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

167 points by eatonphil 5y ago

meristohm 5y ago
This article reminded me that library cards can be purchased by non-residents of the tax-base area served by that library (maybe this isn't universal, but the Brooklyn Public Library offers access for $50/year).
- eatonphil 5y ago
  Wow that is awesome. Queens Public Library offers this too but to my astonishment NYPL does not. Here [0] is a list with a few around the US. Apparently, Orange County Florida and Queens Public Library even offer library cards to people outside of the US. [0] https://www.aworldadventurebybook.com/blog/libraries-with-non-resident-borrowing-privileges https://www.aworldadventurebybook.com/blog/libraries-with-no...
dredmorbius 5y ago
One of the peculiar characteristics of one groups ban list is that they seem to become another's read list. That said, I've casually searched for some years to find a canonical listing of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Catholic Inquisition's list of banned books. I've found several partial listings of works contained ON the list, but none, so far, of the full listing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum And ... backstopping myself as I post this comment, there does seem to be a possible copy at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/indexofprohibite00mendiala/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/indexofprohibite00mendiala/page/...
rayiner 5y ago
Public school libraries choosing what books to purchase and make available to kids with incompletely developed brains = “banning.” Can’t say the left doesn’t have a cleverness with words.
cato_the_elder 5y ago
If I had a teenager, I would've made sure they know about the great shadow library. [1] It has a few advantages: there are no wait-times for the ebooks, it has no agenda other than providing access to books, and it actually has the real banned books you almost certainly wouldn't find in a public library. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis
- Phithagoras 5y ago
  > real banned books you almost certainly wouldn't find in a public library Do I dare ask what they are?
  - skepticalwaves 5y ago
    Two Hundred Years Together by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
    - usrn 5y ago
      [flagged]
    - gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
      Still waiting to hear Jordan Peterson’s review of that one.
      - usrn 5y ago
        We all are. That little performance bummed me out quite a bit the first time I saw it. I still think his general life advice is good though.
        gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
        If you’ve read Nietzsche or other philology/mythology he just comes off as a gas station ‘10 tips to EXCEL in your life’ and it’s cringe to see people take him seriously at face value. Not doubting he is a smart man: he started a self auditing thing on his website, and probably has the psychological profile of his audience written up in bullet points for his marketers.
jleyank 5y ago
There’s a difference between something being paywalled snd something being hidden for being politically or socially uncomfortable. Tell people to look for the latter and understand why it’s banned.
- jleyank 5y ago
  “Don't criticize, they're old and wise Do as they tell you to Don't want the devil to Come out and put your eyes.” Supertramp. Lots of sheep out today downgrading people who stop and think.
funstuff007 5y ago
And maybe in Texas they will offer to loan books to Park Slope children the Park Slope progressives find objectionable.
- eatonphil 5y ago
  What banned books in the BPL do you recommend?
  - cato_the_elder 5y ago
    I can't find "Practical Lock Picking" by Deviant Ollam [1] on their catalogue [2]. To be fair, it's not explicitly banned AFAIK, and it's a bit of a niche book (but it's famous among the respective hobbyists). Also, to their credit, I looked up a bunch of other must-not-be-named titles you usually don't find in public libraries, and they did have most of them. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Lock-Picking-Physical-Penetration/dp/1597499897 https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Lock-Picking-Physical-Penet... [1]: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/search?search=practical+lock+picking https://www.bklynlibrary.org/search?search=practical+lock+pi...
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > books the Park Slope progressives find objectionable Like? I can think of plenty, but not anything that would be outright banned from the New York library system.
- qgin 5y ago
  Eagerly awaiting a list of books Brooklyn teens are unable to access.
- Adraghast 5y ago
  I just checked the NYPL catalog and found The Turner Diaries, Camp of the Saints and Mein Kampf to be available. Just three examples, but I find it hard to imagine what else they’d refuse to carry if those are fine. Is there a particular book you have in mind that “Park Slope progressives” would find too objectionable for libraries to loan out?
newbamboo 5y ago
How silly. As though there are gangs of teenagers throughout the country that can’t get “banned” books, whatever that means, despite having the freaking internet, and books being basically free. As though they’re living in communist China or something! Kids can buy these books, and get all sorts of other vile pornographic material online well before their teenage years. Local school boards are not the CCP and they have different liabilities, funding sources and constituencies than public libraries. Signaling likes this needs to be mocked or we end up with purity spirals. There is no problem being solved by this, just adults acting out a larp to feel like the saviors of “literature.” Why not actually save literature by promoting the reading of great books? There’s plenty of sex and debauchery in Shakespeare, even for Brooklyn kids like Howard Bloom (rip).
