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Teen Sex Magazine to Stay on Shelves at Iowa Library Sunday, November 22, 2009 AMES, Iowa — A teen sex magazine will stay on the shelves at the Ames Public Library despite a petition signed by more than 100 parents objecting to the publication. The Ames Library Board voted 6-1 to support library Director Art Weeks' recommendation to keep the magazine Sex, Ect., in the teen section. The magazine is written by and for teens under the oversight of Answer, a national sexuality organization at Rutgers University. It addresses teen sexuality issues, substance abuse and eating disorders.

Paul Schupska knows his history. Over the years, his vast collections of baseball, World War I and II and antique toys have been displayed at community public libraries throughout the area. Whether it is a vintage GI Joe or an authentic World War II map used by Allied forces in a European bunker, Schupska prides himself on the completeness of his displays, on telling as much of a complete history as possible. When he recently showcased his World War II collection at the Pasadena Public Library on Fairmont, the Nazi insignias were part of that story. He has shown several...

Visit most public school libraries and you'll find an array of books that address the subject of homosexuality. Many include sexually explicit content, and some even include graphic images. But if you're looking for a book that refers to the possibility that homosexuality can be "reversed," a Chicago-based group says your best bet is the banned books list.

The novelist and children's writer Philip Pullman has been showered with awards that include a CBE, a Carnegie Medal and several honorary professorships. This week he notched up a new distinction: he is ranked second in the top 10 books that people have tried to ban across America. Pullman's fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials, has leapt to the top of the target list of would-be censors in the new rankings issued this week by the American Library Association. Several schools across America faced requests from parents to remove the book. One challenge at a school in Winchester, Kentucky was made...

How ironic it is that when news emerges of Governor Palin's book becoming available prior to its expected date, she shows up in my school's library. No, she didn't show up in person and no, there was no announcement to inform interested students about her book, which reportedly is already number one on the Barnes and Noble list. She showed up in the center of a display highlighting Banned Books Week.

Brooklyn's chief librarian has yanked a nearly 80-year-old book from the shelves because it depicts Africans as monkeys. Tintin Au Congo is the only book in the city library system hidden from public view after a reader complained that it was "racially offensive." The popular Belgian children's work - due to be made into a movie by Steven Spielberg - is locked behind a series of hidden doors on the third floor of Brooklyn's central library. "'Tintin au Congo' was relocated," said director Richard Reyes-Gavilan. Library officials across the city said they've debated pulling about 25 books and DVDs from...

Panel dropped after invitation of Islam critic Three speakers pull out of ALA forum on Muslim religion By Shaun Waterman Monday, July 13, 2009 The American Library Association has canceled a panel discussion on Islam planned for its annual conference over the weekend, after three speakers withdrew in protest at the inclusion of the fourth, a controversial critic of the Muslim religion. The critic, Robert Spencer, who runs the blog site JihadWatch.org, told The Washington Times that he learned of the decision to cancel Sunday's panel - "Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping" - in an e-mail message Saturday morning...

BEVERLY, Mass. -- The former director of the Beverly Public Library who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography wants to keep his $31,000 annual public pension. Thomas Scully has filed a lawsuit in Salem Superior Court claiming the city Retirement Board has no right to revoke his pension on the grounds of "moral turpitude." Scully's suit filed Friday claims he would suffer "severe financial loss" if he loses his pension because he is unlikely to land another job in his field. Scully's pension was approved in May 2005, after his arrest, but his lawyer tells The Salem News the decision...

San Jose City Council to reconsider porn filters at libraries San Jose officials are preparing for a showdown later this month over online pornography in city libraries. City officials last considered whether to electronically filter library Internet use in 1997. At the time, they overwhelmingly concluded the technology was too primitive to snag smut without also snaring information about health topics like breast cancer. The council will revisit that decision in what is expected to be a heavily attended evening meeting April 21. Councilman Pete Constant since October 2007 has called for reconsidering that move. He has cited improvements in...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to consider attempts to revive a 1998 law intended to protect children from Internet pornography, ending a legal conflict dating to the administration of President Bill Clinton. Without comment, the court handed down an order declining to take the case of Mukasey v. A.C.L.U., No. 08-565. The administration of former President George W. Bush, through Attorney General Michael Mukasey, had asked the justices to review the law. The American Civil Liberties Union has been a leading foe of the statute. The Child Online Protection Act has been the subject of court battles...

