by: Andrew Adam Newman
As physical formats and devices have shrunk, revenues for the audiobook industry have grown, since it is more convenient to listen to an iPod while exercising and commuting than fiddling with CDs. Digital downloads grew to 21 percent of the industry’s total sales in 2008, from 6 percent in 2004, according to the Audiobook Publishers Association.
It is all the more odd, then, that Hachette Audio recently announced that the latest audiobook by David Sedaris, “Live for Your Listening Pleasure,” which features readings before audiences, would be available on the least portable of formats: vinyl.
Reminiscent of Blue Note albums from the 1950s and 1960s, the cover features a photograph of a woman sprawled on a white shag rug with a come-hither look, albums strewn about.
Albums are enjoying something of a renaissance, posting $57 million in sales in 2008, more than double the previous year and the best for the format since 1990, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. The format is so rare for audiobooks, however, that the Audiobook Publishers Association has never even tracked its sales.
But Maja Thomas, senior vice president for digital and audio publishing at the Hachette Book Group, said she was drawn to the idea precisely because it was quirky. Mr. Sedaris’s “audience is very attuned to irony and is going to find this funny,” Ms. Thomas said.
The 31-minute album, which will be released on Jan. 5 and cost $24.98, will include only two of the five essays on the CD version of the audiobook, but will feature a code enabling purchasers to digitally download the entire program.
Hachette was less kind to another past-its-prime format in 2008. Upon releasing “Sail,” a novel by James Patterson and Howard Roughan, in a cassette version, it declared it would no longer release in the format and held a mock funeral for cassettes in its Manhattan office.
“We had a funeral for one format, but you can think of this as the ultimate zombie,” Ms. Thomas said. “The record is coming back from the dead.”
From: NYTimes
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Stephen King planning possible sequel to The Shining
by: James Grainger
Last night at Toronto’s packed Canon Theatre, fans of Stephen King were treated to a 15-minute reading from the author’s new novel, Under the Dome, and nearly an hour’s worth of typically funny anecdotes and keen observations during an on-stage interview with director David Cronenberg. Then King dropped a fan bombshell on the crowd by casually describing a novel idea he began working on last summer. Seems King was wondering whatever happened to Danny Torrance of The Shining, who when readers last saw him was recovering from his ordeal at the Overlook Hotel at a resort in Maine with fellow survivors Wendy Torrance and chef Dick Halloran (who dies in the Kubrick film version). King remarked that though he ended his 1977 novel on a positive note, the Overlook was bound to have left young Danny with a lifetime’s worth of emotional scars. What Danny made of those traumatic experiences, and with the psychic powers that saved him from his father at the Overlook, is a question that King believes might make a damn fine sequel.
So what would a sequel to one of King’s most beloved novels look like? In King’s still tentative plan for the novel, Danny is now 40 years old and living in upstate New York, where he works as the equivalent of an orderly at a hospice for the terminally ill. Danny’s real job is to visit with patients who are just about to pass on to the other side, and to help them make that journey with the aid of his mysterious powers. Danny also has a sideline in betting on the horses, a trick he learned from his buddy Dick Hallorann.
The title for King’s proposed sequel? Doctor Sleep.
Perhaps sensing that he’d let the cat out of the plot bag a little early, King then told Cronenberg and the audience that he wasn’t completely committed to the new novel, going so far as to say, “Maybe if I keep talking about it I won’t have to write it.”
Let’s hope King doesn’t have too many interviews booked in the next six months.
From: Torontoist
Last night at Toronto’s packed Canon Theatre, fans of Stephen King were treated to a 15-minute reading from the author’s new novel, Under the Dome, and nearly an hour’s worth of typically funny anecdotes and keen observations during an on-stage interview with director David Cronenberg. Then King dropped a fan bombshell on the crowd by casually describing a novel idea he began working on last summer. Seems King was wondering whatever happened to Danny Torrance of The Shining, who when readers last saw him was recovering from his ordeal at the Overlook Hotel at a resort in Maine with fellow survivors Wendy Torrance and chef Dick Halloran (who dies in the Kubrick film version). King remarked that though he ended his 1977 novel on a positive note, the Overlook was bound to have left young Danny with a lifetime’s worth of emotional scars. What Danny made of those traumatic experiences, and with the psychic powers that saved him from his father at the Overlook, is a question that King believes might make a damn fine sequel.