- eatonphil 5y ago
  The banned books part is besides the point. > allows anyone across the country between the ages of 13 and 21 to get a free eCard from BPL, which will give them access to 350,000 ebooks and 200,000 audiobooks, as well as access to databases. The cool part is that BPL made all of their ebooks available to a group of people around the country. All libraries should go this route and not just for teens.
  - tsol 5y ago
    Id say it's very much the point. I agree this should be more widespread, but unfortunately since the motivation is based on disseminating banned books rather than simply increasing access across the country we won't see that. This is more of a culture war move than a move to vincrease access. Just because it effectively has a positive outcome, doesn't mean it's even close to ideal
    - eatonphil 5y ago
      I've read too much history to be an idealist about this kind of stuff. If any good change happens for any reason (that isn't seriously harming people) I'm happy about it.
eatonphil 5y ago
> Anyone across the country between the ages of 13 and 21 to get a free eCard from BPL, which will give them access to 350,000 ebooks and 200,000 audiobooks, as well as access to databases. Making hundreds of thousands of ebooks/audiobooks available around the country is an incredible use of library resources IMO. This feels like a serious development in library missions and I hope they don't stop at teens. Everyone around the country should have free access to these ebooks/audiobooks.
- myself248 5y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that basically what Archive.org has been doing for years? More resources and attention are always great, but I'm not sure this is exactly novel.
  - eatonphil 5y ago
    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.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      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_Kid https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8483260W/Diary_of_a_Wimpy_Ki...
      - eatonphil 5y ago
        Neat! I am not familiar with openlibrary.org. In any case that doesn't change my opinion that every US library making their ebooks available to anyone in the US would be making an excellent use of their funding.
      - 5y ago
dankboys 5y ago
- qgin 5y ago
  Sounds like quite a reaction you’re having
- klyrs 5y ago
  The librarians I know think that even deliberate misinformation should be properly archived rather than disappeared. If you're experiencing cognitive dissonance here, please examine how the Twitterati and Librarians are different populations with different motivations and value systems.
  - robonerd 5y ago
    I think there is probably a distinction between an archivist and a librarian. A librarian I know explained to me that the job of a librarian is to curate a collection of books, not to archive/preserve every book. Librarians frequently throw away old books they feel are no longer worth keeping around (generally due to lack of interest, relevance, etc) and certainly don't seek to acquire as many new books as they can. With the rate of modern publishing, only a tiny fraction of books published will ever end up in public libraries. If you look around or ask, libraries often have a pile of books that are free to take and keep, and will otherwise be thrown away if nobody wants them. I've gotten a fair few books this way, though I've scarcely read any of them. I use one of them as my mouse pad; Microeconomic Theory by Henderson and Quandt, published in 1958. A true bore, but it has a very nice library binding that works great with laser mice.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kibwen 5y ago
"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 Pennsylvania (456), Florida (204), Oklahoma (43), Kansas (30), and Tennessee (16)." https://bookriot.com/us-school-book-bans/ https://bookriot.com/us-school-book-bans/
- ianleeclark 5y ago
  "Of mice and men," "to kill a mockingbird," "brave new world," "scary stories to tell in the dark," a scattering of biographies from Lucille Ball to Cesar Chavez. That's certainly a lot of cultural heritage to cast aside
- kibwen 5y ago
  Would anyone care to elaborate on why they downvoted a relevant passage from a link in the OP?
  - pksebben 5y ago
    I've had a suspicion, and it's only a suspicion, that since sometime around the pandemic there's been an effort to astroturf HN. There was such a dramatic shift in what content bubbled to the top - I recall that arguing and dissonance used to be down here, in the footer, but now it seems like not only are there way more political posts on the front page, they all seem to have the most vitriol at the top. All the evidence I have for this is anecdotal. To put on the tinfoil hat, knowing that there are firms for hire dedicated to pushing agendas, and that they use tactics like astroturfing, and seeing the monumental shift of HN away from primarily tech-focused stuff all adds up to... something. It's likely that my choice of a potential bad actor is rooted in my own biases - but it's hard to ignore outright that what was once a fairly fertile ground for legitimate and reasonable debate / discussion, has been so beleaguered with whataboutism and conversational tactics that are obviously meant to stifle actual discourse. To wit, something this plain and factual might be just the kind of thing that focuses a conversation and allows talk about the details in a way that a PR firm might want to avoid. if I were a social media manager with no morals I might point my handful of accounts at downvoting stuff like this. Can't think of any other reason to do it, really.
