got this text from a moderate liberal friend. this is a tough one. his daughter brings home a public school library book illustrated with explicit gay sex scenes.
how is a parent who has warned a child against pornography supposed to respond when the state gives them access to this?
i am against censorship, but this defies all common sense.
My heart aches for the children who will no longer have access to their local library because some arrogant assholes decided to be offended by books with new ideas and different perspectives.
A bill in Louisiana, HB 777, would make it a crime for librarians to use public funds to join the American Librarian Association or attend an ALA conference, punishable with prison time and hard labor for up to two years.
"The pile beside my bed never shrinks; at the bottom of the stack are books I've been planning to crack open for months. My shelves remain full of lingering aspirations," writes the Walrus's Michelle Cyca. She looks at the problem of unread books, and the difficulty in offloading our libraries. What do you do with your unwanted books?
Public meeting spaces at libraries in almost every major city in #Texas, and many smaller ones, saw 'Brave Books' events this weekend, which promoted this extremist publisher's storybooks under the guise of freedom of speech. The events were supported by Citizens Defending Freedom, aka 'Moms for Liberty in Suits' which is simultaneously seeking to ban 100s of books in #FortWorth.
Judd Legum reports on the testimony given by mysterious Lanah Burkhardt before the Conroe, Texas, school board. Burkhardt wants books censored, especially Scholastic Books. She claims that reading a Scholastic Book with the phrase "a single kiss" turned her into a porn addict when she was 11 years old.
After hearing her, the Conroe board voted to restrict access to the book she claims made her a porn addict.
Buy 50 cent DVDs from the library book sale pile (for stuff I will watch over and over) sure beats the price of Netflix. The free Blu-Ray/DVD rentals are an even better deal (but requires either muscle power or gasoline for transportation there). I love our library system! #libraries#hooray
My public library is so good. I just walked in and borrowed a language program (Pimsleur Cantonese audio CDs) that costs $500 if you buy it (better than any online course); 3 jazz vinyls, 6 DVDs of stuff I know I can’t easily get from streamers.
If I was short on time I could have added all those to my holds list yesterday and they would put them all in one place so I can just check out. Easy.
Is this signature written by hand directly onto the book, or is it a printed version of a handwritten signature? I want it to be the former, but my colleague thinks it's the latter.
It's of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali poet and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature
Folks working in #libraries and #preservation:
I have some small books that have a musty, mold like smell. There is no visible mold.
I'd like to try and get rid of the scent, they scan and shelve them all in sealed plastic containers.
My current idea is baking soda in a sealed container, put the book(s) in for up to 7 days.
Is this viable, or is some sort of other option better? Mini ozone generator? Some other powder to remove scents? Active carbon?
Thanks!
Remember how my previous employer denied my WFH request so that I could flee the state of Ohio to take care of my trans kid while still working for a company I loved?
I just heard they did it to someone else today.
When you insist people come in to an office a few days a week because you want a "hybrid culture" not a "remote culture" and then tell them to just fuck off when all they want to do is get their kid somewhere safe that makes you an absolutely shitty person.
I'm done hiding who it was.
The company is #OverDrive, based in Cleveland. They make ebook lending software for your local library called #Libby. They say they care about their LGBTQIA+ employees and families but that is clearly a lie.
Ohio lawmakers are turning my home state into absolute garbage and companies like this one are playing along.
[Edit, since this is doing numbers: The reason my request was denied a little over a year ago, despite me explaining in detail why, was because they "want a hybrid culture, not a remote culture." (a quote from a senior leader to my face)
In both 2020 and 2021 while the whole company was working remotely I won two annual employee excellence awards for my work on their Security team, while the company had record growth.
Meanwhile, one of my teammates moved out of state to be closer to family and continued to work remotely.]
The Coming Enshittification of Public Libraries (open.substack.com)
Global investment vampires have positioned themselves to suck our libraries dry