School Doesn't Teach Everything

As part of trying to make myself the best information professional I can, I have been volunteering to try to expand my horizons and abilities. One of the places I found is called the Toy Rescue Mission. It is in Tacoma and does a wonderful thing. It takes new and "gently used" toys and books and makes them like new again -- some of the volunteers even build furniture or sew clothes and blankets -- and allows parents in need to come in for two years for one birthday for each of their children, Christmas and Easter. The parents get to "shop" for several items, a few books, toys and a board game. They can then take this home to their child and provide them with gifts they would otherwise not have. The picture is prior to the Easter givewaway, with the cellophane peaking up from some of the Easter baskets.


I worked in the Literacy section until September 2010, in addition to the piece below that I produced for the newsletter, I also created a training procedure for those who followed me in that position. This isn't technically library related, but its more than just handling books. I was helping to provide reading material to those who might otherwise miss it. And I worked to organize by age and category, so there's even a little cataloging going on, but mainly it was learning. A lot.

Below is a piece I wrote for them about my experience.

Things I Didn’t Know Once

I am the oldest of two children and due to a combination of late-blooming parents and geography, always envied kids who got hand-me-downs. Now, decades later, I find myself sorting through donated books of all shapes, sizes, ages and conditions, cleaning them as I gently as possible. If it’s a colouring or activity book, I make sure none of the pages have been marked up and then add crayons, or pencils and a small, donated toy and place the lot in a Ziploc bag. And, for the first time in my life, I find myself wondering what it must be like to never have toys that are untouched by another’s hands.

I have learned a number of things volunteering at the Toy Rescue Mission, helping to sort and prep books for parents to pick out and give to their children for birthdays, Christmas, etc. Most recently, I learned that even those without a penny to spare wait until the last minute to Christmas shop. I have learned that there are levels and levels of used and only the best go on the shelves here – the closest possible to new. I learned that are numerous agencies that have their own uses for pre-owned books, where those that aren’t quite perfect can go and be loved, appreciated, read and possibly chewed on by small children.

I didn’t know that there are agencies that take the books that are in poorer condition than that and either physically recycle them, or send them to places such as Africa where books in virtually any condition are a treasure because of their rarity. I do know now that this agency that survives on donations of goods, money and time, with a few grants here and there, but without any public funds, serves far more than itself. That the dispersing of books to homeless shelters, daycares and needy schools is repeated with donated toys, clothing and anything else that passes through the doors and cannot be used by the Toy Rescue Mission. That nothing is wasted that can be used by someone, somewhere.

I now know, in much more visceral sense than I did before, how valuable this place is. How many people it serves and in turn, how many serve it. And I learned that there is as much gained by volunteering. If not more.

In Defence of the Fantastic

I would love to harness my ability to do all my best thinking in the shower and find a way to sue my powers for good. Until that time comes, I shall have to content myself with remembering some of the nifty things.

One of the big reasons books get challenged in libraries, bookstores and anywhere else people feel that their views are better than someone else's and therefore must be imposed upon us, will we or nil we, is that is fantasy is, well, fantasy. That is, not real and therefore likely to corrupt young impressionable minds to believe in things that can't be (or perhaps, shouldn't be) and lead them into doing evil things like asking that most dangerous of all questions: "Why not?"

Every science fiction writer who has ever written, has written about something that was proved to be scientifically impossible at the time she wrote or five minutes or fifty years later. However, a substantial portion of the time, that which was impossible was positioned at some slight angle to the possible. Isaac Asimov's world, galaxy and eventually universe spanning computer, whose name changes as its size does, but ends with with VAC, standing for the vacuum tubes which run it has been overrun by vanishingly small computers that can be held in the palm of a small child's hand. And yet, they span the world and reach as far beyond as we can (the story in which this computer appears, "The Last Question" may well have been challenged many times, and would certainly would be if "they" knew about it, if for no othe reason than the four words with which it ends).

Digressions aside, the example is sound. Science fiction is fiction, but it is based in some idea of science, some question of "what if" and leads to the question of "why not"? When the answer is that it is outside the laws of physics, for those with the right inclinations, one of two things happens. One is that the laws of physics are examined to find a way in which it might be possible, and often they are rewritten by new knowledge of the possibly infinite universe we are pivleged to be part. The other is that a different way to do the same thing is found. Or at least the first steps on the road forward are made.

