“The idea that search engines can, or should, be neutral can be traced back to a movement of leftist librarians in the 1970s. Led by Sanford Berman, one of the first to bring social rebellion into the library, radical librarians argued that the system used to organize books was inherently biased and racist because it reflected a Western perspective.”
did you follow a library on Friday?
I made a little video for Follow a Library Day and so did a lot of other people. I enjoyed this small awareness-raising exercise. It made me look up a few new libraries on Twitter, it helped me meet a few new Twitter-aware librarians in the larger blogosphere and it was fun watching it ripple across my group of friends on Twitter. No nagging, no hectoring. If you were into it, you could post a little something. If not, no big deal. Nice successful campaign folks, good job.
Banned Books Week as seen through its funders’ eyes
More on the Chicago Defender.
Here are my old Banned Books Weeks posts: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. I skipped 2005.
It’s time for a review of Banned Books Week. This year most of my BBW information comes from Twitter. Amusingly BBW on Twitter can mean two very different things. This is the note I put on Twitter yesterday.
“Oh look an actual attempt at, well not book banning exactly. Weird old Pentagon. http://bit.ly/cqg9PL Happy [sort of] Banned Books Week.”
Pretty sketchy story. The Pentagon bought up the entire first printing of a book published by St Martin’s Press because it “contained information which could cause damage to national security.” The second edition has come out, heavily redacted. This is one of the closer “government is telling you what you can’t read” stories that I’ve seen this year. Here’s another look at the websites that are linked from ALA’s offical BBW website ala.org/bbooks, a page that is linked from the front page, but only as one of the six “slides” that revolve through the top of the page. So, Banned Books Week is sponsored by these organizations. Let’s see what their websites look like.
- American Booksellers Association has a link to this functional site from the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, much better than last year. This blog post (from August) seems to summarize what they’ve been up to. Nothing on their Twitter. They also run the website BannedBooks.org which has been updated a little for this year.
- The American Library Association – has one of the six slides linked to their BBW page. The press kit page is more interesting. The full list of books that were challenged or banned last year is hidden away in a PDF. Mostly school challenges. A few interesting public library cases. ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom is posting a lot on their Twitter and their blog.
- American Society of Journalists and Authors has a button for sale in their store, no other mention that I could find including on their Twitter and on facebook.
- Association of American Publishers has a short bloggish post talking about what some publishers are up to this week, linked from the front page. Is anyone else freaked out that the URL includes a misspelling of the word “archives”? I remember that from last year.
- the National Association of College Stores has nothing, as usual.
- It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress but no mention that I can see.
One of the interesting thigns to note about the ALA list of challenges is how many of the public library challenges seem to be centered around just a few library systems. Most of these stories are ones that hit the national news and so I’ve heard about them and you probably have also.
There are also good websites to go to to learn about censorship and the larger (to me) issue of chilling effects on people’s right to live free from fear and free from silencing. Here are a few things I’ve been reading lately
- The National Coalition Against Censorship has protested book ratings in a sensible and clear headed way.
- A Few Words About Public Libraries and MPAA Ratings (pdf)
- An interesting discussion on a unicycle forum about the public library and whether they should buy “cleaned up” versions of popular music.
- Online books about censorship, from the Online Books Page’s banned books page.
- I always find something interesting to read at Project Censored.
Join me in a rousing song celebrating free expression, won’t you?
how did they get those numbers: ebooks
Amazon likes to make you think that they are selling ebooks at a tremendous rate. And they are, compared to hardcover books. But when you add paperbacks into the mix, and then extrapolate to what Amazon’s share of the ebook market is (90%) ebooks market dominance seems much less gigantic. Longer discussion over at Slashdot.
stupid rules and when to break them: Netflix
I am a big fan of mild civil disobedience when it comes to some of the rules we have to deal with when operating a public library. There’s often a balance between being full protectors of copyright and providing optimal access to patrons. Some of the hoops we have to jump through can seem ridiculous and I am in favor of trying to push the envelope in many directions. That said, it’s been really interesting to me watching the general debate on libraries using Netflix to supplement their collection. I think it started with this Tame the Web guest post and the Chronicle of Higher Ed article. Then it moved to analysis by Read Write Web and then over to big media site Fast Company with the smallest of blurbs.
It was picked up by a ton of library bloggers. I was fond of Meredith’s “what were they thinking” post which has some interesting comments, most notably the comments by a few librarians that they contacted Netflix directly about their intended use and got either explicit or tacit approval.
Since Netflix does not have a way to amend the agreement in writing prior to starting the service, we contacted them through their published channels and explained our intentions for our service. We indicated which parts of the ToS we thought we would be violating (â€personal useâ€). We indicated that we would stop our service as soon as we heard from them that they would not abide by our intention in using their service.
Further down there’s a comment from someone who may be (or have been) a Netflix employee saying that the Netflix official policy is that this is a Terms of Service violation but that the actual policy is “basically a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy. We were told if asked about the idea of a library lending Netflix discs to tell the caller that it was against the terms of use and they should contact their legal department.”
The big issue is that Netflix is responsible to their main customers, the studios, so need to be keeping up appearances. So, that’s curious. Strict rule abiders don’t use Netflix, rule benders sometimes do. I see this again as a repeat of libraries testing the waters with Kindle lending. Officially against the rules. Okayed specifically by the business from time to time. Still railed against by other people. How do you decide which side of the line to come down on?