Students Protest School Library’s Rejection of Christian Books on Homosexuality

As part of the microscopic scrutiny applied to Sarah Palin’s record, the public has been told that as the incoming Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska in 1996, Palin dared to ask the town librarian what would happen if anyone objected to an inappropriate book. She merely inquired, but "anti-censorship" activists, perpetually filled with visions of a trash can full of burning books, exploded. At the time, the Anchorage Daily News captured the librarian, one Mary Ellen Emmons, putting up her First Amendment dukes. “I told her clearly, I will fight anyone who tries to dictate what books can go on the...

WASILLA — Responding to news reports about then-Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin asking a librarian how she would feel about banning books, a San Francisco man has donated two children’s books dealing with homosexuality to the Wasilla Library. Mike Petrelis, a 49-year-old who files Freedom of Information requests for a living, said he was aghast to read reports of Palin’s 1996 inquiry about banning certain books at Wasilla’s library. The news — old news in the Mat-Su Valley, but new in the Lower 48 — prompted Petrelis to send to Wasilla “Heather Has Two Mommies” and “Daddy’s Roommate,” both children’s books...

In most cases, the one to bring a complaint to the library is a concerned parent or a citizen sincerely interested in the future wellbeing of the community. Although complainants may not have a broad knowledge of literature or of the principles of freedom of expression, their motives in questioning a book or other library material are seldom unusual. Any number of reasons are given for recommending that certain material be removed from the library. Complainants may believe that the materials will corrupt children and adolescents, offend the sensitive or unwary reader, or undermine basic values and beliefs. Sometimes, for...

Librarians irked colleague sent unverified Palin e-mail By LAURA GREEN Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 11, 2008 A Palm Beach County School District library manager set off an e-mail controversy this week when she sent school librarians a list of books Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin allegedly tried to ban as mayor of a small Alaska town. Problem was the list turned out to be a hoax. It included Harry Potter books that weren't yet published when Palin had an exchange with the Wasilla librarian about removing books.

Sarah Palin seems like a perfectly normal person, but partisans both in and out of the media have been busily trying to depict her as some sort of religious nut. Among other things, Palin's opponents claim that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she was a "book banner"--which is to say, that she sought to have books removed from the local public library. This claim has been debunked--but not before it has spread all over the Internet with the help of some in the mainstream media. The book-banner tale seems to have originated in a widely circulated Aug. 31 email from...

WASILLA -- Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so. According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn’t fully support her and...

ALA to Libraries: Keep Alms for Jihad, Pulped in the UK Andrew Albanese & Jennifer Pinkowski -- Library Journal At the urging of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), a scholarly book pulped by its British publisher is maintaining a safe haven in U.S. libraries. Alms for Jihad was the target of a potential libel suit in England by Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose charitable activities have reportedly been linked to terrorist activities, as conveyed in the book. In response, publisher Cambridge University Press (CUP) pulped its unsold copies of the book, put it out of...

An Ohio county public library has closed its meeting rooms to the public rather than allow them to be used by a Christian group. George and Cathy Vandergriff wanted to host a Crown Financial Ministries "Financial Freedom" workshop in a public meeting room at the Clermont County, Ohio, public library. Tim Chandler, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), says the couple was told that, because the class would be quoting from the Bible, they could not hold it at the library. "The Supreme Court said, more than 25 years ago, that once you've opened up meeting space, you...

A Northwest Side man was charged with a hate crime and his three adult sons were charged with felony aggravated battery in an alleged attack on a motorist in which racial epithets were shouted, prosecutors said. Mahmoud Alkhazaleh, 53, of the 5500 block of North Mango Avenue also was charged with aggravated battery and vehicle invasion in a June 9 attack on a man who allegedly had honked his horn to prod Alkhazaleh to step out of the path of his truck, according to court documents. Alkhazaleh called the victim a "blue-eyed devil" and an " 'American [expletive]' during a...

Quoting Scripture banned in library community room 'What next? Will board keep patrons from reading Bible?' Posted: June 10, 2008 9:33 pm Eastern © 2008 WorldNetDaily Quoting from the Bible has been banned in a community room at the public library in Clermont County, Ohio, and now a couple who sought to use the facility for a financial planning seminar have brought a court case.snip...However, when Cathy Vandergriff asked in person to use a meeting room for a financial planning meeting, the conversation with the library employee took an unwelcome turn. "When Mrs. Vandergriff indicated that the seminar would be...

