September 2000

Who’s Afraid of Harry Potter

Someone suggested this story.
Amy Hollingsworth has written a very interesting Story at Christianity.com. She says Harry ain\’t so bad after all, and she\’s glad she read the book, after all she heard.

\”Evil is real. It exploits those who give their lives to it and then leaves them for dead (which is what happened to poor Professor Quirrell). That’s what Voldemort represents. What conquers that kind of evil is not a magic wand, but the goodness and bravery Harry is best known for. I’m not really sure why Harry Potter has been singled out. I have a hard time believing that the masses cried foul when C.S. Lewis wrote about a White Witch exploiting a young boy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or when the Queen of the Night took center stage in Mozart’s The Magic Flute or when L. Frank Baum unveiled the Wizard of Oz. Maybe they did. But if I had to answer the question, “Who’s afraid of Harry Potter?,” my guess would be: Mostly those who haven’t bothered to get to know him yet.\”

Someone suggested this story.
Amy Hollingsworth has written a very interesting Story at Christianity.com. She says Harry ain\’t so bad after all, and she\’s glad she read the book, after all she heard.

\”Evil is real. It exploits those who give their lives to it and then leaves them for dead (which is what happened to poor Professor Quirrell). That’s what Voldemort represents. What conquers that kind of evil is not a magic wand, but the goodness and bravery Harry is best known for. I’m not really sure why Harry Potter has been singled out. I have a hard time believing that the masses cried foul when C.S. Lewis wrote about a White Witch exploiting a young boy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or when the Queen of the Night took center stage in Mozart’s The Magic Flute or when L. Frank Baum unveiled the Wizard of Oz. Maybe they did. But if I had to answer the question, “Who’s afraid of Harry Potter?,” my guess would be: Mostly those who haven’t bothered to get to know him yet.\” More from Christianity.com


My son knew about this conditional status and would sneak into my bedroom to riffle through the pages like they were contraband. Talk about building interest. After I read each chapter, he would ask for a detailed summary. Midway through the book, I stopped giving summaries and we began reading the book together.


These are the reasons why I’m glad I did.


1. The books highlight experiences kids can relate to. Instead of arguing over who’s got the best bike or the coolest video game, Harry’s friends ooh and aah over the Nimbus Two Thousand, the latest and most coveted broomstick model. They collect wizard trading cards. There’s even a bully (aptly named Draco Malfoy) who makes Harry’s life miserable.


J.K. Rowling doesn’t hesitate to point out the unfortunate fact that people are sometimes divided into social classes, with labels like Muggles (nonwizarding types, like you and me), Squibs (nonwizarding types from wizarding families), and Mudbloods (a pejorative for someone with magically-challenged parents). The books provide a safe place for kids to identify with peer pressure, bullies and injustices in a setting that’s pure fantasy.


2. The books allow you to become a part of history. Reading the Harry Potter series, I feel a kinship with those Britons who paged through Bentley’s Miscellany in 1837 eager to read the monthly installments chronicling the adventures of another famous orphan, one by the name of Oliver Twist. I’m not trying to be dramatic here. How often do you and your children get to follow a tale as it’s unfolding, knowing all the while that it’s destined to become a classic? I see the Harry Potter books this way. I don’t have to wait for any historian to tell me these books will be considered among the very best of children’s literature.


3. The books encourage naming the thing you fear. It was Albus Dumbledore, the wise and noble headmaster of Hogwarts School, who spoke the words I quoted earlier. He cautioned Harry to always use the proper name for things because “fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” I think those parents who want to censor Harry Potter, or those who simply refuse to read the books at all, are more fearful of “names” or words than anything else—magic, potions, wizards, witches, spells. But these things are not the central focus of the stories.

Believe any fact can be found on the Internet?

I was most supirised by This Letter on The CBC. Maybe things are different in Canada? I can literally see it from here, and it doesn\’t look any different, eh?

\”Librarians have come to believe any fact can be found on the Internet. But, like a piece of Swiss cheese, the Internet is riddled with holes. Library budgets have been slashed and the Internet is offered as the low-cost saviour. Stories abound about finding mountains of information on any topic within minutes of logging on. However, the Internet is also clogged with dated info, misleading info, false info, and downright off the wall info. And Jeeves couldn\’t help you separate the wheat from the chafe even if you asked him.

I was most supirised by This Letter on The CBC. Maybe things are different in Canada? I can literally see it from here, and it doesn\’t look any different, eh?