rufus_foreman 5y ago
Are any of those books not available on Amazon or another bookseller?
HelixEndeavor 5y ago
One of the books specifically cited is The 1619 Project, which if I am not mistaken was widely criticized even by professors for being a narrowsighted and completely ahistorical look at slavery in America.
- frob 5y ago
  That's not a reason for banning a book. Libraries are full of books that are completely ahistorical and narrowsighted. Just go look in the political opinion and analysis section.
  - temp8964 5y ago
    Public school libraries are usually the size of a single room. Does this mean public school libraries ban 99.999999% of books?
- klyrs 5y ago
  In quite a few of the critiques I've read, it's described as a valuable perspective despite the ahistorical bits -- some of which have been corrected. Should the entire project be censored?
  - temp8964 5y ago
    I am not sure what you mean "censored". It's so wrong that it should be excluded from school curriculum, does this mean it is censored? Like how creationism is censored from science curriculum?
    - themitigating 5y ago
      Creationism isn't a scientific subject.
      - temp8964 5y ago
        I am not what's your point. Science is a subject. Creationism should be excluded from science curriculum. Just like history is a subject, and 1619 should be excluded from history curriculum.
dontcare007 5y ago
Where banned=not paid for with public funds. Words have meanings. The books are still available, just not in schools.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Would it be correct to say they were banned from public libraries in those areas? And thus they were banned?
  - dontcare007 5y ago
    More like"after review, not carried"
    - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
      I guess what I am asking, is that in some states I am under the impression that the state legislature got involved. If library staff maintain autonomy and can carry whatever they want, I wouldn't say it is banned. If the state government got involved and provided a list of books to remove from public libraries, then to me that is banned. I know in some states such lists were produced by legislature, but I don't know if those initiatives passed.
      - dontcare007 5y ago
        Good question, not sure.
- slg 5y ago
  I think this is being disingenuous because a library deciding not to buy a book is different than the executive or legislature saying that the library cannot buy a book. You are implying what is happening across the country in conservative states is the former when it is more often the latter. Choice is being removed from the people who run the libraries. They are the people who best know what books their communities want and need, not the politicians.
ALittleLight 5y ago
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 is thought to have inspired the Oklahoma City Bombing. It's a pretty famously banned book. 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". That's not surprising, almost everyone is for things they like. If you were really against banning books then it's strange that you only take this position for literature you like. I personally don't think The Turner Diaries should be made available to children and teens. I don't see what good that would do. But then, I also don't go around saying I'm against book banning. I think some books are appropriate for young people and some aren't and that we should ban the inappropriate books from contexts where young people would plausibly encounter them.
- watwut 5y ago
  The books being banned are more of antiracist. Maybe if the usual measure of freedom of speech did not consistently priviledged white supremacist books, as if those were more important then their oposition, the state of affairs would not be as it is.
- aaron695 5y ago
- vincent-manis 5y ago
  Libraries can and do choose what books to keep in their collection. If a library chooses not to acquire a book, that isn't necessarily `banning'. If I write a book on dog poop art, a library may well decide that nobody is going to want to read it, and that acquiring the book would be a waste of budget and of shelf space. Banning can best be thought of as external. If a library has a book, and a politician (e.g., library board or school board member) demands the book be removed, that is a call for the book to be banned. Not all banning is external, to be sure. A library that refused to acquire books of interest to people of color, or to LGBTs, can definitely be said to be banning books. Librarians I have known have pretty much all had the opinion that, as much as possible, acquisitions should be responsive to the needs of the community, and would not be supportive of policies like that. As for the Turner Diaries, I'd echo the OP that, even if a library chose to include it in its collection (and thus spend money on it that would not be available to spend on other books), it should be held in a Special Collections division, available only on request. But my guess is that my dog poop art book would get more circulation than the Turner Diaries.
