Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Librarians To "Weed"

 A librarian trained in university whether for public work or educational, is a librarian. Today I read where "school librarians" are forced to weed books and other materials that their school districts deem non-inclusive. Tons of books were discarded. What we end up with if over-zealous "weeding" takes place is censorship and usually it is done with very little specific attention to the details such as re-reading the books to see if, indeed, they are offensive and not inclusive. What, if we are not careful, left with is a load of biassed pap to offer children from the time of starting school to leaving school as adults. Books that are non-inclusive need to be judged so by a broad panel of people who discuss and examine before tossing out what could be fodder for beneficial discussion and comparison. Like the world wars and other cruel historical events, they need to be remembered not tossed, as one person spoke on the radio news today. They said, "so we don't forget what happened as to never let it happen again". I imagine that most authors of a few decades ago, used certain words that today are wrong, while then, they were used because they weren't considered during those times, offensive. What better way for an English  Literature class to use such book as example of how society has improved and how the changes have benefitted us all. Simply "burning" all books that remotely refer to a person incorrectly or that appears offensive now but was not at the time, disallows the deep reason to understand the course of our world that is supposedly coming to grips with all sorts of injustices. We need to know what's wrong before we can fix it. I am a librarian, or was a few decades ago, and I can easily think of certain books, I would either want to see on the shelves of schools while there are others I think ought to be scanned and judged by today's standards and perhaps removed. At the same time, I would like to see those who might find the text offensive present before decisions are made to remove the material. Writing and or speaking are one of the ways of making changes to right wrongs and within that power, is a big responsibility before muzzling speech or throwing out books whose darkness needs some curative light, the light of change. 

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