Thank you for revealing wokeism's negative impact on libraries. I was really disheartened when my favorable review of Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage was deemed not to follow "community guidelines" or standards--censored on Amazon; I'd said her book would help parents understand the damage Lupron does to developing bodies. Here in the shade of this uncensored space, I can say what I think. Let us all continue to speak up.
I'm also a librarian and saw "trans exclusionary radical feminism" as a Library of Congress subject heading for the first time recently as I copy cataloged an innocuous gender-critical academic title. Completely floored me. Librarians who don't understand that bringing personal bias into cataloging will eventually bite them in the ass are short-sighted, foolish, and dishonor our professional ethics. As a copy cataloger, I could remove that subject heading, but many patron-facing librarians just won't know better. Shame on these people.
Do non-marginalized (gosh, what a stupid concept either way) catalogers add their own editorial comments? "This author is hostile to heterosexuality." "This book is supported by a group that wants to see the government replace the family." "This book contains material that condemns people of faith." etc...
This was truly frightening. I depend upon libraries to be a neutral source of information and knowledge. A place where I can go to understand all possible aspects of a subject. In the case of disagreement with an opinion, I need to know WHY I’m disagreeing, and that knowledge opens up an avenue for discussion, and the possibility of reconciliation with others. This is very bad news indeed. Thank you for sharing this experience.
Very interesting. Will we see the return of the private library? I am purchasing essential books that my children may not be able to find for long.
Worse is the way search engines and AIs are restricting or shaping access to knowledge. Music streamers are cutting access to music that uses certain words, unless the right people are singing them. AIs will write you a story about a difficult topic, but it will end with Hayes Act/Soviet moral uplift. And 'problematic' part of culture are cut off from view by the search engines.
Who knows - these guardrails may be healthy for us in various ways. But dishonesty and abuse of power must be checked, and when all of our publishing tools are connected now checking is riskier than ever.
These dogmatic ideologues need to mind their own business. I hope enough people in the business cataloging speak up. This is the real virus of our time.
I started seeing a shift in library censorshop about 25-30 years ago. In Canada we have the Freedom to Read Week where it is, or used to be, intended to raise awareness of censorship happening within our libraries. Censorship happened in my daughter’s school when she was in Gr. 5. A whole series of readers were pulled from the school - The Impressions Series. My daughter was livid as was I!
This led me to try to discover what the heck was going on. I created an annual event called “Book Burning” (complete with a large cauldron one year.) Several of us would read passages from censored books and speak about them regarding what we felt was valuable in said book.
I don't think anybody should ever state that some book might be offensive to "community" X. Groups don't get offended, people do. This talk of groups being offended is the usual identitarian nonsense, that says that some authority or self-elected spokesperson can a) designate a group of their choice by some, possibly very vaguely defined characteristic, and then b) proclaim the universally held opinions of every member of that group to the world regardless of what each individual in that group actually thinks.
Allow me to introduce you to Gary Lucia, a gay man who works for Disney in Florida. He's a cartoonist and an excellent journalist who writes about the woke corruption of Disney on his Substack. It's a wonder he hasn't been fired (probably because he's so good at his job), because he has nothing good to say about Disney's dive into woke policies and in particular their bullying tactics around trans ideology. Gary's work is free to read on Substack.
Thank you for your work sharing this information. Our public library had a "what do you think about censorship?" theme about 7 years ago, they would never dare today. The books on the display had the summary plus the "problematic" area of concern. It was an interesting theme, I thought, but wow, has time shown us that the conversation was being tailored to shut down "diversity" of opinion in order to include conformity of woke beliefs.
An interesting point about how these biased subject headings may affect patrons:
Generally the books that get these biased headings are ones that are not widely available in libraries due to the very bias that leads to the biased subject headings. This means that if a patron wants to get the book out from their local library, they will much more probably have to do an interlibrary loan rather than pull it off the shelves themselves and potentially, these days, do self-service checkout. This means that it is these particular books that are likely to be checked out to them, personally, by a staff member. This fact, that the patron is likely to be marked as a reader of such books, could make a patron rather shy about requesting one of these books, thus further reducing their already reduced availability to library patrons generally.
I live in a small town in NC, and have been trying for awhile now to order Graham Linehan's "Tough Crowd". (Mr. Linehan was the writer and "show-runner" for the popular UK series "Father Ted", among others. He has since been black-listed for his "transphobic" views, and has been unrelenting in his subsequent struggle to make people see the truth -- heroically, in my opinion.) Because our library didn't have it, I tried the Inter-library Loan option, which I've used in the past. "Tough Crowd" was the ONLY book whose application was canceled, for no apparent reason, every time I tried to order it, because I would just re-try every time I got the "Canceled" notice. And now I can see why. It is, as others have said here, INFURIATING. The ignorant arrogance of someone who is put in a position of trust to simply catalogue books to make it all about them -- and that there is apparently no way to stop them??! That kind of thing makes for a rageful populace.
Thank you for this. It is tragic. I adore my library and now feel like they are my literal enemy. That they would kick me out if they knew what I know and how I will never believe my daughter was born in the wrong body. Another once safe haven turned on me. Additionally, This is why all books should always remain in paper print. Digital forms can be altered to change history, facts and character details…
Thank you for revealing wokeism's negative impact on libraries. I was really disheartened when my favorable review of Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage was deemed not to follow "community guidelines" or standards--censored on Amazon; I'd said her book would help parents understand the damage Lupron does to developing bodies. Here in the shade of this uncensored space, I can say what I think. Let us all continue to speak up.
That’s what the trans cult has done! Squelching freedom of speech and much more in their effort to control all of us!
