🥇 Library Champion Newsletter #63 | Don't join the book burners 🔥
Library Champion,
👋 Welcome to our new subscribers! I am SO GLAD to have you aboard!
We are so excited to announce that we have new, more expanded hours:
Monday - 9:00 AM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Wednesday - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Thursday - 9:00 AM - 7:00 PM
Friday - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Saturday - 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Sunday - Closed
Online - 24/7/365 - visit our website.
Don't join the book burners 🔥
Once you enter the library you can see our new display that is dedicated to banned books.
We are seeing an increase in the number of book challenges in PA, particularly in schools – sometimes as curriculum material, and sometimes in school libraries. There is also a similar rise in censorship efforts at the university level nationwide.
For public libraries, we provide books for the public. Our books should represent, to the best of our ability, the ideas and experiences of the public.
At the same time, we must consider the community standards of our readers. What is acceptable and in demand in Harrisburg may not be acceptable and in demand in East Waterford.
As the purchaser of all library materials here at the Juniata County Library, I carefully select which materials to add to our collection. You can read our library's collection development policy to see how it works.
I have written in the recent past (here) about the important role of parents in discerning what is acceptable for their child to read.
That decision is for the parent to make between them and their child,
Not between the library and their child,
Or between another parent and their child.
I believe a driving force in the push to ban books from libraries is the feeling that children need to be protected. I agree with that sentiment but believe banning books is not the way to go about achieving that goal.
Can you name a time in history when banning a book accomplished something good?
It's sadly ironic that movements to ban books actually spike the readership of those books. Instead of wiping out the existence of the book and the ability to obtain a copy, the story of what is happening makes the news (sometimes nationwide) and the book often rises up the bestseller lists. This leads to more copies being printed by publishers and purchased by individuals and libraries.
A former colleague of mine is a school librarian and is currently the target of a community member's ire over a book she believes has pornographic content in it. She has sent 6 emails to the public participation portion of the school board meeting accusing him of supporting porn and all but said he is a sick pervert. It's gotten to the point where his career is being targeted as he is on the receiving end of harassment, slander, and libel.
Guess what guarantees a student will check out a book with content that some might find offensive? Making a big deal about the book.
After "Maus" was banned by a Tennessee school board, it jumped to #3 on Amazon.
If you can find a point in history in which banning or burning books has been done by the good guys, let me know.
Online sales of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel "Maus" are skyrocketing, and multiple bookstores are giving away free copies to students after a Tennessee school district banned it. [Maro Siranosian/AFP via Getty Images]
Bottom line
If you hear a lot of talk in the news or on your social media feed about a book and how bad it is, go and read the book for yourself. Form an educated opinion. Talk with your family, friends, small group, colleagues, neighbors, and library staff about the book.
If it turns out the book offends you, that's fine!
You are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to seek out any book you want. No one is going to stop you.
But imagine if that wasn't so.
Imagine you are in front of a table with 10 books on it. You are told that 9 books are available to you and 1 isn't. How would you feel?
Many people nowadays don't want to be told whether or not they can possess a certain weapon, make a choice about their health care, or marry someone they love. Those discussions about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness need to extend to books.
🤗 We really have some great Friends!
From the kayak raffle to their book sales, the Friends have raised nearly $4,000 in 2021! Meanwhile, the Friends have contributed over $7,200 to the library in 2021. With those funds, the library has been able to continue to offer mobile hotspots and Chromebooks and add more security cameras so that our library is safe and secure.
But the biggest number of all is $122,406.83: the amount of contributions the Friends have made all-time to the library.
Let that sink in!
Will you be a Friend of the Library? Join today!
Membership is as low as $10 a year. Student membership and senior citizen membership is $10. For individual adults it is $15, families are $25 and individual lifetime membership is $200. You can join any time by picking up a form in the library or printing it online on our website under the Support then Friends of the Library.
A book recommendation just for you!
City of the Dead (Alex Delaware series book #37) by Jonathan Kellerman (2022) (Adult fiction: Mystery, Thriller, Detective)
The past comes back to haunt psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis when they investigate a grisly double homicide and uncover an even more unspeakable motive. Los Angeles is a city of sunlight, celebrity, and possibility. The L.A. often experienced by Homicide Lt. Detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware, is a city of the dead. Early one morning, the two of them find themselves in a neighborhood of pretty houses, pretty cars, and pretty people. The scene they encounter is anything but. A naked young man lies dead in the street, the apparent victim of a collision with a moving van hurtling through suburbia in the darkness. But any thoughts of accidental death vanish when a blood trail leads to a nearby home.
Inside, a young woman lies butchered. The identity of the male victim and his role in the horror remain elusive, but that of the woman creates additional questions. And adding to the shock, Alex has met her while working a convoluted child custody case. Cordelia Gannett was a self-styled internet influencer who'd gotten into legal troubles by palming herself off as a psychologist. Even after promising to desist, she's found a loophole and has continued her online career, aiming to amass clicks and ads by cyber-coaching and cyber-counseling people plagued with relationship issues.
But upon closer examination, Alex and Milo discover that her own relationships are troublesome, including a tortured family history and a dubious personal past. Has that come back to haunt her in the worst way? Is the mystery man out in the street collateral damage or will he turn out to be the key to solving a grisly double homicide? As the psychologist and the detective explore L.A.'s meanest streets, they peel back layer after layer of secrets and encounter a savage, psychologically twisted, almost unthinkable motive for violence and bloodshed.
Is your library card current?
If you have to think about it, it's time to renew it! Click here to get started. It's one of the most powerful things you can have.
Your support ensures that a library card is valuable and free to all!
Youth programs & events in February
--
Thank you for being a library champion. You make a difference each day!
--Vince Giordano
Librarian and Director of the Juniata County Library.
P.S.- You don't need to make an account or jump through any hoops to be a library champion. I wouldn't say this if it wasn't true. You can make this happen in less than a minute. Just click here.