\”Librarians have come to believe any fact can be found on the Internet. But, like a piece of Swiss cheese, the Internet is riddled with holes. Library budgets have been slashed and the Internet is offered as the low-cost saviour. Stories abound about finding mountains of information on any topic within minutes of logging on. However, the Internet is also clogged with dated info, misleading info, false info, and downright off the wall info. And Jeeves couldn\’t help you separate the wheat from the chafe even if you asked him. More from The CBC


I\’m saddened to hear of Libraries ditching books that haven\’t been checked out in the past year or two. A Librarian will protest that one file copy will be kept at the main branch, but we all know that, when a cold subject suddenly turns hot, there will be too many readers for that one copy which will inevitably be listed as \”Lost.\” Redundancy is one of Life\’s survival tactics and Libraries, by rushing to embrace the new technology, put our very cultural heritage at risk. The Christians of the Dark Ages had little interest in Greek and Roman writers of the Pagan Era. When, some centuries later, the Renaissance went to check out a few of these authors, it found most of the books were lost, stolen, or recycled.


Don\’t think that we\’ll respect the New Technology more. The Motion Picture is just a century old and we\’ve already seen half of the films produced crumble into dust. Our 500 channel television universe plays the same reruns of popular shows, while hours and hours of programming goes mouldy in some dark archive. How will we play vinyl records when turntables cease to exist? Most turntables in use today don\’t even have a setting for 78s. CDs have been offered as the digital information manna, but I find the jewel cases they come in are designed to scratch them into immediate obsolescence.

17-year-old banned for using library computers for porn

The Venice Public Library, in FL, has barred a 17-year-old boy for repeatedly using library computers to access pornographic Internet sites and sexually oriented chat. They gave him a few warnings, but the punk wouldn\’t listen. Police issued him a trespassing warning and the library barred him for a year.

\”\”This is a good library and a good part of the community, Fortunately, he (the teen barred from the library) is the exception, not the rule.\”

-said Mary Waddell, the head of Venice Public Library

Friday Updates

OK. The friday updates for this week include .KIDS, wall damage, library of the future, the battle of the books, another library strike, finding the childrens book, Shhhh, cafes, Net as a study tool, etc, etc, etc.

OK. The friday updates for this week include .KIDS, wall damage, library of the future, the battle of the books, another library strike, finding the childrens book, Shhhh, cafes, Net as a study tool, etc, etc, etc.

From Yahoo

.KIDS Domains Inc. Announces Plans to Oversee Safe Harbor for Kids on the Internet

\”.KIDS Domains Inc., a company focused on improving the Internet experience for children, today announced plans to submit an application to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to sponsor a new “.kids\’\’ domain.\”

From the Concord Monitor

Wall damage closes school library

\”Wednesday around noon, as construction crews dug up the side of a hill on which the oldest portion of the Loudon Elementary School sits, the school\’s librarian heard noises that concerned her. Story time came to an end early and she calmly moved the 15 first-graders to another room.\”

From Vavo.com

Library of the Future

\”Recent news that thriller writer Frederick Forsyth is to publish his next work exclusively through the Internet opens the doors even wider to the library of the future.\”

From the Vancouver Sun

Here\’s who really won the books battle

\”The Surrey school board\’s infamous book ban is back in the headlines this week, but readers may need a quick history lesson to understand how it can be possible for the three-year, million-dollar court battle to end with both sides claiming victory.\”

From The Age

Library staff ready to strike

\”Staff at seven inner-city libraries are preparing for a possible strike as pay talks with the Yarra-Melbourne Regional Library Corporation reach an impasse.\”

From Sunspot.net

Tales of once upon a time

\”Sarah Rocklin of Timonium spent 10 years searching library sales and Internet sites for a favorite childhood book before she found it at Baltimore\’s Enoch Pratt Free Library.\”

From the Columbus Dispatch

Pleas for some quiet fall on deaf ears

\”Where are all the knuckle-rapping, chatter-busting schoolmasters these days?

Certainly not in your average public library, where the audible \”shhhh\’\’ has gone the way of the hairnetted spinster behind the desk.\”

From the Sun Sentinel

Cafes, gift shops boost South Florida libraries

\”Want to find a quiet place to lean back in a soft chair, pick up the latest novel from Stephen King and sip an espresso?
You may not have to look at the newest mega-bookstore. Try an old standard: your local library.
Libraries throughout South Florida are borrowing from the success of Borders, Barnes & Noble and other chain bookstores to woo patrons, earn extra revenue and keep up with their trendier competitors.\”


From the Detroit News

Net is a tricky study tool

\”When Eric Skibbe had to do a school report on the Vietnam War, he turned to the Internet.
After all, with almost a billion Web sites out there, the eighth-grader was sure he\’d have no problem getting information on the subject.
He got information, all right. The problem was he received too much.\”


From Bergen.com

Library\’s happy ending

\”Once upon a time, there was an old library with lots of charm but a leaky slate roof, crumbling walls, and furniture in such poor condition that it was held together by tape.

