Brooklyn Public Library is Offering Free Digital Library Cards To Young Adults in the US (theverge.com) 43
The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is counteracting a ban on certain books by letting anyone in the US aged 13 to 21 apply for a digital library card. This gives teens and young adults, regardless of their location in the United States, access to the library's entire ebook collection. From a report: The initiative, called Books Unbanned, is fighting what the BPL describes as an "increasingly coordinated and effective effort to remove books tackling a wide range of topics from library shelves." According to the American Library Association (ALA), a total of 729 books were challenged in 2021, meaning a person or group attempted to ban these titles from public libraries.
Wa to go BPL! (Score:4, Insightful)
School books are one thing. Libraries another (Score:3)
While the internet provides a lot of things these days, books are still important.
Still, I was just reading about Florida's "banning" of a bunch of school textbooks for various ill-explained reasons. Reasons that turned out to include things like "too many racially diverse names in the word problems." But actually also including some real stinkers as well that SHOULD get a textbook removed.
That said, there's a vast difference between banning textbooks because they aren't "good enough", because primary school textbooks are more or less forced upon the students. They can't just chose to use an alternate schoolbook.
But a library is completely different, where the ability to see various viewpoints is a good thing, where people choose to expose themselves to various things.
Re: School books are one thing. Libraries another (Score:2, Interesting)
Not buying a few hundred thousand copies of a particular text book isn't 'banning' that text book.
Florida 'banned' school districts from buying a particular textbook with state money -they didn't go into bookstores and remove them.
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You can rationalise all you want, but the effect is what it is.
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You're an ignorant idiot... and you apparently don't know the word "library". The DID take them out of school libraries, and are trying to take them out of public libraries.
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You're an ignorant idiot... and you apparently don't know the word "library". The DID take them out of school libraries, and are trying to take them out of public libraries.
How awful it must be to watch as the purchasing and provisioning services of government entities fall into the hands of the people living within, and financially paying for, the operations of those government entities. Don't you wish there was some way to tear out the tyrannical "government of, by, and for the people governed" and replace it with something more progressive, like some kind of esteemed Council of Elders who will be able to govern the people and spend the people's money and provide policy decr
Re: School books are one thing. Libraries another (Score:2)
The books 'banned' were textbooks, school libraries typically don't stock textbooks that the teachers aren't using.
So if I publish a math textbook, and Florida chooses not to buy it, I suddenly am elevated from 'failed textbook author' to 'banned book author' and I get to share my story with countless tv show hosts?
Seriously, you imagine this is something it isn't, when a state chooses one textbook, it necessarily chooses not to buy others - that's not banning, that's selection.
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But a library is completely different, where the ability to see various viewpoints is a good thing, where people choose to expose themselves to various things.
I would agree, but you say this as if someone wasn't forced to spend forty-four billion dollars recently. You know, because citizens have found American social media platforms to be so welcoming to various viewpoints.
Yeah, I get the initiative, but we're sitting here clapping and cheering on a public library, for opening themselves up to the public. It's almost as if we've forgotten the entire point of a public library. If the digital services of a public library are not open to any and every citizen,
Re: School books are one thing. Libraries another (Score:2)
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The point of a library goes back millennia. Its a place where people of all status can come and acquire knowledge. Its been this way since the library of Alexander.
Well, let's not half-step it here. A library is where people of all status can come and exchange ideas as well. Otherwise, no one would have found a need to document and catalog Fiction, Art, or Music, and humanity would have lost out on a lot had that happened. I can't imagine where wine would be without art. Or vice versa.
Our current libraries are not exactly sticking to that model. They have their own list of books they dont think you should have access. It just does not happen to be about two girls fucking in a bathroom. A book on improvised explosives is on their ban list.
Ironically enough that same book is probably available directly from Amazon, so must not be all that "banned". Odd how we clutch pearls and flavor demons like lemonade. Guess it al
Re: School books are one thing. Libraries another (Score:2)
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The Brooklyn Public Library has a mandate to serve the citizens of Brooklyn/NYC. It is not obligated in any way to extend its services to people living in, say, Alabama. Yet this is what it has done, and this is what we're applauding.
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While the internet provides a lot of things these days, books are still important.
Still, I was just reading about Florida's "banning" of a bunch of school textbooks for various ill-explained reasons. Reasons that turned out to include things like "too many racially diverse names in the word problems." But actually also including some real stinkers as well that SHOULD get a textbook removed.
That said, there's a vast difference between banning textbooks because they aren't "good enough", because primary school textbooks are more or less forced upon the students. They can't just chose to use an alternate schoolbook.
But a library is completely different, where the ability to see various viewpoints is a good thing, where people choose to expose themselves to various things.
If you dig deeper into why it was done, you can see that the topics covered in the math books are problematic given the laws that were passed. If you know a topic is not allowed ina school, why would you try to sell a textbook with that information in it to a school district in that state? Additionally, having seen some of the problems in the math books in question, I can not see how any thinking person would not want those math books banned. Intolerance is intolerance no matter how you dress it up. There
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And yet in the examples given there was no racism. There was mention of race, to set up a word problem to be solved, but not racism. There was a problem that set up an advanced math question regarding racial bias, which is a very real thing, but the word problem did not require the student to believe this truth only to solve the problem.
