Just Shelf It

Censorship is a big topic, a very very big topic. I think all of us coming into class today were afraid that someone would say something, I am not sure what, but just something that would make another person tick. At least we all just acted like adults.


We were first given this book. Inside are a lot of nude drawings....a lot. As librarians, though, no matter what we think, we have to "just shelf it," as we could be providing information to kids who don't have access to it. I have to admit, when I thought about how some parents might react to it, might not like it. In the end though, this book could be a great introduction to "THE TALK," something I'm sure many parents find awkward to do.


This anatomy atlas is probably one of the best ever made. The illustrations are colored, detailed, and meticulously done. The author was a proud Nazi, but still, who would have qualms about this book? Well, it seems that the cadavers used in making this book were Holocaust victims. When the book was passed to me I shuddered to know this fact, but in the end this also needs to be just shelved.

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Freedom of Information is such a big issue to tackle, and those taking the LEEP course with me have been Moodling about it. A good questions recently brought up is whether we really do want all of the information out there to be free. We were assigned to write a paper- is someone going to post it to the class Moodle for everyone else to use it? How about authors and musicians and their right to royalties, is that really such a bad thing? These are questions that I believe have not been answered. I wonder how librarians out of the ideological frame of grad school have dealt with this.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Freedom is not Free."