Category: Labeling and Rating
Book Rating Websites as Tools for Censorship
Rating systems are tools or labels devised by a person or organization to advise people about the suitability of books and other library materials for readers. Recently, several book rating systems devised by religious and political pressure groups are promoting ratings, book reviews, and content labels that identify many books as “objectionable content.”
Statement Regarding Midwest Tape/Hoopla Age and Content Ratings System
The Office for Intellectual Freedom is aware that Midwest Tape / Hoopla plans to offer an audience or content filtering system to librarians and library workers. The system will allow librarians and library workers to filter the platform’s content based on whether Midwest Tape / Hoopla believes the materials contain content some consider questionable or controversial for certain audiences. OIF has reached out to Midwest Tape / Hoopla to discuss our concerns about the proposal.
AASL Tackles Labeling Practices in School Libraries
AASL formally dissuades school librarians from labeling items according to content and reading level.
Common Sense Media and ‘Positive Messages’ About Youth
In Common Sense Media’s reviews, conflating the the amount of “inappropriate” content and the value of the messages within the same five-star rating system does a disservice to parents, youth, and art as a whole.
Euphoria and the Tyranny of “Positive Messages”
Euphoria recognizes that progress and growth don’t happen in a straight line. Works of art are not simply vehicles for morals and “positive messages,” and Common Sense Media’s rating system over-simplifies the relationship between art and virtue.
Could Genre-based Classification Limit Intellectual Freedom?
BISAC headings have made their way into public and school libraries as well. A 2013 Knowledge Quest issue on the “Dewey Debate” provides a good intro to the “Dewey or don’t we” debate in school libraries, and many public libraries have made news for their move toward the “bookstore model,” what is often called a more patron-friendly approach than the Dewey Decimal System.
The Problem with Reading Levels
How do educators create a society of readers? It’s not by restricting reading to an accepted range of Lexile levels or only books that have a quiz attached to them. Reading levels can be a useful tool to assist in guiding a child to the right book for them, but when those numbers become the only determining factor of what is acceptable to read, we have a problem.
Trigger Warnings and Intellectual Freedom
Trigger warnings, initially designed to give advance notice of content potentially detrimental to those who have suffered trauma, have made their way into everyday situations and become code for ‘stuff that may be offensive or upsetting.’
Warning: Explicit Content
Regulations have been proposed and are being considered by the Virginia Board of Education which would require local school districts to tell parents whenever books or textbooks contain “sexually explicit material” are being used for teaching.
Common Sense Media: Promoting Family Values or Dictating Them?
These days, Common Sense Media’s initiatives contain a less than subtle paternalism based on the conviction that its values should control children’s learning experiences. Early pronouncements like Core Belief #6 (“We believe that through informed decision making, we can improve the media landscape one decision at a time”) suddenly come across as a determination to reform that landscape in its own image.