Re: Burger King Mentality

[Deborah Marie Collier <collie@TENET.EDU>]

A question just popped into my mind while reading this recent thread.
This is especially for school librarians who don't believe Internet
access should be censored:

How many of you have a subscription to _Penthouse_, _Playboy(girl_),
_Hustler_, etc. on your periodical shelves? If not, then why? If you
don't, don't you think you've "censored" what the students have access
to? Maybe the answer is to try to "censor" what actually comes into
our libraries via the Internet & various "blockout" programs.

We ALL censor--when we decide what to spend our hard-to-come-by budget
on if at no other time-- & you may call it what you will--if we're honest
all us librarians have done it. We don't buy books for our libraries that
we are sure would cause flack--we don't want to knowingly invite a
reconsideration process. A lot of us (me included) don't buy books whose
message goes against what our personal values & beliefs may be--such as
homosexuality, devil worship/witchcraft, etc.

We are only human, after all, & even if we had unlimited budgets I KNOW
there are some books & other printed materials that would NEVER make it
to our shelves--even if they were handed out free. Ultimately our
conscious must be our guide.

This is just my $ .02 worth from where I see this problem, & it's
probably not even worth that!

******************************************************
*   Debbie Collier          Orange Grove Elementary  *
*   Librarian &             Houston, Texas           *
*   "Resourceress"          COLLIE@TENET.EDU         *
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