Banned Books Week Begins and Here's Where Its Happening!

Banned Books Week is here again.  Banned Books Week was created to highlight the censorship and "celebrate the freedom to read."  Materials across the country are challenged for containing sex, language and themes some may find offensive.  As librarians and responsible people, we serve the public and our communities with materials that reflect their values and beliefs, but there must be room for other ideas under every roof.  Stocking these materials, these "banned books," should not be seen as going counter to your public.  Stocking these materials should be seen as showing your public that there is a place that all humanity can exist, even in their town, that there is room for other ideas that may run contrary to their own.

Plus, it is really awesome to watch a little old lady with purple hair and a punk rock chick with a pink mohawk bond over the same copy of the Wuthering Heights.

Here's a bunch of links from across the country about BBW (I just noticed the initials and laughed out loud.) as well as some starter links with those not familiar.  If you have a link for an event or a comment about Banned Books week, comment below or submit here.

ALA
Banned Books Week website
ALA Article
Frequently Challenged Books

Events and Articles:
University of North Carolina Wilmington
King's English Book Shop
Louisiana State University
Republic, MO
Bellingham, WA
Huffington Post + Challenged Books Infographic
Washington Depot, CT
Danville, CA
Bar Harbor and Southwest Harbor, MA
Davenport, IA
Eastern Iowa
Alameda, CA
San Francisco, CA (and City Lights)
Tuscon, AZ
Anderson, SC
Ocean County Library, NJ
South Bend, IN
Victoria College, Houston, TX
Alamogordo, NM
Montpelier, VT

Good Illinois Article from PJStar

Library News: Here's A Bunch of Links

If you thought I was lazy about posting before... whoo, buddy hold on.  Here's a list of stuff that I could not think of anything funny to say about for more than a sentence.  Most less than that.

Boston Public Library has job fair kinda thing.

Carnegie-Stout Public Library limiting access to patron purchasing power.  When "suggestions" become demands it is time to cut the cord.

Manchester County opposes library addition.  Well, times are tough.

Allen County librarians get a raise!  Finally, a good story!  Yay!

The Linebaugh Library System gets $10K for youth tech grant.  More good news.  Hope this all does not end in heartbreak.

Alachua County unveils remodeled library with quiet room.  This is like Christmas!

WorldCat adds Italian public library records.  International Christmas!

Spokane Public Library hosts Technology exhibit.  Online Christmas!

Yakima Valley Regional Library blocks porn.  Well, at least it is a little understandable.

Washington County Library branches might reopen on Mondays!  Good!  We are back!

Stanford Libraries have Medieval Exhibit!  I am ambivalent, but go history!

Hinsdale Library adds artwork, because ART!

Birmingham Library Friends preserves Jim Crow map.  Well, if you can't look back, you can't move forward.

Argentine Library in Kansas City get a new library.  This is the best best news day ever!  But why does Argentina keep their library in Kansas City?  Hell of a commute.

Manchester Library gets a bucket of money to make archives a transformer.  Or transform archives.  Whatever.

Alamogordo Public Library Story Book Wall turns 50.  Heh, "Alamogordo."  Heh, heh.

Frankfort Public Library building permit fees will not be waved.  Take that one, new stuff for the public!

University of South Carolina get rare Hemingway materials.  Rare, indeed.

This library guard is a wrestler.  I just liked this one.

Museum of the Cats does not want to share space with Friends bookstore.  Spoiler Alert: They made up.  Still going.

Clifford turned 50.  This should have been in book news.

Here are the mystery news links of the week.  Will they be interesting?  Will they be boring?  Am I just doing this because I have somewhere to be and need to finish this post in the next five minutes?  Find out by clicking the links:

Mystery Link 1
Mystery Link 2
Mystery Link 3
Mystery Link 4
Mystery Link 5

Book Stuff: Publishing All the Rest From This Week

This week in book news, all the news that's fit about print that I was too lazy to write about.

50 Shades of Grey author will not tell who's in the movie.  How about Amanda Bynes?  What happened to her?  What's she been up to?  googlegooglegoogle... Holy crap?! What the hell happened to her?