Personnel records used to justify the dismissal of a librarian who reported to police a man viewing child pornography on a public computer were changed after her dismissal, according to a law firm working on behalf of Brenda Biesterfield. That, however, hasn't stopped the county from justifying its actions and citing the changed records."The actions of Tulare County officials in firing Brenda Biesterfeld are simply inexcusable," said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University's school of law."She should be reinstated and compensated for the injustice done to her," he said. "The Tulare County Library ought...

<p>Woops, an errant email advisory sent to House Democratic members by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office had some unique suggested talking points for the upcoming "Read Across America" day. Basically, it said, just tell the kids and their teachers: blah, blah, blah.</p> <p>"Blah, blah, blah, blah Blah, blah, blah."</p>

Story title: Child Porn Suspect Ordered to Stand Trial; Man Accused of Accessing Images on Unfiltered Library Computer A computer glitch actually prevents the library from protecting a criminal from arrest! Story excerpt: ROYAL OAK - When James Mullaney got timed out of his computer session at Royal Oak Public Library, James Boothe said he logged on to the same terminal and was appalled at the screen that appeared. "It was child pornography," Boothe told 44th District Court Judge Terrence Brennan. "...I was taken aback by the images and I got up immediately and notified the desk." The computer screen...

What distinguishes us from all other nations is the range and depth of the First Amendment's expressive individual liberties against government control of what we say and think. Having researched and written about it for more than 50 years, I can attest that the most compelling readable account of its tumultuous and often imperiled history is the newly published "Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment" by Anthony Lewis (Basic Books). Part of the title comes from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' warning of the most powerful need of the First Amendment, especially...

The unassuming international champion of universal health care, Michael Moore, was asked (New York Sun, June 29) whether, while filming "Sicko," he inquired about the condition of Cuban journalist Normando Gonzalez, a political prisoner since 2003. He has contracted severe chronic illnesses while in a Castro gulag. Moore answered that he asked only about Cuba's health care system while he was there. Among other suffering prisoners in Cuban cells who would have added further dimension to "Sicko" are independent librarians, put away for more than 20-year sentences for the crime of giving Cubans access to books and other publications forbidden...

Michael Moore — enjoying another hit with his "Sicko" film — was asked by the New York Sun whether, while he was shooting the movie in Cuba, he visited any of Fidel Castro's seriously ill political prisoners. His answer was that in making his cinematic attack on America's health system in Castroland, he focused entirely on the Cuban alternative. Among other suffering prisoners in Cuban cells who would have added further dimension to "Sicko" are independent librarians, put away for more than 20-year sentences for the crime of giving Cubans access to books and other publications forbidden in state libraries....

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Mayor Jim Naugle took another swipe at gays Tuesday, attacking a request that the Stonewall gay and lesbian book archive be housed on city property. The tiff over the adult book collection brought to City Hall a war that started last week between Naugle and gays in the city. Naugle's comments about gays, published last week in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, touched off a fierce controversy. In recent days, e-mails spilled into City Hall demanding that Naugle be rebuked and that he publicly apologize.

LANCASTER, Ohio — Police tried to identify a woman they pulled from an icy river by checking on her library card, but the library would not cooperate, citing a policy set by its board. The woman, who was treated for unknown injuries, was carrying her library card on a key ring but had no other identification when a passer-by found her in the Hocking River on Thursday night, police said. So a dispatcher, then an officer called the Fairfield County District Library and were told the library could not release the information without a court order. The woman later was...

(AP) RACINE, Wis. -- A registered sex offender is headed back to prison after a woman at the Racine Public Library saw him using a computer to view child pornography and reported him to the staff. William C. Norris, 58, of Racine, sentenced this week to five years in prison, previously served a sentence for second-degree sexual assault of a child and was out on bond after being accused in 2005 of violating the state's sex offender registry. The library incident happened a year ago and resulted in four counts against Norris of possession of child pornography. He pleaded guilty...

WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) - Federal authorities are seeking information about the effectiveness of entertainment industry efforts to keep adult products out of kids' hands as customers migrate to the Internet and mobile services from brick-and-mortar stores, according to showbiz executives. The data will form part of the Federal Trade Commission's congressionally mandated biennial report on the way the entertainment industry markets adult fare. FTC spokeswoman Jackie Disdul said the commission has yet to set a schedule for the report's release. "The last time they did the report, online content was barely a glimmer in anyone's eye," said one industry executive....