That sad chapter in the history of the Westwood Free Public Library has finally been closed.\”

Towards a sex-positive librarianship

Mark Rosenzweig, always in the minority on ALA Council, wrote this email to the Council listserv recently, lambasting the conservative atmosphere around the filtering debate. I\’ll be frank: I think Mark is right.


Here is a short excerpt from his email:


I am seemingly (and, in my opinion, most unfortunately) in a minority when I would assert to public and press alike that the real problems of youth in America have NOTHING to do with their exposure, if such there is of any significant magnitude, to porn on the internet terminals in libraries, even the most graphic images of naked people doing whatever it is that naked people can do.Or for that matter their being glutted with the sex-and-violence decadence of Hollywood films (not to mention all \”foreign\” films!) and TV (network and otherwise).


From a psychological/developmental point of view, the stagerring HYPOCRISY about sex in this country is, in my opinion,more deleterious than all that combined. Much more destructive. But rationality and the evidentiary are thrown to the winds as irrelevant in a debate in which \”higher powers\” are being invoked left and right.


Interested? Read on…

Mark Rosenzweig, always in the minority on ALA Council, wrote this email to the Council listserv recently, lambasting the conservative atmosphere around the filtering debate. I\’ll be frank: I think Mark is right.


Here is a short excerpt from his email:


I am seemingly (and, in my opinion, most unfortunately) in a minority when I would assert to public and press alike that the real problems of youth in America have NOTHING to do with their exposure, if such there is of any significant magnitude, to porn on the internet terminals in libraries, even the most graphic images of naked people doing whatever it is that naked people can do.Or for that matter their being glutted with the sex-and-violence decadence of Hollywood films (not to mention all \”foreign\” films!) and TV (network and otherwise).


From a psychological/developmental point of view, the stagerring HYPOCRISY about sex in this country is, in my opinion,more deleterious than all that combined. Much more destructive. But rationality and the evidentiary are thrown to the winds as irrelevant in a debate in which \”higher powers\” are being invoked left and right.


Interested? Read on…

Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 20:14:50 -0400

To: ALA Council List

From: Mark Rosenzweig

Subject: [ALACOUN:5067] Re: Chicago PL smacked down with editorial


SANE MINDS AT RISK: Towards a sex-positive librarianship


If I mayI\’d like to express my viewpoint, whose articulation is occasioned
by reading the article in the Chicago Sun-Times
(http://www.suntimes.com/output/byrne/byrne13.html – about \”porn in the
public library) to which Karen Schneider referred us, albeit an opinion
probably not consonant with ALA\’s mainstream, that, in the library, \”the
emperor has no clothes, and…THAT\’S OK!\”.


It\’s too bad we can\’t come out publicly, confidently and say that, as a
profession, without being demonized and, apparently, without feeling
unable to fight back against the inevitable \”moral outrage\”.


After all, in these sorry times, Democrats and Republicans alike are vying
for the position of national Vicars of Virtue, Demigods of Decency, High
Priests of Purity, Saints of Sexlessness…What an inpropitious time to
defend the rights to sexual material of virtually all kinds, the
legitimacy of sex-knowledge for all those who are interested (and who
isn\’t)!


But what a price we will pay if we DONT actively defend that and, instead,
pretend even ourselves to be irreparably damaged
( \”shocked…shocked…\”) by the mere sight of genitalia-in- action on a
computer screen!


I am seemingly (and, in my opinion, most unfortunately) in a minority when
I would assert to public and press alike that the real problems of youth in
America have NOTHING to do with their exposure, if such there is of any
significant magnitude, to porn on the internet terminals in libraries,
even the most graphic images of naked people doing whatever it is that
naked people can do.Or for that matter their being glutted with the
sex-and-violence decadence of Hollywood films (not to mention all
\”foreign\” films!) and TV (network and otherwise).


From a psychological/developmental point of view, the stagerring
HYPOCRISY about sex in this country is, in my opinion,more deleterious
than all that combined. Much more destructive. But rationality and the
evidentiary are thrown to the winds as irrelevant in a debate in which
\”higher powers\” are being invoked left and right.


