62nd chat, Tuesday July 26th 2016: “offensive” items in the collection
6pm Pacific / 7pm Mountain / 8pm Central / 9pm Eastern
Moderated by @zoh_zoh
Storify (pdf, html) by @violetbfox
Suggested readings:
- Emily Knox, “The Books Will Still Be in the Library”: Narrow Definitions of Censorship in the Discourse of Challengers. From Library Trends, volume 62, number 4, Spring 2014
- Alison Leigh Cowan, A Library’s Approach to Books That Offend. From The New York Times, August 19 2009
- ALA’s Diversity in Collection Development: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (last amended July 2014)
Discussion questions:
- Q1. What kinds of materials in your library have offended your users?
- Q2. What kinds of materials in your library have you & your staff found offensive?
- Q3. Is it censorship to relocate/reclassify items?
- Q4. How do you empower your users to be directly involved in collection development and maintenance?