological order:

—
URL of this page: 
safelibraries.blogspot.com/2018/07/laura-ingalls-wilder-out-drag-queens-in.html

On Twitter: 

@AP, @BKLYNlibrary, @CBCNews, @globeandmail, @gq_in_sk, @JVanMaren, @LifeSite, @LilMissHotMess, @LIWlegacy, @MeganFoxWriter, @roberta__bell, @TedShaffrey, @ToddStarnes

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Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Plan to Report Child Pornography in Public Libraries

Graphic credit: Karen Jensen
Plan to report child pornography in public libraries.  Librarian Karen Jensen of Teen Librarian Toolbox asks, "Does your library have a plan for what to do in case a patron is caught viewing child pornography on your public computers?" and advises "don't wait until it happens to figure out what you're supposed to do":
Here are her main points, then read the entire post:
  1. You need to have a plan and train staff BEFORE something happens
  2. Know that pornography involving minors is a crime and you are legally obligated to report
  3. Preserve the evidence
  4. Have staff fill out a detailed incident report ASAP
  5. Take detailed notes during the process
  6. Advise staff on how to talk with the public/press
  7. TRAIN YOUR STAFF
  8. Invite the police and your legal counsel to come train your staff
  9. If you have an incident, do a postmortem
  10. Know that you may never know what happens after the fact
Here is a list of the resources she provided:
Now let me add my two cents.  Karen Jensen is the first librarian I have seen to deal directly with this serious issue that affects all libraries.  And her advice is spot on.

Even her link to American Library Association [ALA] policy is good as ALA recently changed its policy; it now advises librarians to report child pornography—it didn't used to.  This change occurred, without any fanfare or any announcement at all by ALA, only after many decades and direct pressure from SafeLibraries and Orland Park Public Library child pornography whistleblowers Megan Fox and Kevin DuJan who went on to publish SHUT UP! The Bizarre War that One Public Library Waged Against the First Amendment.  See:
I also credit Jamie LaRue, who is the new leader of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom [OIF], for finally changing ALA's policy, that Karen Jensen linked, to finally advise librarians to report child pornography.  If interested, linked here is an older, archived version that advises librarians are not judges so they cannot determine what is child pornography and may not call the police.  I recommend ALA OIF announce the change in policy so libraries nationwide can adjust accordingly.

In respect of that older policy, library lawyers advised librarians not to call the police on child pornography viewers as that would violate the child porn viewer's rights to privacy:


In one library KTJ represented, child porn was indeed allowed and covered up, and I got caught up in a federal lawsuit to try to silence me and the child porn whistleblowers.  We were not silenced and instead ALA finally advises librarians to report child pornography to the police.  See:


To this day, certain ALA policies continue to stand in the way of what Karen Jensen has recommended, and indeed that it likely part of why she recommended what she did.
Karen Jensen, on the other hand, correctly advises the exact opposite of ALA:
  • Preserve the evidence.
  • Have staff fill out a detailed incident report ASAP.
  • Take detailed notes during the process.
  • Invite the police and your legal counsel to come train your staff.
  • If you have an incident, do a postmortem.
I really commend Karen Jensen for writing one of the most important articles in any library media.  Everyone please read "Things I Never Learned in Library School: Dealing with Minors and Pornography," by Karen Jensen, School Library Journal, 18 October 2016.

Why is her work entitled in part "Things I Never Learned in Library School"?  Why aren't library schools teaching what Karen Jensen is revealing?  Why is it left to individual librarians to finally address such a serious issue?  I call on library schools to incorporate Karen Jensen's work—planning to report child pornography—into library school curricula.

Librarians, please retweet this @TLT16 tweet below, start planning to report child pornography in public libraries, and ask your alma maters to include her work in their curricula:


—
URL of this page:
safelibraries.blogspot.com/2016/10/plan-to-report.html

On Twitter:
@ALALibrary @jaslar @OIF +School Library Journal @SLJournal @StopItNow @TheJusticeDept @TLT16

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Location: Chicago, IL, USA
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