So what would a sequel to one of King’s most beloved novels look like? In King’s still tentative plan for the novel, Danny is now 40 years old and living in upstate New York, where he works as the equivalent of an orderly at a hospice for the terminally ill. Danny’s real job is to visit with patients who are just about to pass on to the other side, and to help them make that journey with the aid of his mysterious powers. Danny also has a sideline in betting on the horses, a trick he learned from his buddy Dick Hallorann.
The title for King’s proposed sequel? Doctor Sleep.
Perhaps sensing that he’d let the cat out of the plot bag a little early, King then told Cronenberg and the audience that he wasn’t completely committed to the new novel, going so far as to say, “Maybe if I keep talking about it I won’t have to write it.”
Let’s hope King doesn’t have too many interviews booked in the next six months.
From: Torontoist
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Ames library to keep teen sex magazine on shelves
by: Jennifer Meyer
A magazine about sex will stay where teens can find it at the Ames Public Library.
The Library Board of Trustees voted 6-1 Thursday to support Director Art Weeks’ recommendation to continue openly displaying and offering free copies of Sex, Etc. in the teen section.
Trustee Melody Warnick, however, said she agonized over the issue before casting the dissenting vote.
“It is very frank and honest in a way that teens need,” Warnick said, “but I agree with the Bannantines’ complaint … that we’re privileging this magazine over everything else that we have in the library.”
Joyce and John Bannantine presented a petition to the board last month with signatures of 118 parents with concerns about the topic and treatment of the magazine, which is written for teens by teens under the oversight of Answer, a national sexuality organization at Rutgers University.
“It is about this periodical being elevated above and beyond others,” John Bannantine said Thursday.
Sex, Etc. is displayed in a rack in the teen section with about a dozen other magazines. Ten copies for which the library pays $15 are also placed two at a time with information teens can take home without requiring sign-out.
“We’re simply asking that it would not be given preferential treatment,” said Tim Borseth, particularly since the articles can be “very difficult for some to read, offensive and biased.”
However, most of the 15 people who spoke at the board meeting attended by about 40 people disagreed.
“Libraries are not just where we keep the books, it’s where we keep the information, and we’ve believe the information at libraries is factual,” Susan Wallace, a writer and editor, said.
After reading the magazine, Wallace said, “I thought, ‘Wow, this is wonderful.’ It is peer to peer. It is professionally reviewed. I would urge you to keep this publication visible, accessible, open.”
Kate Dobson, a junior at Ames High, said cataloguing Sex, Etc. with other periodicals would make it more difficult for teens to access information they need.
“More recently than most people in this room, I went through sex education,” Dobson said. “I came home from school in fifth grade with lots of questions, and I wasn’t sure where to go for that information.”
Etta Thornburg, another young woman, said she sought out that information from romance novels, but “I don’t want kids … getting their information from romances, because quite honestly, it’s not accurate and it’s not very realistic.”
Harold Ault recalled getting information about sex through “word of mouth and the National Geographic magazine.”
“If it was called Comments on Social Interactions from Rutgers University, I don’t think people would get to it,” he said. But in response to the Bannantines’ fears that younger teens not seeking out the information could stumble upon the magazine, he said, “I had to hunt around the room to find it.”
Ray Rodriguez, a parent and sexual-health professional, said that not only do many 12-year-olds know about sex, but “many of them … engaging in sexual behavior are doing so based on myths … that Sex, Etc. and its articles do a lot to dispel.”
Tina Hopkins, who works in teen pregnancy prevention with Youth and Shelter Services, said, “It would be great if they got (accurate information) at home, but that’s not what’s happening.”
Parent Justine Dvorchak-Rodriguez told the board, “Sex, Etc. can help my daughter deal with some of the questions she may not feel comfortable talking with me.”
Trustee Sherry Meier addressed parents who asked the library to restrict access to Sex, Etc. to allow “the parents to be the parents.” She said they can do that by monitoring what their child is reading.
