Playboy for Children Says Gina Millsap, Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library Executive Director

The Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library's executive director Gina Millsap has recommended children have unimpeded access to Playboy magazine. She is also the President-Elect of the American Library Association's [ALA] Library Leadership & Management Ass'n [LLAMA].

"I respectfully submit that I believe that the Board of Trustees should affirm its current Library Materials Selection, Circulation and User Confidentiality policies with two changes. 1. Lift the restriction on R-rated films in the Circulation policy. 2. Discontinue the practice of putting certain magazines behind the service desk, including Playboy. That will ensure that we are consistent in the way we provide access to all library materials and ensure user confidentiality."

Source: "Letter From Gina Millsap, Executive Director; To Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library Board of Trustees; Dated February 13, 2009; Re: Expression of Concern from Mrs. Kim Borchers," by Gina Millsap, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, 13 February 2009, 4 pp, emphasis added.

Need I say more? This reminds me of the ALA's de facto leader saying, "Parents who would tell their children not to read Playboy 'don't really care about their kids growing up and learning to think and explore.'" And why is the ALA still considered authoritative?

As president of the ALA's LLAMA, will Gina Millsap recommend the same for libraries nationwide? Playboy for children—what a fine example for a LLAMA president to set.

As Gina Millsap said in her letter, emphasis in original, "What if the national media focuses on the issue? There is also our reputation to consider." Fine job, Gina Millsap, recommending children have access to Playboy and R-rated flicks despite the interests of the local community whom you obviously do not serve. This as a reaction to the subsequently successful effort to restrict children without parental consent from accessing "The Joy of Gay Sex" and three similar books. I'm certain your recommendation will help your community's national reputation.


NOTE ADDED 7 SEPTEMBER 2011:

Gina Millsap is now running for ALA President!  Playboy for all children in the whole country!

• "Millsap, Stripling Seek 2013-14 ALA Presidency," by JoAnne Kempf, American Library Association, 2 September 2011.

SafeLibraries says vote for Barbara K. Stripling.


NOTE ADDED 15 MARCH 2012:

Gina Millsap is now teaching her technique for ensuring children retain access to Playboy to the PLA 2012, a convention for the ALA's Public Library Association.  Can there be any doubt if she becomes ALA President what she will promote?  Look how it is worded, "recent library board attempts to limit access to library materials by age in Topeka."  Look at the title, "When Trustees ... Collide!"

Intellectual Freedom Update 2012: When Trustees and Meeting Rooms Collide! Friday, March 16, 2012 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM Venue: Pennsylvania Convention Center Room: 115-C Join Gina Millsap, Topeka-Shawnee County Public Library Executive Director; Kathy Middleton, Contra Costa County Public Library Senior Community Library Manager; and Kent Oliver, Freedom to Read Foundation President for a spirited intellectual freedom discussion. This program will focus on recent library board attempts to limit access to library materials by age in Topeka and the public meeting room policies challenged by the Faith Ministries Church in Contra Costa County. Subject Track or Type of Session Administration/Management

Speaker : Kathy Middleton, Senior Community Library Manager, Contra Costa County Library

Speaker : Gina Millsap, Chief Executive Officer, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

Program Organizer and Speaker : Kent Oliver, Executive Director, Stark County District Library

Reminder about what the US Supreme Court said in a case the ALA lost big:

"The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree."

Apparently Gina Millsap knows better than the unanimous US Supreme Court on that issue, and better than the citizens and even the library board of trustees of Topeka.

I'm an not being sensational.  I am merely reporting on and republishing what she is doing at PLA 2012.  She is the one, not me, who is reaching over the heads of the community and the library board of trustees to bring the ACLU/ALA policy into Topeka.

And in attachments being handed out at her lecture, indoctrination training is being given on how to get librarians to ignore their own innate sense of right and wrong.  It is a propaganda technique, the name of which escapes me at the moment.  Contact her.  Ask for the handouts.  See for yourselves.

Imagine if she becomes ALA President.  She'll know better than the entire nation!  Already the ALA forces its way on a third of the nation's libraries in a manner that harms children, says the author of the Children's Internet Protection Act.  Gina Millsap will just pile on.

Remember, if librarians survive the indoctrination, please report to me what happened, and join those librarians willing to work together to stop this very kind of child-unfriendly behavior.


NOTE ADDED 5 MAY 2012:

The ALA avoids near disaster by electing a president who has NOT publicly supported Playboy magazine and R-rated movies for children in public libraries.  Hooray!!

• "Stripling Wins 2013–14 ALA Presidency," by Beverly Goldberg, American Libraries, 4 May 2012.

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Laughing At Jim Ogle of WIBW for Falsely Claiming Censorship to Fool the Public

You have to laugh at Jim Ogle, WIBW General Manager, who is misleading his viewers/listeners with false claims of "censorship." In "They're All Going to Laugh at You!," by Jim Ogle, WIBW, 6 February 2009, Jim can be seen claiming that Kansas will become the laughing stock of the nation for "censoring" public library books. The funny thing is, censorship is not involved, yet he mentions it four times in under two minutes, and he is an influential media member. He's flat out misleading Kansans.

The facts are these:

• the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library already keeps Playboy magazine in a manner that precludes access by children,
• citizens are requesting the library treat four books in the same fashion as it already treats Playboy,
• the books are far more explicit than Playboy,
• no one is trying to remove the books from the library,
• no one is trying to get the library to do anything different from what it is already doing, and
• other libraries are already keeping children from accessing the very same books.

Yet there's prominent media member Jim Ogle misleading the public with false claims of "censorship." Then he tells the public, "They're all going to laugh at you!" His goal is to get people to think as he wants them to think, and he's the general manager of a major media outfit! "Leave work early to speak out against an act that will paint Kansas at [sic] backward," he says. What a demagogue.

As Dan Gerstein once wrote, emphasis mine, "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." Source: "Why the Democrats Are Losing the Culture Wars," by Dan Gerstein, Wall Street Journal, 11 April 2005.

Think, Kansans. Don't be fooled by demagogues. Your library is already sequestering Playboy from children. The precedent is already set. Books vastly more explicit than Playboy may be similarly sequestered. If not, Playboy must be made available to children to avoid any double standard.

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