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As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

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Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#101

Post by TechnoTimeStop »

lr4444lr wrote: post #97
quadrifoliate wrote: post #9

A lot of the other comments on here are saying that this is banning books from curricula [1]. But I would...like to see the sources for this assertion? All of the stories I have seen [1][2] say that the books are banned from the school library system . As far as I am aware, school libraries usually contain a wide range of books, not just whatever is required for the curriculum. So banning a book from a school library…

The books being on the school library or on classroom shelves connotes that the educational custodians of our children, who have literal and legal responsibility for their safety and well being on multiple levels, have approved them. Not so much to promote every idea they contain, but at least that they express things in a way that is psychologically appropriate for kids at their level of development. What kinds of i…

Yeah cause Harry Potter should be banned because the Trans-bully-train.... LMFAO

Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#102

Post by gidam »

dang wrote: post #91
gidam wrote: post #45

It's a classic autoritarian and conservative plot. Knowledge is power, and they are fcking scared of it.

Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological flamewar. We're trying to avoid the circles of internet hell here, and a comment like this points straight in. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Mine is not a generic idelogical flamewar. It's an objective observation based on the History and the politics of authoritarian governments. It's sad how in 2021, in a respected website like this, facts are considered to have the same value as opinions. And if someone dont like the facts call them "ideological flames".

Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#103

Post by nec4b »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #81
hiram112 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You are making a lot of extraordinary claims, with no sources to back them up. My guess is that you work in software (like many on this site) and are making the Dunning-Kruger mistake of thinking that you know more than you actually do about teaching and libraries. Instead, I'd encourage you to imagine how you would feel if legislators started talking about banning "dangerous, anti-capitalist operating systems like L…

>>You are making a lot of extraordinary claims, with no sources to back them up.

You didn't use any sources yourself in your comment, but expect from GP to style his comments like a scientific article ready to be published in a scientific journal.

>>anti-capitalist operating systems like Linux

It probably has more corporate sponsors [1] than any other software in the world.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation

Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#104

Post by netizen-936824 »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #74
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would the legislators intervening be permissible in your view if the legislators believe that the librarians are doing a poor job at curation? An example of this is the right's claim that many of these banned books are almost pornographic in nature and inappropriate for almost any age. From the right's perspective, the legislators are intervening because the librarians are failing at their curation and safety job.

Yes, that would be a perfectly reasonable legislation. The burden would be on the legislators to clearly articulate their viewpoint, and provide reasonable justification for why those materials are inappropriate for any age. Currently, some of the 850 "suspicious titles" they are "looking into" include books like We Are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures [1]. This does not lead me to…

Safety? Absolutely! But safety of what? Their own ideas and ideals at the cost of everyone else's.

Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#105

Post by dang »

gidam wrote: post #102
dang wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take HN threads into generic ideological flamewar. We're trying to avoid the circles of internet hell here, and a comment like this points straight in. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Mine is not a generic idelogical flamewar. It's an objective observation based on the History and the politics of authoritarian governments. It's sad how in 2021, in a respected website like this, facts are considered to have the same value as opinions. And if someone dont like the facts call them "ideological flames".

It was generic in the sense that we use that term here. I say that because: (1) it included nothing directly related to the specific details of the article topic, and (2) it made a grand and sweeping claim. Those are shallow, because while they come with a lot of activation energy (e.g. high indignation levels), they include very little information. Shallow statements on divisive topics are automatically flamebait.

The reason we call these ideological flames is because of the effect they have on threads. The probability is high that they will turn discussion away from any specific topic and into the generic theme. Like flames, those have the habit of consuming everything they touch and destroying what was there before. It's therefore a good metaphor.

Here's another metaphor. The grand generic topics are like the black holes of internet threads. If you fly too close to them, the thread gets completely sucked in (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

This is a shame, because those discussions are so repetitive, and curiosity withers under repetition (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). What we want instead are discussions that are different from what's been discussed before. Curiosity thrives on diffs because diffs are what's interesting (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...).

Note that all of this would be just the same if you were battling from the opposite ideological position. Actually the two poles of these battles resemble each other far more than they resemble the audience between them, which consists of readers who are here for curious, thoughtful discussion—not to defeat enemies.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#106

Post by netizen-936824 »

CountDrewku wrote: post #63

k-12 students are not adults. We ban and censor all sorts of things for the the underage crowd, look up CIPA. There are borderline pedophilia books available at school libraries. I've also seen several examples of incredibly racist CRT books in classrooms. I don't think young kids should have unfettered access to this stuff. They're not able to process it correctly. If communities are saying they do not want this is…

What is the 'correct' way to process it? Who determines what is 'correct'? When do they learn this correct way? How do they learn? Considering you seem confident in this knowledge, I eagerly await the list of citations.

Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#108

Post by at-fates-hands »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #60
quadrifoliate wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that librarians already provide a "SafeSearch" by curating material at libraries. This is more similar to if Texas tried to mandate that Google SafeSearch at libraries should now include a ban on any LGBTQ images. Contrary to what you might imagine, checking out and shelving books is not the only things librarians do – they also curate and trim material, a bit like cultivating a garden. Libraries ar…

Would the legislators intervening be permissible in your view if the legislators believe that the librarians are doing a poor job at curation? An example of this is the right's claim that many of these banned books are almost pornographic in nature and inappropriate for almost any age. From the right's perspective, the legislators are intervening because the librarians are failing at their curation and safety job.

>> An example of this is the right's claim that many of these banned books are almost pornographic in nature.

I'm pretty sure illustrations of people having sex and an illustration of a younger child giving an older child oral sex falls into that category:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBdP1kYXoAA_c0T?format=jpg&name=...

People lost their minds when a woman read several pages from the book "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe.

Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#109

Post by chmod775 »

That is how you raise yet another generation who mistakenly believes everything written to be sacrosanct, holds no tested and cohesive views, is easy prey to manipulators who have no qualms making people uncomfortable, and will forever defer to authority figures who tell them what is acceptable.

Re: As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective

#110

Post by wolverine876 »

lr4444lr wrote: post #97
quadrifoliate wrote: post #9

A lot of the other comments on here are saying that this is banning books from curricula [1]. But I would...like to see the sources for this assertion? All of the stories I have seen [1][2] say that the books are banned from the school library system . As far as I am aware, school libraries usually contain a wide range of books, not just whatever is required for the curriculum. So banning a book from a school library…

The books being on the school library or on classroom shelves connotes that the educational custodians of our children, who have literal and legal responsibility for their safety and well being on multiple levels, have approved them. Not so much to promote every idea they contain, but at least that they express things in a way that is psychologically appropriate for kids at their level of development. What kinds of i…

We want the kids to use their freedom and free will, and to think for themselves - even or especially when it challenges the adults - and to learn how to do that. It's an essential skill to a democracy (and a free market), and to teach them freedom for all by giving them freedom, instead of teaching them that people should be sheparded. There are limits to what we want middle schoolers exposed to, but I think my approach is different than what you describe.
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