Trustee Al Campbell, said, “This is a library and this is about access to information.”
Trustee Harry Budd said he read two issues of the magazine, which publishes three times each year. An article in one issue made him a little uncomfortable, he said.
“Thankfully,” Budd said, “not everything in this library conforms with my beliefs and values.”
from: Ames Tribune
A magazine about sex will stay where teens can find it at the Ames Public Library.
The Library Board of Trustees voted 6-1 Thursday to support Director Art Weeks’ recommendation to continue openly displaying and offering free copies of Sex, Etc. in the teen section.
Trustee Melody Warnick, however, said she agonized over the issue before casting the dissenting vote.
“It is very frank and honest in a way that teens need,” Warnick said, “but I agree with the Bannantines’ complaint … that we’re privileging this magazine over everything else that we have in the library.”
Joyce and John Bannantine presented a petition to the board last month with signatures of 118 parents with concerns about the topic and treatment of the magazine, which is written for teens by teens under the oversight of Answer, a national sexuality organization at Rutgers University.
“It is about this periodical being elevated above and beyond others,” John Bannantine said Thursday.
Sex, Etc. is displayed in a rack in the teen section with about a dozen other magazines. Ten copies for which the library pays $15 are also placed two at a time with information teens can take home without requiring sign-out.
“We’re simply asking that it would not be given preferential treatment,” said Tim Borseth, particularly since the articles can be “very difficult for some to read, offensive and biased.”
However, most of the 15 people who spoke at the board meeting attended by about 40 people disagreed.
“Libraries are not just where we keep the books, it’s where we keep the information, and we’ve believe the information at libraries is factual,” Susan Wallace, a writer and editor, said.
After reading the magazine, Wallace said, “I thought, ‘Wow, this is wonderful.’ It is peer to peer. It is professionally reviewed. I would urge you to keep this publication visible, accessible, open.”
Kate Dobson, a junior at Ames High, said cataloguing Sex, Etc. with other periodicals would make it more difficult for teens to access information they need.
“More recently than most people in this room, I went through sex education,” Dobson said. “I came home from school in fifth grade with lots of questions, and I wasn’t sure where to go for that information.”
Etta Thornburg, another young woman, said she sought out that information from romance novels, but “I don’t want kids … getting their information from romances, because quite honestly, it’s not accurate and it’s not very realistic.”
Harold Ault recalled getting information about sex through “word of mouth and the National Geographic magazine.”
“If it was called Comments on Social Interactions from Rutgers University, I don’t think people would get to it,” he said. But in response to the Bannantines’ fears that younger teens not seeking out the information could stumble upon the magazine, he said, “I had to hunt around the room to find it.”
Ray Rodriguez, a parent and sexual-health professional, said that not only do many 12-year-olds know about sex, but “many of them … engaging in sexual behavior are doing so based on myths … that Sex, Etc. and its articles do a lot to dispel.”
Tina Hopkins, who works in teen pregnancy prevention with Youth and Shelter Services, said, “It would be great if they got (accurate information) at home, but that’s not what’s happening.”
Parent Justine Dvorchak-Rodriguez told the board, “Sex, Etc. can help my daughter deal with some of the questions she may not feel comfortable talking with me.”
Trustee Sherry Meier addressed parents who asked the library to restrict access to Sex, Etc. to allow “the parents to be the parents.” She said they can do that by monitoring what their child is reading.
Trustee Al Campbell, said, “This is a library and this is about access to information.”
Trustee Harry Budd said he read two issues of the magazine, which publishes three times each year. An article in one issue made him a little uncomfortable, he said.
“Thankfully,” Budd said, “not everything in this library conforms with my beliefs and values.”
from: Ames Tribune
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Borders Website Suspends Book Sales
Borders has stopped taking orders for new books on its website while the retailer "is in discussion with potential buyers".
The firm said that existing customer orders are also being delayed but will be fulfilled.
The Borders Entertainment part of the site - which sells DVDs, CDs and electrical items - continues to operate as normal.
Some publishers are also reported to have severed links with the retailer.