Neil Patrick Harris to write memoir.  Yep.  Lots of Doogie and Barney and dancing/singing stuff.

Lois Lowry ends Giver book series.  Hint:  I think he dies.

Huh... Was there other news out there flooding the publishing world that I didn't cover here?

eBook Stuff: Getting, Giving and Loaning For This Week

Hey, so I can't be everywhere at once, especially with the digital news coming out, I gathered all the links of the big stories in ebooks that came out this week.  Enjoy.

Hernando Libraries are to loan out Kindles.  Because that sounds like it will be cheap and have no problems.

Prologue Books to release around 400 pulp fiction ebooks by the end of the year.  Sounds like Tarintino is back on cocaine, allegedly.

Great British Chefs and Kikkoman putting out recipe books.  I really wanted a good political thriller from these guys.

Law Library: Masturbating, Fired, and Jailed

Here's all the crime that happened in and around libraries,  library environments, or tech that probably will or have involved the courts in some way:

Librarians in Conway Public Library file grievance against restructuring that could get them sacked.  Let's hope more paperwork will fix the situation.

St. Elmo ex-librarian steals $50,000 worth of materials and gets little jail time.  Because, hey, it's only a library.

65-year-old former library employee arrested for stealing $800,000 worth of books.  She took one page a day for her entire life.

Some guy called a library asking about '50 Shades of Grey" and made it his own sex line.  This is why I do not read books to people over the phone.

New York woman tracks down stalker through Google, sues him.  This is why I do not read books to people over the phone, too.

Platform 9 3/8ths: Rowling and The Book

I am going to go out on a limb and bet most anybody alive in the last week has heard that J. K. Rowling, author of You Know What, released a new book.  I got tired of typing her name after one article, so I started collecting everything I read and decided to make a little story about it.  Here you go:

Once upon a time, in the land of Eng Land, there was a billionaire author, J. K. "Joking" Rowling, who decided to write a new book that had nothing to do with the books for which she was known.  Feeling the burden of progress, Joking decided to write some sexy, drug stuff and would not apologize for it.

When The Book came out, the first viewers looked once, then looked twice and were turned into the dreaded "Reviewers," friend or foe a billionaire can never tell.  The First Reviewer cast down the mighty Joking.  Despite this, The Book was set to make history in the form of money.  Conservative Reviewers called The Book "leftist screed."  Then, The New Yorking Timers Reviewers gave their word, and it was displeased.  Finally, the Huddled Masses Reviewers said it was cool by them.

The Library began to set up shop to dispense the book to the public, expecting long waiting lists.  Moms were especially excited, tired of all that kid wizard shit*.

During the furor, Joking claims that the books that every loved may becoming back, probably to get away from the fact that The eBook was expensive.

Then, disaster struck.  eCopies of The eBook, given away to first buyers of The Paper Copy Book, The eBook was broken.  One assumes people were on that.

One also assumes the billionaire Joking went about her life.

*Kid Wizard Shit is my hip hop name.

Article Seems Proud That 'Only' Thirteen Books Were Banned in Texas This Year

I am not sure about the tone of the article linked below.  A blog post from the Houston Chronicle, the article makes note of Banned Books Week while also saying that this is the lowest number Texas communities have banned in a decade.  Is this pride of some kind of slight progression or a surprise that this is still going on.  As a blog post, the tone is ambiguous, at least on the first quick read through.  Here's some stats they quote:

"Most books land on the banned list because of sex, profanity, nudity, violence, religion, race and/or politics. Asking parents to sit down and read the titles that concern them before making official complaints in writing has helped streamline complaints and bring the numbers of banned books down, Burke says.

Some titles on this year’s list were banned by elementary schools because the content was deemed too mature for young students. In some cases, administrators recommended the books be taught in upper grades in the same district."

I applaud bringing awareness to the cause, whatever the intention.  I also applaud the Texas education system for educating parents as well as children.  Hopefully next year the number will be zero.

Books banned in Texas public schools, 2011-2012 - Houston Chronicle (blog)