The Reader’s Shop writes
Newsday reports that a new study by the American Library Association shows
that “attempts to have library books removed from shelves increased by more than
20 percent in 2004… The number of books challenged rose to 547 in 2004 compared
to 458 in 2003.
The study is to be realeased Friday ahead of the 25th annual Banned Books Week
which is September 24 through Oct 1.
Also from the article, “Gorman said the majority of challenges happen at school libraries, although a recent incident involved the general public branches in Denver. Prompted by complaints of pornographic and violent content, the Denver system canceled its subscription to four Spanish-language adult comic books.”
See older lisnews story on that here.
fear
If you let it run you, yes it makes you stupid. If you don’t listen to it at all it will make you equally stupid. ALA’s blind attitude that anything goes is as careless and suicidal as Evil Knieval trying to jump the Grand Canyon.
Don’t knock people for being cautious.
Anything goes?
Gorman is quoted as saying, “We believe in parental responsibility, and that you should take care of what your children are reading. But it’s not your responsibility to tell a whole class of kids what they should read.” I don’t see how that can be interpreted as “anything goes.”
That being said, we need to remember that the right to ask public schools and libraries to restrict or remove books is also protected by the First Amendment. Which is why I put up these posters instead of the ALA stuff during Banned Books Week.
Re:fear
We don’t knock people for being cautious, we knock people for being fearful and for taking it for granted that because they don’t understand something the rest of us must be as ignorant as they are.
Re:Anything goes?
My statement was directed at the fear tag line. And yes, considering ALA is anti-filters that makes ALA an ‘anything goes’ organization.