When customers try to order a book on the website they receive a message saying: "Sorry, title cannot be purchased."
Potential buyers
Reports have suggested that Borders, which has 45 stores in the UK, does not have enough cash to last until Christmas. It is thought it could go into administration if no buyer is found.
Talks with WH Smith reportedly collapsed last week. There is also speculation that HMV, the owner of Waterstones, is in talks to buy some of the stores. HMV refused to comment.
Borders, which also owns Books Etc, has suffered from increased competition from online retailers, such as Amazon, as well as supermarkets.
The Borders chain was originally owned by the US book giant of the same name but was sold in June 2007 to Risk Capital Partners.
Risk Capital then sold it on to the private equity firm Valco earlier this year.
From: BBC
The firm said that existing customer orders are also being delayed but will be fulfilled.
The Borders Entertainment part of the site - which sells DVDs, CDs and electrical items - continues to operate as normal.
Some publishers are also reported to have severed links with the retailer.
When customers try to order a book on the website they receive a message saying: "Sorry, title cannot be purchased."
Potential buyers
Reports have suggested that Borders, which has 45 stores in the UK, does not have enough cash to last until Christmas. It is thought it could go into administration if no buyer is found.
Talks with WH Smith reportedly collapsed last week. There is also speculation that HMV, the owner of Waterstones, is in talks to buy some of the stores. HMV refused to comment.
Borders, which also owns Books Etc, has suffered from increased competition from online retailers, such as Amazon, as well as supermarkets.
The Borders chain was originally owned by the US book giant of the same name but was sold in June 2007 to Risk Capital Partners.
Risk Capital then sold it on to the private equity firm Valco earlier this year.
From: BBC
Monday, November 23, 2009
Libraries turn Arizona Highways into shopping bags
by: Edythe Jensen Old Arizona Highways magazines donated to Chandler libraries are never trashed; they're taken apart and turned into shopping bags.
The practice is expected to save the downtown library's gift shop $200 a year, said shop manager Suzanne Kinsinger. Volunteers transform the colorful magazine pages into bags by using natural folds and taping the bottoms.
Now the magazine bags are bringing more compliments from customers than some of the items sold in the gift shop, she said. The project started about a year ago after Kinsinger visited Seattle where she noticed that city's library had shopping bags made from discarded paper items including posters.
Also coordinator for Friends of the Library used book sales, Kinsinger said large quantities of Arizona Highways magazines are donated to the sales but only the most recent ones and vintage issues are popular with buyers.
The magazine bags are ideal for purchases made from the gift shop's large greeting card collection, although more sturdy bags are required for larger items, she said. Sales at the shop and from the book sales support library programs that include children's reading programs, classes and computer labs. Library Manager Brenda Brown said the Friends group contributed $23,500 to those programs this year.
from: azcentral.com
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Purdue students protest librarian's blog post
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Some Purdue University students have called for a faculty member to be fired after he posted comments online urging discussion on what he called the economic cost to society of homosexuality.
Purdue officials said they would not discipline Bert Chapman, who is the university's government information and political science librarian and does not have a classroom teaching assignment.
Chapman wrote last month on the townhall.com Web site that money spent on AIDS would be better used for other health initiatives, such as cancer or heart disease research, and that the current health care debate needed to address "an economic case against homosexuality."
Purdue senior Kevin Casimer on Wednesday started a petition urging the university to take action against Chapman, saying his comments were embarrassing and detrimental to the school's reputation.
"People have confused what we are doing as attacking free speech," Casimer said. "But freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences."
Chapman, who has worked at Purdue for 15 years and has written three books about the military, describes himself on the blog as a conservative Christian. He says he started the blog two years to express his views.
The student newspaper has published several letters urging the university to fire him. Chapman said he was surprised at the backlash.
"It is sad we live in a time when truly free and open debate on controversial issues is characterized by such virulence," he said. "If gay rights opponents advocate removing First Amendment rights of gay rights proponents, there would be justifiable outrage over attempts to abridge their constitutional rights."
Purdue history professor Yvonne Pitts, who is a lesbian, said she totally disagreed with everything Chapman wrote, but that if the university disciplined him for his views it could chill others in the academic community.