Many of the what ifs and why nots will take decades or even centuries to master and to manage. This only really matters to those of who thought we might one day live on the moon and are resigned to lives walking on and trying to secure the future of this single earth. In the long run it only matters that we continue moving forward.

The fantastic, the unreal, the maybes, are, in my opinion, the challenges, not the things that should be challenged. Anything that keeps us as a human race, wondering, hoping and looking forward, is a good thing, nor does it deny all the other mysterious, fantastic and wondrous things which might be out there or in here.

Library Book Safety

I wasn't sure I was going to continue this once class got out and I suppose it doesn't matter, as I don't think anyone outside the course read it anyway, but I keep catching flashes on the news of testing libraries books. I think I've seen reports on both lead content (I know I've seen reports on lead) and germ content. Part of me wonders if this is an IF issue. Not directly, but it seems to me it could be a really insidious way of getting things off the shelves that certain factors -- and I'm not trying to single any one group out, as I've discovered, being for intellectual freedom is more than just being for the freedom to read what I think is good to read, its for I'd want to hide from my children if I had any -- don't feel should be in any given library. If all else fails, test it for lead or some other harmful particulate.

Another way this issue interests me is in the costs and cuts libraries are facing. The price of books goes up every year (month, week, day) and I'm sure publishers are just as interested as everyone else in cutting costs, which sadly, today seems to involve outsourcing the manufacturing to a county where wages and safety checks are lower. How will having to adhere to higher safety standards -- which I'm all for, who among us hasn't licked a finger to turn a page? Do we ever think about where the book was before us or does the fact that it's in our hands make it safe? And don't even get me started about small children and putting things in their mouths -- impact book costs, libraries and publishers? I'd really like to see some argument for stopping outsourcing and increasing production in this country as cost-effective once you get past all the environmental costs of shipping, the import fees, the testing fees and how it would benefit the economy, but this isn't the place for it and someone would probably tell me I'm wrong anyway.

Censorship Will Always Be With US

In this final week of the quarter, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way to get away from censorship, or at least attempts at it. And this is not due to ill-will on anyone's part. Would-be censors and other trammlers upon intellectual freedom are trying to protect us, and our children, from ourselves.

It is hard to conclude that attempts to remove reading material from libraries falls essentially under the same category as me trying to keep the dog from licking open the spot where she jabbed herself with a branch. I know she shouldn't do it because it will ultimately keep the wound from healing. Her brain tells her it itches.

What brought me to this conclusion about censors was looking at some of the history of censorship. Books by Mark Twain, Harper Lee and others have been protested in the past, because they essentially stated that blacks were people too. Now they are being challenged because of unflattering views on blacks. The same happens to books in the Little House on the Prairie Series (you heard me) because of the way the First Nations are depicted. I have to agree that there are unflattering portrayals, but not only is that the way people used to think, it is the way some still do and that is something we need to be aware of. If we try to clean up all objectionable references to everyone everywhere ever, we will have no unexpurgated reading material, along with a lot of people who're shocked senseless by the real world when they walk out of the library.

I know I've discussed this before, and if I keep up with this blog once the course is over, will probably come back to it again. This is because it matters to me. But I've never tried to look at it from the view of the censor. This is something that should be done as well, and is probably the best way to combat it.

What made me really aware of the challenger's perspective was looking at the regulations of Canada, where hate speech is banned. Overall, I like that idea. But it does cause problems when importing books which may appear to have hate speech in their pages. This is done at the discretion of the custom's agent and may never be known to the public, which leads to secret censorship as well. Keeping hate speech down is admirable, but protecting us from the knowledge that hate exists is not the same as making hate go away.

So, I guess the real trick is, convincing the challengers that they aren't protecting us from the evils of the world, but only giving them dark, quiet places to thrive.

Engagement

It has been suggested that I use this forum to discuss the deterioration of the English language, particularly in newscasts. Over useage of such useages as "at the end of the day," and "moving forward," seem to be driving certain aspects of the population a little nuts. While I tend to agree and would love to go off on a rant about the above, as well as other butchery I hear on a daily basis -- nothing has "less" carbs, calories or xylophones than anything else, although it may have FEWER -- or that have sent me up a wall for years -- there is no such word as "snuck." The past tense of sneak to "sneaked" or "to sneak" -- I am ambivalent about where that stands in regard to intellectual freedom. Particularly in libraries. Does not everyone have the right to butcher the English language as they will, outside of English classes, college papers and resumes? What if we started trying to ban books because they people in them didn't talk pretty? So, that is not I will be discussing.