My opinion apparently notwithstanding, we are well on the road to a
profound Puritan reaction, moving with blissful rapidity to the
destruction of the separtion of Church and State (which is what even the
English Puritans demanded!), giving full reign to the rule of the
holier-than-thou, developments which, to what I believe will be our shame
and regret, are encouraged by the inability of the very people who know
better (like most of us, librarians) to stand up and say \”There are MUCH
WORSE things that children in America are exposed to and suffer than
pornography and depictions of violence\”.


For instance, there\’s ACTUAL violence, with which NO established
connection has been made with its representation in various media, but
which comes, indubitably and increasingly, from more fundamental
social,economic and social-psychological causes. There\’s the pornography
and violence of hunger amidst plenty, and disease and physical suffering
where the means exist to eradicate it, and homelessness amidst the
\”lifestyles of the rich and famous\”, and poverty in the face of arrogant
affluence and there\’s youth\’s sense of powerlessness and meaninglessness
and hopelessness . There\’s a public education system which is increasingly
inequitable AND ineffective, reduced to pauperism in communities where it
is most needed .


And beyond institutionalized , peculiarly American hypocrisy about sex,
morally deleterious as it is, there is the increasingly organized,
bullying, effective, opposition to the so-much-needed real-world sex
education in the schools, of the promotion of safe sex and the protection
of the right to freely available birth control and abortion,not to mention
libraries carrying sex-related materials for young people\’s (yes, I mean
YOUNG people\’s) edification, amusement and education with minimal
restrictions on their availabilty.


OK, let\’s face it. ADDICTION to pornography (as to anything) is one thing
(an illness), curiosity about it , EXPOSURE to it, is another ( a facet of
human life from time immemorial). Even then, addictions to cigarettes and
alcohol clearly are FAR MORE HARMFUL than ever was addiction to
pornography. Yet there are those who think that even the casual
exposureof kids to naked people doing it every which way is indisputably
among the MOST harmful things one can imagine.


Advice for people who believe that: don\’t take your porn-protected kid on
a walk through the stately Metropolitan Museum of Art \’s classical
antiquities departments. You will find rooms FULL of explicit depictions
of sex of every kind (even of men and women with animals and
semi-animals!) on everything from goblets and vases to giant architectual
friezes. Move through the other galleries and you will seee the explicit
depiction of virtually every \”perversion\” and form of violence. Take \”The
Rape of the Sabine Women\” or paintings of \”Leda and the Swan\” (in which a
young lady is overcome by a particularly well-endowed bird).It can only be
TRAUMATIC for children, a threat to their moral health and virtue. Imagine
people leaving these things around where CHILDREN can see them! And, now
that you mention it, what of those adults lurking around…


We are going backwards, folks. Watch out that you don\’t lose all your
rights and your reason on the road back to to the \”golden age of
innocence\” and good old American Family Values(about which no one can
publicly say ANYTHING critical, at the risk of being considered a
subversive of some sort).


It\’s a shame we have to walk on egg-shells here and buy into the
irrefragable Puritanism and cast-in-stone Family Values in order to even
continue to exist. I realize that, by virtue of this new puritanism,
libraries – once thought to be the most benign (if taken-for-granted)
institutions are now seen as intensely \”controversial\”, so much so that
NO candidate for office is likely to invoke the desperate need for
massively increased support for the nation\’s libraries, because that would
associate them with an institution which is suddenly
perceived-to-be-perceived as being virtually satanic, yet EVERY candidate
has something to say about the pressing need for internet filters as an
urgent necessity to defend the young people of the nation.Maybe we should
find some way to make the most out of being controversial, and militantly
rally the sensible people in our communities who recognize how
out-of-proportion this preoccupation with pornography in libraries is, and
what the real enemy is: everybody\’s rights..


Political discourse and public policyare being degraded, debased
(naturally including that about schools and libraries – institions of
EDUCATION to which everyone pays lip service) . Can we, librraians,
educators, afford to go along and appease the protectors-of -everyone
else\’s-virtue in the hopes of receiving a few more crumbs which will
enable us to merely survive?


Alas, there is unlikely, in the present climate, to be any dialogue about
that.


