Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed HF3782 into law last week, which prevents libraries from removing books “based solely on the viewpoint, content, message, idea, or opinion conveyed.” Instead, content curation will be managed by “a licensed library media specialist, an individual with a master’s degree in library sciences or library and information sciences, or a professional librarian or person with extensive library collection management experience."
This entirely depends if the libraries are publically run, or if they are private. If the library is private, then it should be allowed to curate what it wishes.
Side note, licensing someone for this purpose is quite hillarious — It’s not complicated to just not ban books…
In support of you and against the asshole that replied to you and got three likes, the asshole now has two likes. What an asshole and the people that liked his shitty comment. You are correct.
People keep saying this, and it’s inevitably followed by a state-level example.
The problem with that is 2/3 of the states are controlled by fascists, and I don’t think 2/3 of the states should have to go without a living wage and health care.
Do you?
The Federal Government should be doing more than writing blank checks for other countries’ wars.
Does this mean if they try to ban other books, lets say about abortion all you need to do to guarantee it Doesn’t get censored is included a gay part?
That would be the loophole to really piss em off :p
EDIT: “prevents libraries from removing books “based solely on the viewpoint, content, message, idea, or opinion conveyed.” Instead, content curation will be managed by “a licensed library media specialist, an individual with a master’s degree in library sciences or library and information sciences, or a professional librarian or person with extensive library collection management experience."
Still though please can we turn non lgbt books into having a completely unnecessary lgbt subplot just because it would be funny. I am not even gay :p
Putting the control of books in the library to someone with that much understanding is very good. It seems that a lot of the book bans are spearheaded by parents that watch too much Fox News that don’t even see what the book contains.
Still though please can we turn non lgbt books into having a completely unnecessary lgbt subplot just because it would be funny. I am not even gay :p
Unironically, yes. Normalizing LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, and plots is much more helpful than having them be a “spicy” token minority for audience reaction. Look at Schitt’s Creek (different medium, I know) for example. The character David is pansexual and treated just like anyone else. His major love interest may be a guy but the plots about it have nothing to do with the fact that they’re both men, just that they’re two people in a romantic relationship with one partner being anxious and neurotic with the sass turned up to 11.
That’s a really long one but pretty much every shitty trend since the 80s can be attributed back to him: Wage stagnation, climate inaction, police militarization, Middle East wars, no taxes for the wealthy, war on drugs, for profit prisons, elimination of pensions, union busting, media polarization, Iran-Contra affair, etc.
He was popular because he was charismatic but literally all of his policies hollowed out the country into what it is today.
Reagan started the slow move to conservative legislation by both sides of the US two-party system. It’s the reason a lot of people on social media hate everything about whoever is president.
Our liberals are center/center right, our conservatives are basically fascists and those are the two options. Most of this started with our first “celebrity” president, who was a well-known actor many years before.
Before the Reagan era, Richard Nixon had to resign his presidency for hiding some evidence. Trump was found hiding evidence and he finished his term and is running a second time (while actively fighting multiple criminal trials). The tide shift was Reagan.
content curation will be managed by “a licensed library media specialist, an individual with a master’s degree in library sciences or library and information sciences, or a professional librarian or person with extensive library collection management experience."
Cool, now we know who to bribe / influence / coerce. I don’t know if this is a win for at-risk groups.
They might not have made it impossible, but most of this book banning crap has been political point scoring rather than actual attempts to change the literary record for its own sake. Now they’d have to loudly proclaim their book bans without admitting what they’re doing, which sounds a lot harder to pull off.
Anything that underlines the offensive nature of censorship like this is a good thing in my opinion.
I’d guess the requirement that experienced librarians make the decisions is just another way to exclude politicians and random mums with opinions from the process, I imagine most who go through a library sciences degree have already got a healthy respect for libraries which limits their willingness to play these stupid games.
You don’t know if it’s a win to have someone with actual competency, knowledge and a passion for the written word (because you really don’t go through that amount of education for that little pay if you aren’t) to make the call rather than fascist PTA moms having a psychotic episode at the thought of the word “penis” being mentioned in a book? 🤦
We’ve had (mostly) librarians in charge of content curation since there were libraries and it’s mostly gone fine. Sometimes they would remove or censor some stuff they shouldn’t have, but much more often than not, they were the ones fighting tooth and nail AGAINST it.
Librarians are much less likely to censor without any outside pressure AND much less likely to accept bribes or otherwise buckle under outside pressure.
People who choose an important but low-paying career that they’re passionate about tend not to do a shitty job out of greed or to get attention. Unlike the far right demagogue politicians and PTA Karens who are there for greed and attention only.
If you don’t want fascism, then you want to avoid consolidation of power.
That’s not how it works, no. The way to avoid fascism is to keep power away from bigoted demagogues.
While neither would be a good idea, it would be better for one qualified and dedicated librarian to make the content decisions for all of New England than for a hundred fascist demagogues making them for a Boston suburb.
but I fear library staff being harassed.
And you’re absolutely right to. That was already happening, though, and will keep happening until politicians get off their asses and codify a system of rules to prevent it or just tighten up enforcement of existing harassment laws.
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