Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

bookriot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 176 posts

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#101

Post by bmacho »

ALittleLight wrote: post #39

I like to use "The Turner Diaries" as a kind of litmus test for people who don't want to ban books. I notice that, while all of the books this article calls out specifically are available at the Brooklyn Public Library - per their online catalog, "The Turner Diaries" is not and neither are any books by its author - either his real name or pseudonym. The Turner Diaries, for reference, is a white supremacist novel that…

> The reason I like to use this as a litmus test is that people often say something like "I'm against banning books" but what they mean is "I am for things I like".

I am positive that 98%+ of people that state the former mean the former.

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#102

Post by QuarterReptile »

paxys wrote: post #88
ALittleLight wrote: post #39

I like to use "The Turner Diaries" as a kind of litmus test for people who don't want to ban books. I notice that, while all of the books this article calls out specifically are available at the Brooklyn Public Library - per their online catalog, "The Turner Diaries" is not and neither are any books by its author - either his real name or pseudonym. The Turner Diaries, for reference, is a white supremacist novel that…

Where is the line between banning and just not caring about a book? I have written a book of my own. No library in the world has it. No publisher chose to pick it up. Does that mean I am the most "banned" author in the world? Or maybe people have deemed that what I wrote is just not worth their time?

Just a guess, but I suspect a book gets banned because it's well known; it has content judged as immoral, unnecessarily sexual, etc.; and parents in an area suspect that teachers or librarians will try to convey the book to their children against the parents wishes. They thus take action through their school boards to draw a perfectly clear line.

BPL is not subject to any of those jurisdictions, so they're legally untouchable as they do the same work of trying to undermine those parents.

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#103

Post by vmception »

ALittleLight wrote: post #90
vmception wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so where is a good example of that litmus test being passed, where self published books are also routinely hosted?

I think Library Genesis is an excellent example. As a quick test they host both The Turner Diaries and The 1619 Project. https://libgen.li/ I would believe the people who run libgen if they said they were against book banning - at least until I discovered the books that they did ban, if there are any.

That's interesting, my observation is that you keep using caricatures of US political polarization, where one has to imagine that the left imagines that The Turner Diaries is a good example of something to ban and one has to imagine that the right imagines that The 1619 Project is something to ban.

This might be playing out reliably, in places that ban books. So way to go Library Genesis for passing the test.

It just seems like US caricatures of beliefs that don't actually represent people's beliefs, while being limited to US stuff, is just not the best test.

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#104

Post by Tao331 »

jeffbee wrote: post #83
ALittleLight wrote: post #39

I like to use "The Turner Diaries" as a kind of litmus test for people who don't want to ban books. I notice that, while all of the books this article calls out specifically are available at the Brooklyn Public Library - per their online catalog, "The Turner Diaries" is not and neither are any books by its author - either his real name or pseudonym. The Turner Diaries, for reference, is a white supremacist novel that…

I think this choice of litmus test say a great deal about you, and basically nothing about the phenomenon of banned books.

What's so bad about it? If someone says they are against banning books, asking "what do you mean by that?" may not get you an honest response due to the claimant not necessarily considering their position thoroughly. Checking for the Turner Diaries seems like a good quick and dirty test to see what they really mean.

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#105

Post by llanowarelves »

rootusrootus wrote: post #33
skepticalwaves wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two Hundred Years Together by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Is it banned, or simply not available in typical public libraries because it's in Russian and there is not an English translation? My public library has dozens of books by Solzhenitsyn.

It's banned from being sold on all major bookstores / platforms

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#106

Post by llanowarelves »

stolenmerch wrote: post #48

I think this project is great and I fully support it. However, it's only a list of books challenged by mostly christian conservatives dealing with race and gender. Left-leaning progressives challenge books ALL the time. This is bristling to hear, but it's true. Books that are deemed to contain racist or sexist words or images are challenged every year. Huckleberry Finn, Dr. Seuss books, books about Christopher Columb…

It's called Repressive Tolerance: good when they do it, bad when you do it.

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#107

Post by kibwen »

kibwen wrote: post #17

"Over 1,145 unique books were targeted between July and March, with 874 different authors, 198 illustrators, and 9 translators impacted. The index of the book challenges in this 8 month window include 1,586 book bans in 86 school districts in 26 states. These districts represent 2,899 schools with a combined enrollment of over 2 million students." "Texas led the country with the most bans at 713, followed by Pennsylv…

Would anyone care to elaborate on why they downvoted a relevant passage from a link in the OP?

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#108

Post by sangnoir »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #30
eatonphil wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Archive.org only stores public domain stuff. Libraries normally have both historic and modern books. For example, I see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" on BPL's ebook list. But I can't find that book on Archive.org.

Archive.org has OpenLibrary.org as a sibling organisation. It's a "proper" library so you can check things out. I'm not sure exactly how it works, in legal terms, but it's great for obscure books. It also has Diary of a Wimpy Kid available to borrow digitally: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8483260W/Diary_of_a_Wimpy_Ki...

> I'm not sure exactly how it works, in legal terms, but it's great for obscure books.

Does it pay the rights holders (and authors) like other libraries? The Brooklyn library likely does. IIRC, archive.org clashed with authors during lockdown around it’s lending practices, I don’t know if that has been resolved. I’m against excessive IP exploitation, but I’m for authors getting paid.

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#109

Post by Tao331 »

bmacho wrote: post #101
ALittleLight wrote: post #39

I like to use "The Turner Diaries" as a kind of litmus test for people who don't want to ban books. I notice that, while all of the books this article calls out specifically are available at the Brooklyn Public Library - per their online catalog, "The Turner Diaries" is not and neither are any books by its author - either his real name or pseudonym. The Turner Diaries, for reference, is a white supremacist novel that…

> The reason I like to use this as a litmus test is that people often say something like "I'm against banning books" but what they mean is "I am for things I like". I am positive that 98%+ of people that state the former mean the former.

I'm positive that most people who mean the former will backpedal, provide conditions and loopholes, or become outright angry and start calling you a nazi if you make them actually think about it.

Re: Brooklyn Public Library offers access to banned ebooks to teens across the U.S

#110

Post by moralestapia »

paxys wrote: post #88
ALittleLight wrote: post #39

I like to use "The Turner Diaries" as a kind of litmus test for people who don't want to ban books. I notice that, while all of the books this article calls out specifically are available at the Brooklyn Public Library - per their online catalog, "The Turner Diaries" is not and neither are any books by its author - either his real name or pseudonym. The Turner Diaries, for reference, is a white supremacist novel that…

Where is the line between banning and just not caring about a book? I have written a book of my own. No library in the world has it. No publisher chose to pick it up. Does that mean I am the most "banned" author in the world? Or maybe people have deemed that what I wrote is just not worth their time?

What? Those two things are on complete opposite poles!

When you ban something, you care about it so much that you take a hard stance against it, thus the ban.

Post reply on HN