Mark C. Rosenzweig

ALA Councilor at large

At 3:27 PM -0400 9/14/00, Karen G. Schneider wrote:

>

>For the record, we\’re a busy library and we don\’t have these problems. But

>no one is going to write an editorial that says \”things on an even keel at

>local public library.\”

>

>Karen G. Schneider [email protected]

>Assistant Director, Shenendehowa Public Library, NY
>http://www.shenpublib.org

Winners of the Foil the Filters Contest

The Digital Freedom Network has Winners of the Foil the Filters Contest posted.

Grand Prize — Joe J. reports being prevented from accessing his own high school’s Web site from his own high school’s library. Carroll High School adopted filtering software which blocked \”all questionable material.\” This included the word \”high.\”


Runner-Up –You wouldn\’t think someone named Hillary Anne would have censorware problems, but all attempts to register [email protected] were rejected because censorware spotted the hidden word \”aryan.\” Hillary says \”I had to email and fight the system like crazy to actually be able to use my registered nickname again.\”

Would Holly? Hollywood.

Brian writes \”In a Column about the DMCA and related issues, Paul Somerson of Ziff Davis Smart Business says:
\”If Hollywood could ban public libraries, you know they would.\”

This is a very interesting piece indeed, every time I read something about the DMCA I just want to cry.

\”Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), an evil legislative bludgeon rammed through Congress by the Clinton administration, that prevents access to anything that\’s copyrighted unless you have the explicit permission of the owner. This essentially guts \”fair use\” of the material, and outlaws any attempt to break copy protection or encryption, or even reverse engineer anything.\”

Brian writes \”In a Column about the DMCA and related issues, Paul Somerson of Ziff Davis Smart Business says:
\”If Hollywood could ban public libraries, you know they would.\”

This is a very interesting piece indeed, every time I read something about the DMCA I just want to cry.

\”Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), an evil legislative bludgeon rammed through Congress by the Clinton administration, that prevents access to anything that\’s copyrighted unless you have the explicit permission of the owner. This essentially guts \”fair use\” of the material, and outlaws any attempt to break copy protection or encryption, or even reverse engineer anything.\”More from ZDNet
What\’s the real difference between swapping CDs with friends and swapping songs with people who you just met over the Web? Or having the Internet make this material available rather than a library?


Hollywood reflexively fights any technology it thinks will dilute its profits. They failed with VCRs and MP3 players and Internet radio, and they deserve to fail here. To paraphrase former Nixon Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Live with it.

B Buzz — E-Book Tech and Sales Projections

In this episode, Michelle Rafter looks at e-book advances and eMarketer projects the sales possibilities for e-books.

In this episode, Michelle Rafter looks at e-book advances and eMarketer projects the sales possibilities for e-books.
Livewire On E-Books
Postnet.com: September 27, 2000. Michelle Rafter reports
on the advances in e-book technology that \”tickles avid e-
book readers.\” Publishers and online bookstores are
offering more titles in the digital format, while the makers
of reading devices are introducing updated models with new
features like larger, color screens.
Read the entire article here.

eMarketer\’s Expectations for E-Books
eMarketer: September 27, 2000. Because the e-book \”reality
has not yet caught up with the hype,\” eMarketer is not quite
as optimistic about electronic book sales in the next five
years. While other marketing research expects online book
sales to be as high as $4.9 billion by 2003, eMarketer
considers $2.8 billion to be a more realistic forecast.
Still, they agree that electronic books \”will have a
significant impact on the book industry during the next few
years.\”
Read the entire article here.

Literary Magazines Take on the Book Publishing Industry

The Village Voice has an interesting Story on several literary magazines that have optimistically expanded into a new arena: book publishing. The alternative presses continue to grow.

\”The literary magazine presses seem like nothing so much as a return to Epstein\’s cottage industry; in both their structure and their sense of responsibility to the writer, there is something profoundly nostalgic about these publishing projects, while their attempts to draw around them a creative community seem haunted by memories of other, now extinct New York bohemias.\”

If It’s Goodbye Books, Then Hello . . . What?

Bob Cox pointed to this NYTimes Story on the \”loss\” of books.
This
one is worth the read, it is VERY well written.

\”For as long as many of us can remember — if
we\’re serious about reading, that is — we\’ve sat with
paper in hand, staring at symbols to which we, more
frequently than not, credit far more than mere abiding
pleasure. We owe these pages whatever ability we
have to see the world with clarity. We credit them, and
justly so, with whatever ability we have to see ourselves
with generosity and empathy. To imagine these as
gone, or truly obscure, to imagine that otherwise
intelligent, eager, inquisitive people around us might
well feel in 10 or 20 years that picking up a book is
something quaint is to imagine a postmodern hell. . . .
\”