KIDS, PORN AND POLITICS Sunday, September 10, 2006 David Reinhard, Assoc. Ed. The Oregonian Editorial Rob Brading had a chance to stand up for children and blew it -- twice. The Democratic challenger to House Speaker Karen Minnis had a chance to champion the common-sense notion that children are different than adults and said nothing -- twice. Brading had a chance to protect kids from pornography when they're in Multnomah County public libraries and did nothing -- twice. First, as a member of the Multnomah County Library Advisory Board, he voted for the county to join with the American Civil...

The dean of library services at the University of the Incarnate Word has canceled the library's subscription to the New York Times to protest articles exposing a secret government program that monitors international financial transactions in the hunt for terrorists. "Since no one elected the New York Times to determine national security policy, the only action I know to register protest for their irresponsible action (treason?) is to withdraw support of their operations by canceling our subscription as many others are doing," Mendell D. Morgan Jr. wrote Wednesday in an e-mail to library staffers. "If enough do, perhaps they will...

After fighting for nearly a year to keep details of a counterterrorism investigation secret, the federal government has abandoned efforts to obtain library records in Connecticut, concluding that the implied threat had no merit. The decision was hailed yesterday as a victory by the four Connecticut librarians who mounted one of the few known challenges to the nation's strengthened antiterrorism law when they filed a lawsuit last summer objecting to the government's request for patron records and its insistence on absolute secrecy. Government officials, in seeking to explain why something that was once a matter of national security was no...

While the debate rages over what to do with the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library and whether we need a new central library for the city, a larger concern is being ignored: Internet porn at the library. When I walked into the West End Branch Library on 24th Street NW last week, several men were sitting at the computers, looking at hard-core pornography on the Internet. Meanwhile, children on the other side of the room were also using computers. One child was running around behind the men, who were studiously observing the most intimate parts of a woman's body...

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) is a division of the American Library Association that likes to offer sexual advice for teens (check: Healthy Relationships for Teens). One of the web sites they recommend (under Resources for Teens: Sexuality and Sexual Behavior) is the Coalition for Positive Sexuality. The organization can be also found at Wikipedia. Parents of teens, meet the CPS. It was designed for “teens who are sexually active now or just thinking about having sex.” So, next time you talk to your teen about sex, tell him to “Just Say Yes”: Just Say Yes is about...

During the lazy, long, hot days of summer, which activity would you rather see your son or daughter engaged in – playing a video game or reading a book? A silly question, right? After all, nearly every parent will say, "Reading a book." But whether that's truly the better activity depends on what book your child is reading. And as I've told readers of this column before, plenty of books designed for today's pre-teens and teenagers undermine the traditional moral values most parents struggle to teach their children. This time of year, kids of all ages come home with...

A renewed effort by several members of the American Library Association's governing council would sever all ties with the Boy Scouts of America until the youth organization stops "discriminating" against avowed atheists and homosexuals. In 1998, the governing council of the ALA, the world's largest library organization, condemned the Boy Scouts over its policies, but a WorldNetDaily investigation reveals activists quietly are planning to take action at the association's annual convention in June. The renewed effort is led by Mark Rosenzweig, formerly an official archivist with the U.S. Communist Party and a chief defender of Fidel Castro in the ALA...

Today I called my local small town library which is staffed by wonderful people. My 11 year old son was with me and we were calling to renew his two library books. The librarian said that he actually had six books out and several were overdue. I asked her which ones were out and her statement was: I cannot tell you because of your son's right to privacy. I thought she was joking. Then I became angry. I later spoke to the Head of the Library Board who told me that he was equally shocked that there was such a...

When writer Marcia Segelstein headed to the bookstore to scout out books for her 12-year-old, she wasn’t sure what to expect. But she certainly didn’t expect rampant drinking, drug use, profanity, and explicit descriptions of sex and nudity. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what she found. Segelstein’s daughter had been clamoring to read the Gossip Girl series, which “‘all’ of her friends were reading,” she said. After seeing what was in the books, Segelstein was floored. But a school librarian confirmed, “They’re very popular among sixth and seventh graders.” Even worse, the librarian added, “Some parents are so happy that their kids...

