#florida libraries

[thespookylibrarian]

I have a really sweet coworker who just immigrated here from another country about a year ago. She came into work all excited the other day, saying “I heard some news on the radio that I think is good for you!” 

She proceeded to tell me about the Florida law (HB 1467) requiring a certified media specialist to review books before they can enter school libraries and classrooms.

“More jobs for future librarians like you!” she said.

Sad to think this is how a lot of people probably see this law, and that many won’t bother to investigate further into how vague and harmful it really is for students (not to mention the teachers who could face a third-degree felony for violating the law). 

I don’t know if this is an area of librarianship I really want to go into, but literacy has always been at the forefront of my academic/professional interests. That includes cultural literacy, which tends to fall under HB 1467′s broad language (re: theories that could lead to "student indoctrination”). 

I’ve found myself thinking about the ways I could shape my librarian studies/career into something that involves combatting these and similar laws affecting our education system, but I’m still not 100% sure what that would look like--hoping to take Intro to Info Policy in the fall for some insight. 

In the meantime, if anyone has any knowledge or experience regarding this topic, I would love to discuss it! I have a few friends in the K-12 teaching space but none on the librarian side, and they are dealing with enough already, unfortunately. 

[archivlibrarianist]

It was only a matter of time before they got to this.

Keep fighting. Don't let them win.

From the article:

"Florida's attorney general is claiming that the state’s public school libraries are 'a forum for government speech' and 'not a forum for free expression,' in a chilling argument that appears to be gaining steam on the right...

"'Florida’s public-school libraries are a forum for government, not private, speech,' Moody argues in the brief, comparing the removal of LGBTQ+ books like Tango to school policies against Nazi propaganda. Although Moody admits in the brief that appeals courts have 'not yet addressed' the legal argument she makes, she cites semi-related precedents — such as whether a state can refuse to display a religious monument — to conclude that 'the compilation of library materials is government speech.' For that reason, she continues, removing any library materials cannot constitute viewpoint discrimination.

"In response, a group of 23 First Amendment scholars filed an amicus brief of their own in September, saying Moody’s argument stands in opposition to decades of First Amendment law. 'Defendant’s arguments would effectively nullify' existing limits on government speech, the brief contends, and 'government speech' analyses have 'no place in public school library book removal decisions.' The authors went on to argue that the court should use different analytical tools, specifically 'forum doctrine,' a principle in U.S. law used to determine reasonable restrictions on public speech, and one which has been used in cases involving libraries since the 1970s.

"...'Should schools be preparing individuals to be broadly educated, to be able to make their own decisions about their lives?' [American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom director Deborah Caldwell-Stone] asked USA Today rhetorically. 'Or should schools be indoctrination centers for only one viewpoint that may not even represent the viewpoint of the majority?'"

[mysharona1987]

[liyazaki]

via the Arkansas Advocate

it’s official: in Arkansas, library staff may now be charged with a Class D felony for providing books to their communities that are deemed “obscene”.

in Florida, school librarians and teachers can be criminally charged for checking out books to kids that dare to touch on LGBTQ topics & gender identity, thanks to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

book censorship in the US is at such an all-time high, book sanctuaries are popping up all over the country.

library staff aren’t physically safe, either. just over the past couple months, threats against libraries and their staff resulted in the temporary closure of “five public library systems due to bomb and shooting threats," ALA. active shooter trainings have become the new norm for me.

the censorship myself and my colleagues have been watching unfold over the last several years has felt like watching a slow-motion car crash.

but this bill? this feels like a death knell for my profession.

via Teen Vogue

when I was a confused queer kid growing up in an ultra-religious household, the library was my refuge. when I asked hard questions, librarians listened and gave me the tools I needed to answer them. in many ways, libraries saved my life. it's why I became a librarian.

I can't believe I'm living in times where future generations of kids may not have access to the same refuge I did, but it's happening.

if you live in the US and you care about protecting open, equitable access to information, please check out the American Library Association for anti-censorship resources in your state, info on contacting your representatives, etc.

you can also report censorship you see in your community and ALA will investigate (1-800-545-2433, ext. 4266; oif@ala.org).

I know this isn't my usual content, but libraries are standing on the edge of a horrifying precipice- one we can't escape on our own.

libraries are free society's canary in the coal mine, and all the alarms are singing. when libraries fall, nations usually aren't far behind.

this matters- and we need help.

[thebanishedreader]

Oh, what the hell, Florida.

Heyyy so I just looked at my spreadsheet of banned books and...

There are 1,402 BANNED BOOKS in the state of Florida ALONE.

To put that in perspective, on that very same spreadsheet, the number of banned books in California is: one (1).

If you guys have been following this (very new) blog and my posts, then you will know that the number of banned books in Colorado is: eight (8).

In Arkansas, it's four (4).

So. Just to reiterate, to repeat.

As of June 2023,

THE STATE OF FLORIDA HAS BANNED 1,402 BOOKS.

NEARLY HALF OF ALL BANNED BOOKS THIS YEAR, AND NEARLY THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF BANNED BOOKS IN 2022 IN TOTAL.

FLORIDA. HAS. BANNED. 1,402. BOOKS.

Please read banned books. Support libraries. Support authors. And please, please please please please, for the love of everything, stay safe. I love each and every one of you. Stay safe.

Support the American Library Association here.

[mountainnamemama]

Looking for something new to me | Far Forest , Seminole Heights, Tampa, Florida, United States

[vintagehomecollection]

An elegantly curved staircase joins the master bedroom suite and the top floor, where the living room, dining room, and kitchen are located, making these two floors self-contained.

Private Palm Beach - Tropical Style, 1992

[fru1typunch]

Here's a little post ranting about the Floridian education system and how it fucked over public school librarians this year, from the adult child of one who spent his whole summer helping his poor mom try and keep up with Desantis's ridiculous requests.