Something that came up recently in class has taken me back to other arguments I've but forward. A punk rocker who supports the use of valium and has his own sexually suggestive lyrics has been up in arms since August against the Multnomah County Library in OR because his son was able to check out out a graphic novel with, well, graphic images. The way this has been portrayed by the father and the media is that this comic was in the "adult" section of the library (read, big flashing neon XXX sign over that section rather than the section with books about the economy and nuclear holocaust). The Library, as everyone should know, does not act as a parent. Kids can check out any books, anything else is censorship.

What needs to happen, in my not so humble opinion, is that if parents care that much about what their kids read, they need to come to the library with them, or at the very least, ask what they checked out as if they're really interested, not as if they're simply looking for an excuse to forbid a book. If your kid is checking out books with graphic sexual images and this bothers you, find out why and then explain why you think this is bad. ENGAGE with the kids. I know it's difficult. A lot of kids, especially teens and (speaking of words I hate) tweens, really don't want to share with their parents. Being certain they're going to get shot down and censored without even having a chance to explain what thier interest in the subject is, is going to make them want to even less.

Kids deserve intellectual freedom too and while it is a parents' job to protect them (further, if the library starts telling kids they can't read certain things, that's going to tick a lot of parents off too) from .... things, unless the parent is involved in the kids' lives, there's no way to know what they're ready for or not or are reading about because they're trying to process some aspect of their world. Intellectual freedom isn't just about allowing anyone to read whatever they want, it's about keeping the world of knowledge open so that people can continue to think and grow and become people engaged with the world.

Define Banned

This is more a question that has arisen in my mind due to the current assignment for this class than an issue I'm grappling with, but as my group is comparing Banned Books in Canada vs those in the US and we're having very little luck finding banned books in Canada. Challenged yes, banned, not so much. It crossed my mind to wonder how we actually defined banned. Banned where? And by whom? Does even one banning count enough to bring a book to notice? It should in my mind, but I'm just wondering.

If anyone actually reads this, what's your opinion?

How Many Does It Take To Tango?

I am constantly fascinated by the issue of homosexuality and challenged books. I grew up in a small town in Wyoming and obviously knew of the stigma attached to being gay, I was also in high school in 1986 when I and my peers first became aware of AIDS, which made male homosexuality at least that much "worse." It wasn't until the appearance of AIDS that I realized homosexuality was problematic due to it being scary. I learned this in my discussions with my male friends when I found myself explaining why gay men were more prone to getting HIV than straight men and how that same exchange process made women much more vulnerable than straight men. It was there that I began the slow process of learning that not understanding something made it threatening.

Over the course of my life I've studied History and Folklore and this has only strengthened this conclusion. That anything that is not exactly like us (for some value of us) is Other and the other is scary. When I teach, I try to bring this up. Not necessarily on the subject of homosexuality (although if I can bring up the Golden Band of Thebes I do) but on the subject of the Other in general and how that has coloured our history and most of the wars and conquest. James Tiptree Jr. had a wonderful line in one of her stories which stated that the whole history of humanity has been to "find the other, f--k it, or die trying." Which I have followed up in my own thoughts with the idea that once we've had sex with the other, they often give birth to "us" making them us. Ultimately making everyone like everybody else.

It's getting harder and harder to object to people due to Other skin colour, race and religion, at least to do so out in the open. For whatever reason, in the realm of who one loves and who one sleeps with is still grounds for fear and therefore rejection.

This is why we feel it's ok to say that allowing people who love each other and are in committed relationships to get married with threaten the institution (this arguement always makes me want to declare that no celebrity should ever be allowed to get married because thier divorce rates are high and thier divorces are public and glamorized, but that would be a violation of thier civil rights). And, to keep this on the topic of intellectual freedom, it allows parents and religious activists to protest a book called Tango Makes Three about two male penguins raising an egg. This is a true story. I haven't investigated it sufficiently to find out if the penguins are having sex or not, but the people protesting it obviously assume they are or that children will assume they are. They don't take into consideration that male penguins are the ones who take care of the eggs in nature (or maybe they do and don't want their kids to know about that either because it might threaten "traditional" family roles, but that's just me being snarky). This is not a book about homosexuality. But it is fear of homosexuality, fear of what we percieve of as the other which makes it a threat.

It is also my personal suspicion that, given the general age group of its readers, that not a one of them is going to consider sex unless their parents bring it up. But then, I'm sheltered, I could be wrong.