Author: Jessica Garner
The Miraculous Existence of Libraries
“If libraries didn’t exist today, you couldn’t bring them into existence. You couldn’t go to Congress and say, ‘Listen, publishers of America, we have a bill to publicly fund a place where people just loan out your product and then [patrons] get it and they bring it back… Are you cool with that?’
A Bad Basketball Dad and Libraries: A Metaphor
By: guest blogger Scott Garner
The GDPR’s Facebook Break-up
Like a vague, passive-aggressive post on the social media site itself, Facebook changed its terms of service for a whopping 1.4 billion users without warning.
Separate is still not equal
gain a battlefront on the Culture Wars intrudes on public libraries, as it so often does. Again we hope against hope to see strong voices emerge to encourage the people of Orange City to reject moves to control their collections and acquisitions.
What does Confucius say about intellectual freedom?
No easy solution exists precisely because defining the borders between intellectual freedom and intellectual dishonesty is so hard. Where does intent factor in to drawing “the line?” What about faith? In the South, we say “you can’t fix stupid,” but intellectual freedom includes the freedom to go down many paths, right?
A (Short) Reading List to Make Your Gun Debate Smarter
As librarians interested in intellectual freedom, we should welcome patrons who seek out something more substantial in their quest to understand these troubling events, no matter which side of the political spectrum they come to the library from. I’ve taken a few moments to compile a list of books relevant to discussions about mass shootings and the gun debate. The list includes fiction and nonfiction, and hopefully includes a spectrum of ideas and ideologies.
‘Free Speech Absolutism’ is the 1A Debate Du Jour
The fight echoes the battles libraries have long fought regarding content versus access. These issues are likely to show up in libraries yet again.
Looking at the Climate of Data Protection as GDPR Looms
Just as the FCC moved to hand large swaths of authority over the internet to corporations by nullifying Obama-era regulations, the United States also made a largely symbolic gesture by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. The response by both public and private entities in the U.S. following the withdrawal from Paris may hold clues about the effect of the GDPR on internet privacy here in the United States.