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Parents Against Bad Books
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From: Steward, Celeste <csteward>
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:59:49 -0700
Jim--This is so true...I've chuckled over that bumper sticker too!
I once did a class visit for a Christian elementary school..I thought I was being so clever by having the kids do a Harry Potter treasure hunt using the library's on-line catalog...I was naive in those days, didn't know a thing about the backlash from fundamentalists regarding sorcery/wizardry...
Anyway, the teacher blithely informed me that HP wasn't allowed in their school and they did not encourage their kids to read such books or have anything to do with it...you can imagine my surprise...so, I apologized but had nothing else prepared and they had requested a library skills lesson.
Could they overlook the subject matter just this once so the kids could practice library research, I asked?
Certainly not, the teacher informed me as parent chaperones shook their heads in agreement. A few kids handed the treasure hunt papers right back to me and said they were NOT going to do this activity...alrighty...onward and upward.
So I moved out to the stacks to help kids locate books in general...well, lo and behold, I found many of the kids were rabidly interested in (surprise-surprise) the supernatural, UFO's and books on magic! They quietly voiced their requests to be shown to those shelves please.
I guess you can silence some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time!
Message----From: James Elliott [mailto:j_c_elliott at msn.com] Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 1:46 PM To: nsawicki at nyc.rr.com; ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Parents Against Bad Books
Um, Norma (and all), A school board will listen to ANY group that has any kind of community support and can vote to cut funding or members out of office.
I know for a fact that there are many orgainzations that I might consider
'crackpot', but they have considerable sway in the community.
For example, we had a practice at a library at which I used to work, to put
'category' stickers on the spines of certain types of fiction: a dove for inspirational, a black cat for horror, a space-ship for sci-fi, a horse for westen, a rose for romance, Christmas tree for -- well, Christmas, and a pink triangle for gay-interest.
Well, one group was so horrified that we would choose to identify this last group that they went to the County Commission and complained! In short order we were ordered to remove ALL non?ll number idenifying labels from all books lest anyone be offended and persue a law suit against the county. Never mind that, for many of us, we felt that the ID had a secondary purpose of letting these people know which books they could avoid? at any rate, we in the field were outraged at this type of action and capitualation by the County Commission (and I'm a conservative!). But it was 'law' and so we had to abide by it if we wanted to continue receiving funding in full.
And there were other cases, by both conservative AND liberal groups with an axe to grind and chose to pick the library as their target, but that's enough for now.
There is a bumper sticker I LOVE that says:
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Truer words never spoken.
Jim Elliott Reference Librarian Gadsden County Public Library Florida
them is if believe in not be
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Received on Mon 18 Jul 2005 04:59:49 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:59:49 -0700
Jim--This is so true...I've chuckled over that bumper sticker too!
I once did a class visit for a Christian elementary school..I thought I was being so clever by having the kids do a Harry Potter treasure hunt using the library's on-line catalog...I was naive in those days, didn't know a thing about the backlash from fundamentalists regarding sorcery/wizardry...
Anyway, the teacher blithely informed me that HP wasn't allowed in their school and they did not encourage their kids to read such books or have anything to do with it...you can imagine my surprise...so, I apologized but had nothing else prepared and they had requested a library skills lesson.
Could they overlook the subject matter just this once so the kids could practice library research, I asked?
Certainly not, the teacher informed me as parent chaperones shook their heads in agreement. A few kids handed the treasure hunt papers right back to me and said they were NOT going to do this activity...alrighty...onward and upward.
So I moved out to the stacks to help kids locate books in general...well, lo and behold, I found many of the kids were rabidly interested in (surprise-surprise) the supernatural, UFO's and books on magic! They quietly voiced their requests to be shown to those shelves please.
I guess you can silence some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time!
Message----From: James Elliott [mailto:j_c_elliott at msn.com] Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 1:46 PM To: nsawicki at nyc.rr.com; ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Parents Against Bad Books
Um, Norma (and all), A school board will listen to ANY group that has any kind of community support and can vote to cut funding or members out of office.
I know for a fact that there are many orgainzations that I might consider
'crackpot', but they have considerable sway in the community.
For example, we had a practice at a library at which I used to work, to put
'category' stickers on the spines of certain types of fiction: a dove for inspirational, a black cat for horror, a space-ship for sci-fi, a horse for westen, a rose for romance, Christmas tree for -- well, Christmas, and a pink triangle for gay-interest.
Well, one group was so horrified that we would choose to identify this last group that they went to the County Commission and complained! In short order we were ordered to remove ALL non?ll number idenifying labels from all books lest anyone be offended and persue a law suit against the county. Never mind that, for many of us, we felt that the ID had a secondary purpose of letting these people know which books they could avoid? at any rate, we in the field were outraged at this type of action and capitualation by the County Commission (and I'm a conservative!). But it was 'law' and so we had to abide by it if we wanted to continue receiving funding in full.
And there were other cases, by both conservative AND liberal groups with an axe to grind and chose to pick the library as their target, but that's enough for now.
There is a bumper sticker I LOVE that says:
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Truer words never spoken.
Jim Elliott Reference Librarian Gadsden County Public Library Florida
them is if believe in not be
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ To post to the list, send the message to...
ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
To leave the list, open this web page and submit your email address...
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/signoff.html
Received on Mon 18 Jul 2005 04:59:49 PM CDT