joomooru 5y ago
[flagged]
stolenmerch 5y ago
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 Columbus. Go find the video of zealous high school students throwing out books they don't like in an attempt to "decolonize" the shelves. Go read about how librarians intentionally weed books they find offensive. [1] Sorry, but that is a book challenge whether you like it or not. Different people are offended by different things and they don't want you to see the books that piss them off. I don't like any book banning or book challenges, we also need to keep the problem in perspective. There are 100,000+ libraries and ~170 million library card holders in this country. The vast majority of these challenged are from coordinated groups like Moms For Liberty who just hand over huge lists all at once. Each of those get counted as a "challenge". I sharply disagree with Moms For Liberty but this threat seems largely exaggerated. [1] https://bookriot.com/weeding-racist-books-at-libraries/ https://bookriot.com/weeding-racist-books-at-libraries/
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Which of the books on the ALA's list of the 100-most-challenged books of the 2010s do you believe was probably challenged by "left-leaning" busybodies? https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade2019 https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbook...
  - stolenmerch 5y ago
    I'd start with #2 on the list, Captain Underpants. It got banned in many libraries due to supposedly "racist" imagery. [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-captain-underpants/captain-underpants-author-pulls-book-due-to-racist-imagery-apologizes-to-asian-readers-idUSKBN2BL2QM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-captain-underpan...
    - jeffbee 5y ago
WalterBright 5y ago
This is only about books banned from some public school libraries. Not books banned in the US. The fundamental issue is, public schools are run by the government. Hence, the government makes the decision about what is to be taught, and how it is taught. The government schools cannot allow any teacher to teach whatever they feel like teaching. No school can work that way, unless it is a one person private school. For example, public schools cannot teach creationism. Nor can they teach religion. Nor can they teach eugenics. Because the government decided what the curriculum would be. It's not a free speech issue. Now, if a non-government library decided to make these books available, and the government tried to stop it, that would be a free speech issue. Also, if a private school made these books available in its school library, and the government tried to stop it, that would also be a free speech issue. Note that many private schools teach creationism. It's their right to.
- pksebben 5y ago
  So, these libraries should then also avoid stocking things like the bible, in your opinion. Do I have that right?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    I didn't suggest they avoid stocking anything. I said the government gets to decide what goes into the government school library.
    - pksebben 5y ago
      but you mentioned creationism, specifically. and religion. I meant specifically by those terms.
      - SauciestGNU 5y ago
        I guess the question here is whether having material available in a library is the same as promoting or teaching that material per se. I don't believe that's the case, I think libraries (even in public schools) are basically repositories of information, and how that gets used is the responsibility of the user and not of the library.
Tao331 5y ago
If you want to see the list for real, here it is: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/search?booklist=booksunbanned https://www.bklynlibrary.org/search?booklist=booksunbanned
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stakkur 5y ago
So does almost every bookstore and library across the country. This is a bit of a tempest in a teacup, taking school board shenanigans in various local areas and making it sound like broad swaths of Americans “can’t access books”.
chiefalchemist 5y ago
Not to get off topic but what seems to be lost in the HN discussion is that this is a coastal public library offering books to teens that are banned in their local school. It's not about all banned books. There's also the dynamic of a (left leaning?) coastal entity overriding right-leaning communities. This might play well in Brookyln, but it's also powerful political fodder for the more conservative areas being overruled.
- throwaway981572 5y ago
  In what sense is BPL “over-riding” these communities? I thought they decided not to carry these books in their school libraries, not that students are not allowed to read them even outside of school.
  - chiefalchemist 5y ago
    In what sense? The fact that you can't see it from the others' POV is one of key reasons there's so much divisiveness. I'm not critiquing what you believe. Unfortunately, it's incomplete. You're focused on what the library is "saying" and haven't considered what's being heard elsewhere. You can continue to disagree. But blind dismissal isn't helping. And herein lies the problem.
- magicalist 5y ago
  > this is a coastal public library offering books to teens that are banned in their local school Is "coastal" a signifier like "latte drinking"? Texas and Florida also have very lengthy and populated coastlines.
  - chiefalchemist 5y ago
    Coastal is a common euphemism for East Coast and California. That is, known Left hot spots that the Right finds "high horse-y".