"I would be disturbed if he lost his job because I would fear that my job could be in jeopardy for my activism," she said. "It is really good for students to be having this debate. But you can't call for his job."
University spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said Chapman acted within university policy by including a disclaimer on his blog that his viewpoints do not necessarily reflect those of the institution.
"There are many things on the Internet that would be offensive to many but that are protected by the First Amendment," Norberg said. "The best response is to speak up, which is exactly what our students and some faculty are doing."
from: Chicago Tribune
Purdue officials said they would not discipline Bert Chapman, who is the university's government information and political science librarian and does not have a classroom teaching assignment.
Chapman wrote last month on the townhall.com Web site that money spent on AIDS would be better used for other health initiatives, such as cancer or heart disease research, and that the current health care debate needed to address "an economic case against homosexuality."
Purdue senior Kevin Casimer on Wednesday started a petition urging the university to take action against Chapman, saying his comments were embarrassing and detrimental to the school's reputation.
"People have confused what we are doing as attacking free speech," Casimer said. "But freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences."
Chapman, who has worked at Purdue for 15 years and has written three books about the military, describes himself on the blog as a conservative Christian. He says he started the blog two years to express his views.
The student newspaper has published several letters urging the university to fire him. Chapman said he was surprised at the backlash.
"It is sad we live in a time when truly free and open debate on controversial issues is characterized by such virulence," he said. "If gay rights opponents advocate removing First Amendment rights of gay rights proponents, there would be justifiable outrage over attempts to abridge their constitutional rights."
Purdue history professor Yvonne Pitts, who is a lesbian, said she totally disagreed with everything Chapman wrote, but that if the university disciplined him for his views it could chill others in the academic community.
"I would be disturbed if he lost his job because I would fear that my job could be in jeopardy for my activism," she said. "It is really good for students to be having this debate. But you can't call for his job."
University spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said Chapman acted within university policy by including a disclaimer on his blog that his viewpoints do not necessarily reflect those of the institution.
"There are many things on the Internet that would be offensive to many but that are protected by the First Amendment," Norberg said. "The best response is to speak up, which is exactly what our students and some faculty are doing."
from: Chicago Tribune
Friday, November 20, 2009
Library employees fired over censorship of graphic novel
by: Amy Wilson
NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. — Sharon Cook is either a hero or a villain.
She is either due your thanks for doing everything in her power to protect children from obscenity or she is due your disdain for wantonly taking away the constitutional rights of the people of Jessamine County.
She never meant to do the latter. She absolutely meant to do the former.
It all started in the fall of 2008, and she is still doing it. The proof is in her knapsack, in a bright yellow flexible file folder, hidden from prying eyes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier. It has pink and yellow highlighter tags sticking out, marking the pages that contain explicit sexual content.
It is the Jessamine County Public Library's copy, which she has checked out and not returned. She is being fined 10 cents a day for her breach of library contract — and for her moral stand.
She was, she says, simply appalled that a child could find a book that contained so many outright visually obscene graphics in the Jessamine library where she worked. So nine months ago, she challenged its right to be included in the collection, and when that failed, she simply checked it out herself.
In effect, she removed the book from circulation. She checked it out over and over and over with her library card until a patron of the library, unaware of the circumstances of the book, put a hold on it, asking to be the next in line to check it out.
When Cook went to renew The Black Dossier on Sept. 21, the computer would not allow it because of the hold. Cook used her employee privileges to find out that the patron desiring the book was an 11-year-old girl.
This would not do.
On Sept. 22, Cook told two of her colleagues at the library about her dilemma, and Beth Boisvert made a decision. She would take the book off hold, thus disallowing the child — or the child's parents — ever to see the book.
On Sept. 23, both Cook and Boisvert were fired. They were told by library director Ron Critchfield the firings were a decision of the library board.
Cook, 57, and Boisvert, 62, suddenly got support from people they didn't even know who heard about it on the Web or at church or in the news.
What followed has become a battle of principles that is larger than the women ever imagined.