This is a type of color blind racism in a way; a refusal to see that race exists and therefore no need to address racial inequities or past racial harms because they logica
Re: School books are one thing. Libraries another (Score:2)
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kiss a librarian today ! (Score:2)
Librarians have been quiet guardians of freedom and privacy for a long time. Currently your privacy may be questioned when you use some library computers (most will require your library ID to access). Some libraries use private companies to provide their catalog and keep their member data. So one must be careful. But I believe that some libraries even now make a serious effort to protect your privacy, and many libraries offer books that some would like to ban.
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kiss a librarian today !
Beware the handicap elevator in the back. Things go down in that elevator.
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Things also go up.
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When I questioned a prominent librarian friend on facebook why she wants to ban a right wing television network, she unfriended me.
A librarian at a place I used to work had a flying fit about an unsavory joke someone emailed around, and tried to get people fired.
A head librarian at the grad school I attended revelled in making students' lives hell with draconian rules.
Librarians are not who you think they are.
Just give me your data! (Score:2)
Re:Might one find the following titles at the BPL? (Score:5, Informative)
A quick check at https://www.bklynlibrary.org/ [bklynlibrary.org] shows that yes, all 4 of those books are available. Librarians aren't your ideological enemies. I hope your local library does as well with Heather has Two Mommies.
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A lot of it does start to look like recruiting attempts (the g word is tainted apparently so I won't use it) given that...wait for it...most people aren't gay.
Most numbers aren't '5,784', therefore we should ban any math books that have the number '5,784' in them.
Re: Might one find the following titles at the BP (Score:1)
We ought not teach math in a way that gives the impression that 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything.
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OMG, are people still believing that gays are recruiting people? The main message from gay activists is instead "stop treating us like shit".
Isn't targeting 13 year olds with smut grooming? (Score:2)
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Fwiw, the law as written in Florida (and it doesn't mention the word 'gay') goes up to 9 year olds i.e. the third grade. That's right. Liberals screaming their collective heads off because kindergarteners don't get sex-ed. Really read the bill people!
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Since you're writing out of context, I googled for you.
That is not a book marketed to kids. Probably only made it to libraries because it has "boy" in the name and librarians weren't paying attention.
The scene above describes two adults who knew each other in 4th grade and one of them is remembering that time.
I doubt I would want to read the book but quoting out of context like you're doing is just pushing a narrative and is totally dishonest. Repeating the outrage without even understanding it.
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You get to that page via the 2nd link on this page: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/b... [bklynlibrary.org]
The reality is that New Yorkers are spending money to increase the likelihood that 13 year olds will read that book and imagine one 4th grade boy jerking off another. What is the context that I am missing?
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That link is literally just a library reporting on attempts to limit free speech. That library may also have services for kids but it's unrelated to the article.
Your like or dislike of the content is not actually relevant. If it were straight sex you probably wouldn't even care. It's not like there aren't hundreds of books in a library under that umbrella. 50 Shades of Gray is also available in most libraries. It's trash, but I don't see any calls at banning it from the program.
Child material selection is not censorship (Score:3)
It's normal and important for a functional society. Children have not yet fully developed critical thinking skills and emotional control to react to charged subjects responsibly and can not be held responsible if they hurt themselves and others. And only parents, not teachers, can be held responsible for their well being. Adults are allowed to read anything, even Mein Kampf, but can't blame their own choices for ending up in prison or a mental institution.
So for library, self service kids section should be limited to things almost nobody finds objectionable by local community standards. As it pretty much was until past few years. Adult section should be for adults, or kids with parent permission or supervision. I suppose, it's possible to have divisive books that parents can check out for their kids on request, but I am not sure that's the best use of library resources.
However, such control is most effective at younger age and older teenagers should probably be treated a lot more like adults in these respects.
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Back when I was a kid my local library had separate "adult" and "kids" floors.
Yes, separate FLOORS with the main entry hall having an "up" stairs going to the "adult" floor and the "down" stairs going to the "kids" floor. And the library rules were CLEARLY POSTED when you walked in the front door. So there was no excuse for not knowing the rules.
If the librarians caught any kids under the age of 18 (I think) going to the "adult" floor they asked where the parents were. If the kids' parents were not close by
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I was in a conservative town, and we had one floor in the library and could go anywhere in there we wanted, and we indeed found the copies of Playboy (text only, and the braille version, ha), the erotic and illustrated early version of A Thousand And One Nights, scary stories, war stories, sex stories, books about workers rights and socialism, books about birth and birth control, books about evolution (omg!), and so forth.
Parents admit (Score:2)
It's interesting how many 'concerned' parents are essentially admitting their children are perverts. I wonder who taught them that?
Does their online collection include Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Story of O, 7 Minutes, or other sexually explicit stories? I suspect not.
Lawn Boy is story about a 9 year-old male and a man who has homosexual fantasies about him. It's not suitable for children or anyone, really. But all of the reviews call it a story about growing-up, so I can see why it was purchased by a
Online literature and other materials (Score:1)
If you have unfettered access to internet ... (Score:3)
Ban? (Score:2)
A "ban" on "certain" books? No such ban exists. And only "certain" books?