167 points by eatonphil 5y ago

This article reminded me that library cards can be purchased by non-residents of the tax-base area served by that library (maybe this isn't universal, but the Brooklyn Public Library offers access for $50/year).

eatonphil 5y ago
Wow that is awesome. Queens Public Library offers this too but to my astonishment NYPL does not. Here [0] is a list with a few around the US. Apparently, Orange County Florida and Queens Public Library even offer library cards to people outside of the US. [0] https://www.aworldadventurebybook.com/blog/libraries-with-non-resident-borrowing-privileges https://www.aworldadventurebybook.com/blog/libraries-with-no...

dredmorbius 5y ago

One of the peculiar characteristics of one groups ban list is that they seem to become another's read list. That said, I've casually searched for some years to find a canonical listing of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Catholic Inquisition's list of banned books. I've found several partial listings of works contained ON the list, but none, so far, of the full listing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum And ... backstopping myself as I post this comment, there does seem to be a possible copy at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/indexofprohibite00mendiala/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/indexofprohibite00mendiala/page/...

rayiner 5y ago

Public school libraries choosing what books to purchase and make available to kids with incompletely developed brains = “banning.” Can’t say the left doesn’t have a cleverness with words.

cato_the_elder 5y ago

If I had a teenager, I would've made sure they know about the great shadow library. [1] It has a few advantages: there are no wait-times for the ebooks, it has no agenda other than providing access to books, and it actually has the real banned books you almost certainly wouldn't find in a public library. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis

Phithagoras 5y ago
> real banned books you almost certainly wouldn't find in a public library Do I dare ask what they are?
- skepticalwaves 5y ago
  Two Hundred Years Together by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  - usrn 5y ago
    [flagged]
  - gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
    Still waiting to hear Jordan Peterson’s review of that one.
    - usrn 5y ago
      We all are. That little performance bummed me out quite a bit the first time I saw it. I still think his general life advice is good though.
      - gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
        If you’ve read Nietzsche or other philology/mythology he just comes off as a gas station ‘10 tips to EXCEL in your life’ and it’s cringe to see people take him seriously at face value. Not doubting he is a smart man: he started a self auditing thing on his website, and probably has the psychological profile of his audience written up in bullet points for his marketers.

jleyank 5y ago

There’s a difference between something being paywalled snd something being hidden for being politically or socially uncomfortable. Tell people to look for the latter and understand why it’s banned.

jleyank 5y ago
“Don't criticize, they're old and wise Do as they tell you to Don't want the devil to Come out and put your eyes.” Supertramp. Lots of sheep out today downgrading people who stop and think.

funstuff007 5y ago

And maybe in Texas they will offer to loan books to Park Slope children the Park Slope progressives find objectionable.

eatonphil 5y ago
What banned books in the BPL do you recommend?
- cato_the_elder 5y ago
  I can't find "Practical Lock Picking" by Deviant Ollam [1] on their catalogue [2]. To be fair, it's not explicitly banned AFAIK, and it's a bit of a niche book (but it's famous among the respective hobbyists). Also, to their credit, I looked up a bunch of other must-not-be-named titles you usually don't find in public libraries, and they did have most of them. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Lock-Picking-Physical-Penetration/dp/1597499897 https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Lock-Picking-Physical-Penet... [1]: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/search?search=practical+lock+picking https://www.bklynlibrary.org/search?search=practical+lock+pi...
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> books the Park Slope progressives find objectionable Like? I can think of plenty, but not anything that would be outright banned from the New York library system.
qgin 5y ago
Eagerly awaiting a list of books Brooklyn teens are unable to access.
Adraghast 5y ago
I just checked the NYPL catalog and found The Turner Diaries, Camp of the Saints and Mein Kampf to be available. Just three examples, but I find it hard to imagine what else they’d refuse to carry if those are fine. Is there a particular book you have in mind that “Park Slope progressives” would find too objectionable for libraries to loan out?