(AgapePress) - A proposed bill in the Oklahoma Legislature would require public libraries that receive state funds to remove materials containing sexually explicit content or homosexual themes from general reading areas.The proposed law easily passed a State House panel last week and now heads to the full House for a vote. The bill would withhold state funds from public libraries that do not put objectionable material in a special place. Steve Crampton, chief counsel with the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy, says the bill is reasonable."All it does is remove [the material] from, basically, an accidental...

On March 10, parts of the Patriot Act expire again. Section 215, most famous for the alleged threat it poses to library patrons ... doesn't single out libraries but relates to official requests for "... books, records, ... etc.". The provision is not known to have been invoked yet .... To hear the ALA talk, librarians are the last bulwark defending our most cherished civil liberties against government assault. Yet two recent examples show again that self-anointed guardians of the public good can be very selective about the people, and rights, they choose to protect. One example came from Newton,...

OCALA, Fla. -- A 50-year-old classic novel about forbidden love is shaking things up in Marion County. The controversy centers on the book "Lolita" and whether it's obscene under today's standards, WESH 2 News reported. "Lolita" is a famous novel full of pages and pages of sexually explicit material about pedophilia. "I believe that you, at least hypothetically, could read this book and consider it obscene," said Terry Blaes, of Dunnellon. She challenged the Marion County Commission to determine whether they should pull "Lolita" from public library shelves, as they have the right to do so. "I want you to...

Controversies over books in public libraries -- mostly school libraries -- have been around for decades but a new round of protests by parents is breaking out in Maryland, Virginia, California, Arkansas and other states. With the introduction of a new genre of literature and the presence of the Internet, this battle has taken some new twists. Moreover, much of the usual propaganda promulgated by the American Library Association (ALA) regarding "censorship" and "book burning" is increasingly falling on deaf ears. It’s a dirty little secret that the librarians of today are far removed from the prim and proper characterization...

A senior at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth says he was visited at his parents’ home by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security who were investigating why he had requested a book by former Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong through interlibrary loan. The student, who has asked university officials to shield his identity, told two UMD history professors that the incident took place in late October or early November after he attempted to obtain a copy of the first English edition of the Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, published in Beijing in 1966 and popularly known in...

A staffer at the LaPorte County (Ind.) Public Library’s Coolspring branch received a one-week suspension for spending too much time attempting to rescue a squirrel trapped in the library’s ceiling. Cindee Goetz said in the December 1 Michigan City (Ind.) News-Dispatch that when a company hired by the library switched from using a non-kill trap to a kill trap, she asked a friend who owns a humane animal-removal business to capture the squirrel. Goetz said she was then suspended without pay for “not giving the library its just due.” She told the newspaper, “They said I went around the chain...

(Washington-AP, Updated 7:50 PM) _ Connecticut libraries lost an emergency Supreme Court appeal on Friday in their effort to be freed from a gag order and participate in a congressional debate over the Patriot Act. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg denied the appeal and offered an unusually detailed explanation of her decision. Ginsburg said the American Civil Liberties Union had made reasonable arguments on behalf of its client, identified in a filing as the Library Connection, an association of libraries in Connecticut. However, Ginsburg said that the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should be given time to consider...

Libraries and schools throughout the country are ready once again to observe Banned Books Week. It's that special time each year when some in the library profession point an accusing finger at parents, especially Christians or conservatives who might dare to question the value or appropriateness of certain materials available to youth. For 25 years since its inception, Banned Books Week has been warning America: "Beware of the ignorance and repression of censors! They will deprive us all of valuable knowledge and freedom." Setting aside any danger that the government might ban valuable materials, which is not happening in any...

"Banishment" from a Public Library? August 20, 2005 I recently received a letter from a local Public Library that was not unexpected. Over the years I have sought to educate the public with regard to the murder of the preborn. Public libraries are a great place to disperse information. In most Public Libraries you can find books with graphic nudity, perversion, introductions to the sodomite lifestyle and the like. The American Library Association will let most anything pass as "good literature" and they raise their voice against "censorship" if ever a "prudish" individual questions a selection in the collection of...

The current flap over Spanish-language dirty comic books on the shelves of the Denver Public Library raises a number of serious questions. One such publication is titled La Policiaca Novela. It features graphic illustrations of well-endowed, bare-breasted women repeatedly engaged in sexual intercourse or on the receiving end of severe beatings from men. Diane Lapierre, the library's director of strategic initiatives (more on what that title suggests later), prefers to call these comic books "illustrated novellas" and says they are very popular among Latino library users. She claims, "They are targeted at people who don't have strong reading skills and...