FDR reminds us that Books are Weapons in the War of Ideas [larger image]. Here’s another Books Are Weapons poster.
Author: jessamyn
banned books, or just unbuyable books?
Is it like banning a book if Wal-Mart decides to stop selling it? Interesting story about Wal-Mart deciding to stop selling “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” a famous racist tract which has long been known to be fake. Some discussion of this over at Reason.com and Metafilter.com. It’s interesting to watch how the other online retailers that still stock the book have been editing their web copy, post-hubbub. Of particular note, Amazon’s page [current page, Google cache] used to contain this phrase from the book description [provided by the publisher] “If, however. The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs.” Reading all the customer reviews is a bone-chilling exercise.
librarians meet librarians
Meetup.com now includes librarian meetups. While the closest one to me is 130 miles away, this might be fun to pursue in Vermont. [juice]
banned books, the acceptable taboo?
The Ska Librarian aka Dan Cherubin has written an excellent article on Banned Books Week for Counterpoise.
Banned Books Week does a reverse spin by focusing solely on the library as a children’s space, complete with requisite put-upon spinster. With Banned Books Week, ALA has created a safe space for generating a manageable and marketable taboo. It could be that with all the actual fighting librarians do over real issues, they wanted something that they could profess to win repeatedly. If one creates one�s own taboo, one usually knows the easiest way to transgress it.
ALA responds to clark atlanta lib school closing on NPR
NPR’s Tavis Smiley talks with ALA president Carol Brey Casiano and Akilah Nasokhere about the impending closing of Clark-Atlanta University’s library school one of only two library schools at historically black universities.