newbamboo 5y ago

How silly. As though there are gangs of teenagers throughout the country that can’t get “banned” books, whatever that means, despite having the freaking internet, and books being basically free. As though they’re living in communist China or something! Kids can buy these books, and get all sorts of other vile pornographic material online well before their teenage years. Local school boards are not the CCP and they have different liabilities, funding sources and constituencies than public libraries. Signaling likes this needs to be mocked or we end up with purity spirals. There is no problem being solved by this, just adults acting out a larp to feel like the saviors of “literature.” Why not actually save literature by promoting the reading of great books? There’s plenty of sex and debauchery in Shakespeare, even for Brooklyn kids like Howard Bloom (rip).

eatonphil 5y ago
The banned books part is besides the point. > allows anyone across the country between the ages of 13 and 21 to get a free eCard from BPL, which will give them access to 350,000 ebooks and 200,000 audiobooks, as well as access to databases. The cool part is that BPL made all of their ebooks available to a group of people around the country. All libraries should go this route and not just for teens.
- tsol 5y ago
  Id say it's very much the point. I agree this should be more widespread, but unfortunately since the motivation is based on disseminating banned books rather than simply increasing access across the country we won't see that. This is more of a culture war move than a move to vincrease access. Just because it effectively has a positive outcome, doesn't mean it's even close to ideal
  - eatonphil 5y ago
    I've read too much history to be an idealist about this kind of stuff. If any good change happens for any reason (that isn't seriously harming people) I'm happy about it.

eatonphil 5y ago

> Anyone across the country between the ages of 13 and 21 to get a free eCard from BPL, which will give them access to 350,000 ebooks and 200,000 audiobooks, as well as access to databases. Making hundreds of thousands of ebooks/audiobooks available around the country is an incredible use of library resources IMO. This feels like a serious development in library missions and I hope they don't stop at teens. Everyone around the country should have free access to these ebooks/audiobooks.

myself248 5y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that basically what Archive.org has been doing for years? More resources and attention are always great, but I'm not sure this is exactly novel.
- eatonphil 5y ago
  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.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    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_Kid https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8483260W/Diary_of_a_Wimpy_Ki...
    - eatonphil 5y ago
      Neat! I am not familiar with openlibrary.org. In any case that doesn't change my opinion that every US library making their ebooks available to anyone in the US would be making an excellent use of their funding.
    - 5y ago

dankboys 5y ago

qgin 5y ago
Sounds like quite a reaction you’re having
klyrs 5y ago
The librarians I know think that even deliberate misinformation should be properly archived rather than disappeared. If you're experiencing cognitive dissonance here, please examine how the Twitterati and Librarians are different populations with different motivations and value systems.
- robonerd 5y ago
  I think there is probably a distinction between an archivist and a librarian. A librarian I know explained to me that the job of a librarian is to curate a collection of books, not to archive/preserve every book. Librarians frequently throw away old books they feel are no longer worth keeping around (generally due to lack of interest, relevance, etc) and certainly don't seek to acquire as many new books as they can. With the rate of modern publishing, only a tiny fraction of books published will ever end up in public libraries. If you look around or ask, libraries often have a pile of books that are free to take and keep, and will otherwise be thrown away if nobody wants them. I've gotten a fair few books this way, though I've scarcely read any of them. I use one of them as my mouse pad; Microeconomic Theory by Henderson and Quandt, published in 1958. A true bore, but it has a very nice library binding that works great with laser mice.

deleted 5y ago

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kibwen 5y ago

"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 Pennsylvania (456), Florida (204), Oklahoma (43), Kansas (30), and Tennessee (16)." https://bookriot.com/us-school-book-bans/ https://bookriot.com/us-school-book-bans/

ianleeclark 5y ago
"Of mice and men," "to kill a mockingbird," "brave new world," "scary stories to tell in the dark," a scattering of biographies from Lucille Ball to Cesar Chavez. That's certainly a lot of cultural heritage to cast aside
kibwen 5y ago
Would anyone care to elaborate on why they downvoted a relevant passage from a link in the OP?
- pksebben 5y ago
  I've had a suspicion, and it's only a suspicion, that since sometime around the pandemic there's been an effort to astroturf HN. There was such a dramatic shift in what content bubbled to the top - I recall that arguing and dissonance used to be down here, in the footer, but now it seems like not only are there way more political posts on the front page, they all seem to have the most vitriol at the top. All the evidence I have for this is anecdotal. To put on the tinfoil hat, knowing that there are firms for hire dedicated to pushing agendas, and that they use tactics like astroturfing, and seeing the monumental shift of HN away from primarily tech-focused stuff all adds up to... something. It's likely that my choice of a potential bad actor is rooted in my own biases - but it's hard to ignore outright that what was once a fairly fertile ground for legitimate and reasonable debate / discussion, has been so beleaguered with whataboutism and conversational tactics that are obviously meant to stifle actual discourse. To wit, something this plain and factual might be just the kind of thing that focuses a conversation and allows talk about the details in a way that a PR firm might want to avoid. if I were a social media manager with no morals I might point my handful of accounts at downvoting stuff like this. Can't think of any other reason to do it, really.