I'm also a librarian and saw "trans exclusionary radical feminism" as a Library of Congress subject heading for the first time recently as I copy cataloged an innocuous gender-critical academic title. Completely floored me. Librarians who don't understand that bringing personal bias into cataloging will eventually bite them in the ass are short-sighted, foolish, and dishonor our professional ethics. As a copy cataloger, I could remove that subject heading, but many patron-facing librarians just won't know better. Shame on these people.
Do non-marginalized (gosh, what a stupid concept either way) catalogers add their own editorial comments? "This author is hostile to heterosexuality." "This book is supported by a group that wants to see the government replace the family." "This book contains material that condemns people of faith." etc...
Exactly. Once again this upside down ideology finds a new avenue to exploit. I'm so f'ng tired of it all.
I’m furious at what is happening in this regard!
Good questions! Libraries should be the bastion of freedom of speech and inquiry!
Thank you for revealing this. I had no idea this was happening and I use libraries a lot. Thank you for your service and for this post.
This was truly frightening. I depend upon libraries to be a neutral source of information and knowledge. A place where I can go to understand all possible aspects of a subject. In the case of disagreement with an opinion, I need to know WHY I’m disagreeing, and that knowledge opens up an avenue for discussion, and the possibility of reconciliation with others. This is very bad news indeed. Thank you for sharing this experience.
The concept of Neutrality is quickly being vaporized
We all need to stand against censorship
Very interesting. Will we see the return of the private library? I am purchasing essential books that my children may not be able to find for long.
Worse is the way search engines and AIs are restricting or shaping access to knowledge. Music streamers are cutting access to music that uses certain words, unless the right people are singing them. AIs will write you a story about a difficult topic, but it will end with Hayes Act/Soviet moral uplift. And 'problematic' part of culture are cut off from view by the search engines.
Who knows - these guardrails may be healthy for us in various ways. But dishonesty and abuse of power must be checked, and when all of our publishing tools are connected now checking is riskier than ever.
These dogmatic ideologues need to mind their own business. I hope enough people in the business cataloging speak up. This is the real virus of our time.
PEOPLE NEED TO SPEAK UP BEFORE ITS TOO LATE ,
I started seeing a shift in library censorshop about 25-30 years ago. In Canada we have the Freedom to Read Week where it is, or used to be, intended to raise awareness of censorship happening within our libraries. Censorship happened in my daughter’s school when she was in Gr. 5. A whole series of readers were pulled from the school - The Impressions Series. My daughter was livid as was I!
This led me to try to discover what the heck was going on. I created an annual event called “Book Burning” (complete with a large cauldron one year.) Several of us would read passages from censored books and speak about them regarding what we felt was valuable in said book.
You can read more about current issues in library cataloguing in the Substack: "Heterodoxy in the Stacks ". Librarian Caroline Nappo wrote about "Difficult Subjects". It discusses the issue of subject headings in cataloguing library materials. https://open.substack.com/pub/hxlibraries/p/difficult-subjects?r=1mq6c5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Good article!
I don't think anybody should ever state that some book might be offensive to "community" X. Groups don't get offended, people do. This talk of groups being offended is the usual identitarian nonsense, that says that some authority or self-elected spokesperson can a) designate a group of their choice by some, possibly very vaguely defined characteristic, and then b) proclaim the universally held opinions of every member of that group to the world regardless of what each individual in that group actually thinks.
This is woefully happening at Disney too: https://storiesmatter.thewaltdisneycompany.com/.
Allow me to introduce you to Gary Lucia, a gay man who works for Disney in Florida. He's a cartoonist and an excellent journalist who writes about the woke corruption of Disney on his Substack. It's a wonder he hasn't been fired (probably because he's so good at his job), because he has nothing good to say about Disney's dive into woke policies and in particular their bullying tactics around trans ideology. Gary's work is free to read on Substack.
https://flashinggreen.substack.com/
Thank you for your work sharing this information. Our public library had a "what do you think about censorship?" theme about 7 years ago, they would never dare today. The books on the display had the summary plus the "problematic" area of concern. It was an interesting theme, I thought, but wow, has time shown us that the conversation was being tailored to shut down "diversity" of opinion in order to include conformity of woke beliefs.
An interesting point about how these biased subject headings may affect patrons:
Generally the books that get these biased headings are ones that are not widely available in libraries due to the very bias that leads to the biased subject headings. This means that if a patron wants to get the book out from their local library, they will much more probably have to do an interlibrary loan rather than pull it off the shelves themselves and potentially, these days, do self-service checkout. This means that it is these particular books that are likely to be checked out to them, personally, by a staff member. This fact, that the patron is likely to be marked as a reader of such books, could make a patron rather shy about requesting one of these books, thus further reducing their already reduced availability to library patrons generally.
I live in a small town in NC, and have been trying for awhile now to order Graham Linehan's "Tough Crowd". (Mr. Linehan was the writer and "show-runner" for the popular UK series "Father Ted", among others. He has since been black-listed for his "transphobic" views, and has been unrelenting in his subsequent struggle to make people see the truth -- heroically, in my opinion.) Because our library didn't have it, I tried the Inter-library Loan option, which I've used in the past. "Tough Crowd" was the ONLY book whose application was canceled, for no apparent reason, every time I tried to order it, because I would just re-try every time I got the "Canceled" notice. And now I can see why. It is, as others have said here, INFURIATING. The ignorant arrogance of someone who is put in a position of trust to simply catalogue books to make it all about them -- and that there is apparently no way to stop them??! That kind of thing makes for a rageful populace.
Thank you for this. It is tragic. I adore my library and now feel like they are my literal enemy. That they would kick me out if they knew what I know and how I will never believe my daughter was born in the wrong body. Another once safe haven turned on me. Additionally, This is why all books should always remain in paper print. Digital forms can be altered to change history, facts and character details…