Every school year, the librarian always gets a couple weeks with a "closed" library to take inventory of the school's stock at the end. Normal stuff, y'know, if a bit tedious and boring. Scan every. Single. Thing. See what you have and figure out who last checked out what you should have, that sort of thing.

Well, Ron Desantis, in his genius, decided that concept had to be applied to all the books in the entire school to determine if they're "appropriate" (by his batshit conservative standards).

My mom didn't JUST have to do the usual inventory thing for her own library. She ALSO had to do something similar but far WORSE for her entire school's personal classroom libraries.

The objective of this SCHOOL WIDE requirement was to "approve" every book in the school as "appropriate". Every. Single. Book. In. The. School. Not the school library, no, the SCHOOL. All classrooms.

My mom's an elementary school librarian. There's around 1000 students at her school, give or take, and around 50 or so classroom libraries to sort through. And this was supposed to be done over summer, before the kids came back in the fall. Entirely unpaid.

She had to personally approve around 25,000-30,000 books school wide based on whether or not they're "appropriate for kids" (again, by Desantis standards), entirely unpaid, in about 2 months. Keep in mind these classroom libraries had been pre-existing for many years or even decades in most cases, so it's kinda useless to just now care about whether the books are "appropriate".

Mind you, you can't read that many individual books in under two months and then approve them in the system if you tried, even if most were children's books. She spent every single day of her summer, her only real time off each year, logging into the online portal and manually approving books from 8 in the morning to 8 at night, looking them up and trying to determine if they might be okay by the new standards since she couldn't possibly have the time to read them all and check, and again, entirely unpaid on her own. Teachers were scanning in their classroom's books to the system to be approved by her in real time, so she really never could get very far ahead. At most she'd knock out a few hundred a day, which I think is wildly impressive given the circumstances.

Even with all that work, she couldn't open her library for nearly a month into the new school year this August because she spent every school day finishing that approval thing for the classroom libraries for teachers. At least by that point she got paid for it. She was also way behind on getting her library ready for the school year, she really hadn't had time to prepare like normal. It was a crazy stressful time for her all around, moreso than back-to-school time normally is each year.

I helped as much as I knew how to, which mostly just meant looking books up for her or texting back and forth with my friends that work at Barnes and Noble or Books A Million asking if they could skim through certain books that might pose a threat at times, and coming up to the school with her sometimes while she worked on approving books and I worked on preparing her library for "business" again.

My mom was upset because she didn't have time for a real summer vacation, the most she got to do was occasionally visit the beach a few hours away for a day trip. (On one of the beach days, she even took her blessed laptop with her to work on it in the car ride over.) She was in the thick of it neck deep all on her own for months with hardly any time off and no pay to show for it.

It's frustrating because if she were to have approved a book that a parent later complains about, it could mean bad news for her. Again, no way in hell would she have been able to both read every single book, determine if she thought it was okay by Desantis's standards, and then approve every single book within the system. She did her best, but she's still nervous someone will complain.

All this conservative bullshit around books is hurting so many kinds of librarians and educators in so many ways, so just take a moment sometime soon to appreciate your local librarians and public school teachers putting up with this crap. They could use the love. Maybe some strong alcohol. And a big wad of cash, they do a lot of shit unpaid.

And do vote these assholes out of office that are making these poor librarians' and teachers' jobs harder with no additional support or pay.

[inthedarktrees]

Robert W. Kelley, “From Displaced Person to College Queen,” Life, Dec 15, 1952

[commiepinkofag]

In 1983, the 1981 book Jenny Lives With Eric & Martin, by Danish author Susanne Bösche, was published in England. The book was intended for primary school children and told the story of Jenny, a little girl who lived with her father and his male lover. It was quickly banned from schools after protests from parents and politicians who feared that it might encourage children to "experiment with homosexuality".

[escapismsworld]

This beauty is located in Mt Dora, Florida.

📸: @prettyoldplaces

[disastrid]

Fans who attend the Miami and Sunrise, Florida, stops of the singer-songwriter's"Trustfall Tour" on Tuesday and Wednesday will receive a copy of some of thebooks that have appeared on PEN America's Index of Banned Books.

"I'm a voracious reader, and I'm a mom of two kids who are also voracious readers," Pink said during a livestream on Instagram on Sunday. "And I can't imagine my own parents telling me what my kids can and cannot read, let alone someone else's parents, let alone someone else that doesn't even have children that are deciding what my children can read."

Fans will receive copies of "The Family Book" by Todd Parr, "The Hill We Climb" by Amanda Gorman, "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, or one of the books from the "Girls Who Code" series by the nonprofit that shares the same name.

The singer said she decided to join PEN America and local bookstore, Books & Books, to give away books because she wanted to highlight the rising wave of book bans in Florida.

"It's especially hateful to see authorities take aim at books about race and racism and against LGBTQ authors and those of color. We have made so many strides toward equality in this country and no one should want to see this progress reversed," Pink said in a statement shared by PEN America.

[archivlibrarianist]

"'I got an email from an art teacher who said they're making [the art teacher] get rid of [their] art books,” [blogger and Duval County Public Schools teacher Chris Guerrieri] told Motherboard. 'They can’t even have their books in the classroom. Like they can't just like, cover them up and put them to the side.'"

Another teacher posted video of what that looks like.

Tweet here.

[mysharona1987]

[liyazaki]

read the full article here

help fight book censorship

[willtheweirdrat]

Florida schools: no we can't have this classic and useful book that everyone has read cause it's too inapproprite for the poor kids :(((

my school: the communist manifesto and shelves full of feminist books. we're gonna be so fucking crystal clear about oppression and problems in modern society. grow up, the world's not all cishet white abled rich men.