rufus_foreman 5y ago

Are any of those books not available on Amazon or another bookseller?

HelixEndeavor 5y ago

One of the books specifically cited is The 1619 Project, which if I am not mistaken was widely criticized even by professors for being a narrowsighted and completely ahistorical look at slavery in America.

frob 5y ago
That's not a reason for banning a book. Libraries are full of books that are completely ahistorical and narrowsighted. Just go look in the political opinion and analysis section.
- temp8964 5y ago
  Public school libraries are usually the size of a single room. Does this mean public school libraries ban 99.999999% of books?
klyrs 5y ago
In quite a few of the critiques I've read, it's described as a valuable perspective despite the ahistorical bits -- some of which have been corrected. Should the entire project be censored?
- temp8964 5y ago
  I am not sure what you mean "censored". It's so wrong that it should be excluded from school curriculum, does this mean it is censored? Like how creationism is censored from science curriculum?
  - themitigating 5y ago
    Creationism isn't a scientific subject.
    - temp8964 5y ago
      I am not what's your point. Science is a subject. Creationism should be excluded from science curriculum. Just like history is a subject, and 1619 should be excluded from history curriculum.

dontcare007 5y ago

Where banned=not paid for with public funds. Words have meanings. The books are still available, just not in schools.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Would it be correct to say they were banned from public libraries in those areas? And thus they were banned?
- dontcare007 5y ago
  More like"after review, not carried"
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    I guess what I am asking, is that in some states I am under the impression that the state legislature got involved. If library staff maintain autonomy and can carry whatever they want, I wouldn't say it is banned. If the state government got involved and provided a list of books to remove from public libraries, then to me that is banned. I know in some states such lists were produced by legislature, but I don't know if those initiatives passed.
    - dontcare007 5y ago
      Good question, not sure.
slg 5y ago
I think this is being disingenuous because a library deciding not to buy a book is different than the executive or legislature saying that the library cannot buy a book. You are implying what is happening across the country in conservative states is the former when it is more often the latter. Choice is being removed from the people who run the libraries. They are the people who best know what books their communities want and need, not the politicians.

ALittleLight 5y ago

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 is thought to have inspired the Oklahoma City Bombing. It's a pretty famously banned book. 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". That's not surprising, almost everyone is for things they like. If you were really against banning books then it's strange that you only take this position for literature you like. I personally don't think The Turner Diaries should be made available to children and teens. I don't see what good that would do. But then, I also don't go around saying I'm against book banning. I think some books are appropriate for young people and some aren't and that we should ban the inappropriate books from contexts where young people would plausibly encounter them.

watwut 5y ago
The books being banned are more of antiracist. Maybe if the usual measure of freedom of speech did not consistently priviledged white supremacist books, as if those were more important then their oposition, the state of affairs would not be as it is.
aaron695 5y ago
vincent-manis 5y ago
Libraries can and do choose what books to keep in their collection. If a library chooses not to acquire a book, that isn't necessarily `banning'. If I write a book on dog poop art, a library may well decide that nobody is going to want to read it, and that acquiring the book would be a waste of budget and of shelf space. Banning can best be thought of as external. If a library has a book, and a politician (e.g., library board or school board member) demands the book be removed, that is a call for the book to be banned. Not all banning is external, to be sure. A library that refused to acquire books of interest to people of color, or to LGBTs, can definitely be said to be banning books. Librarians I have known have pretty much all had the opinion that, as much as possible, acquisitions should be responsive to the needs of the community, and would not be supportive of policies like that. As for the Turner Diaries, I'd echo the OP that, even if a library chose to include it in its collection (and thus spend money on it that would not be available to spend on other books), it should be held in a Special Collections division, available only on request. But my guess is that my dog poop art book would get more circulation than the Turner Diaries.

joomooru 5y ago

[flagged]

stolenmerch 5y ago

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 Columbus. Go find the video of zealous high school students throwing out books they don't like in an attempt to "decolonize" the shelves. Go read about how librarians intentionally weed books they find offensive. [1] Sorry, but that is a book challenge whether you like it or not. Different people are offended by different things and they don't want you to see the books that piss them off. I don't like any book banning or book challenges, we also need to keep the problem in perspective. There are 100,000+ libraries and ~170 million library card holders in this country. The vast majority of these challenged are from coordinated groups like Moms For Liberty who just hand over huge lists all at once. Each of those get counted as a "challenge". I sharply disagree with Moms For Liberty but this threat seems largely exaggerated. [1] https://bookriot.com/weeding-racist-books-at-libraries/ https://bookriot.com/weeding-racist-books-at-libraries/

jeffbee 5y ago
Which of the books on the ALA's list of the 100-most-challenged books of the 2010s do you believe was probably challenged by "left-leaning" busybodies? https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade2019 https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbook...
- stolenmerch 5y ago
  I'd start with #2 on the list, Captain Underpants. It got banned in many libraries due to supposedly "racist" imagery. [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-captain-underpants/captain-underpants-author-pulls-book-due-to-racist-imagery-apologizes-to-asian-readers-idUSKBN2BL2QM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-race-captain-underpan...
  - jeffbee 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

This is only about books banned from some public school libraries. Not books banned in the US. The fundamental issue is, public schools are run by the government. Hence, the government makes the decision about what is to be taught, and how it is taught. The government schools cannot allow any teacher to teach whatever they feel like teaching. No school can work that way, unless it is a one person private school. For example, public schools cannot teach creationism. Nor can they teach religion. Nor can they teach eugenics. Because the government decided what the curriculum would be. It's not a free speech issue. Now, if a non-government library decided to make these books available, and the government tried to stop it, that would be a free speech issue. Also, if a private school made these books available in its school library, and the government tried to stop it, that would also be a free speech issue. Note that many private schools teach creationism. It's their right to.

pksebben 5y ago
So, these libraries should then also avoid stocking things like the bible, in your opinion. Do I have that right?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I didn't suggest they avoid stocking anything. I said the government gets to decide what goes into the government school library.
  - pksebben 5y ago
    but you mentioned creationism, specifically. and religion. I meant specifically by those terms.
    - SauciestGNU 5y ago
      I guess the question here is whether having material available in a library is the same as promoting or teaching that material per se. I don't believe that's the case, I think libraries (even in public schools) are basically repositories of information, and how that gets used is the responsibility of the user and not of the library.

Tao331 5y ago

If you want to see the list for real, here it is: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/search?booklist=booksunbanned https://www.bklynlibrary.org/search?booklist=booksunbanned

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

stakkur 5y ago

So does almost every bookstore and library across the country. This is a bit of a tempest in a teacup, taking school board shenanigans in various local areas and making it sound like broad swaths of Americans “can’t access books”.

chiefalchemist 5y ago

Not to get off topic but what seems to be lost in the HN discussion is that this is a coastal public library offering books to teens that are banned in their local school. It's not about all banned books. There's also the dynamic of a (left leaning?) coastal entity overriding right-leaning communities. This might play well in Brookyln, but it's also powerful political fodder for the more conservative areas being overruled.

throwaway981572 5y ago
In what sense is BPL “over-riding” these communities? I thought they decided not to carry these books in their school libraries, not that students are not allowed to read them even outside of school.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  In what sense? The fact that you can't see it from the others' POV is one of key reasons there's so much divisiveness. I'm not critiquing what you believe. Unfortunately, it's incomplete. You're focused on what the library is "saying" and haven't considered what's being heard elsewhere. You can continue to disagree. But blind dismissal isn't helping. And herein lies the problem.
magicalist 5y ago
> this is a coastal public library offering books to teens that are banned in their local school Is "coastal" a signifier like "latte drinking"? Texas and Florida also have very lengthy and populated coastlines.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  Coastal is a common euphemism for East Coast and California. That is, known Left hot spots that the Right finds "high horse-y".