It has become a question of what public libraries are enshrined to do, what role they are to play in monitoring children and whether they get to decide what people get to read.
What complicates this is that the graphic novel in question meets no standard of obscenity by the law.
While it does contain many images of varied and explicit sexual behavior, it has been the subject of academic study. It was named by Time Magazine as one of its Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2007 and called "genius," applauded for its ability to "pluck out the strange and angry and contradictory bits that underlie so much of the culture we live and think with today."
On Oct. 21, at its first meeting after the firings, the library board of directors found they needed a policy for public comment. Fifty people showed up unannounced to tell the library what they thought on the board's recent personnel actions.
Also on hand were Cook and Boisvert, who had prepared a power-point presentation of their case. It wasn't, they say, about keeping their jobs. It was about the fact that they had thought the book they found on the shelves of the library had originally been a mistake.
And the shock, they say, was that it wasn't. (The book had been bought originally because a patron had requested it.)
The presentation was created to explain that the Jessamine library's collection "currently contains material, readily available on its shelves, that is improper for children to view."
Moreover, they say they wanted to warn the library board that Kentucky law prohibits distribution of pornographic material to a child and they are concerned that the Jessamine library could be in felony violation.
They wanted to offer a plan for resolution: Because the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1973 that obscenity could be determined by local community standards, Jessamine County citizens should determine what they want their children to have access to.
They wanted to then suggest that the library change its policy on censorship.
Boisvert said she wanted them to know that "because we are a conservative community, we will choose to have our children protected."
Cook and Boisvert were never given the opportunity to speak. Neither was anyone else in the gallery. The reason given: It was not on the agenda.
People left really, really riled.
Director Critchfield has repeatedly said the library will not comment on personnel matters. The library, instead, has been left to try to speak through its policies.
The one most often pointed to is that any child 17 or under must have the consent of a parent or guardian to have a library card. And no child under 11 should be in the library unsupervised. (Parents choose if their children can access the Internet or if they can check out DVDs.)
Last week, new 81/2-by-17-inch posters went up around the library. "Parents and guardians, did you know?" they blare, explaining the policy the parents signed when their children took out cards and how to review the materials the child has checked out.
The Jessamine library had, before any complaint, adopted the American Library Association's policy manual and code of ethics as its own. (It is also the policy and code of ethics adopted by the state library association.)
It states: "Expurgation of any parts of books or other library resources by the library, its agent, or its parent institution is a violation of the Library Bill of Rights because it denies access to the complete work, and, therefore, to the entire spectrum of ideas that the work was intended to express."
Further, in the ALA's Code of Ethics: "We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representations of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources."
Critchfield has made a form of public comment: an open letter in the Jessamine Journal. In part, he wrote:
"As customers of a public library there is a First Amendment expectation to respect the rights of all persons — what one person might view as questionable might be quite important and relevant to another."
As to the charge about Cook's concern that the library was in violation of the state obscenity laws?
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom, says no U.S. library employee has ever been charged with that in a situation like this. Most states, including Kentucky, have written in an exclusion provision to that law, barring prosecution of libraries and education and scientific institutions.
Cook and Boisvert are not librarians. Generally, you must have a master's degree in library science to merit the professional title "librarian." The majority of library employees do not have an MLS. These paraprofessional positions go by a variety of titles depending on the library system.
Cook and Boisvert do not pretend to be librarians. Cook was a full-time employee of the library for four years before her firing. Boisvert worked 11 hours a week for more than two years before she was let go. Both women live in Jessamine County.
Cook says she consulted with a manager at the library at almost every step in her decision-making process about the graphic novel. She says when it first came to her attention, "someone suggested we spill a cup of tea on it. Instead I checked it out."
She then went through the proper procedure of challenging the book, something any patron can do. That required a committee, including Cook, to read the book.
"People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head," she says.
Read more at Kentucky.com
From: McClatchy
NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. — Sharon Cook is either a hero or a villain.
She is either due your thanks for doing everything in her power to protect children from obscenity or she is due your disdain for wantonly taking away the constitutional rights of the people of Jessamine County.
She never meant to do the latter. She absolutely meant to do the former.
It all started in the fall of 2008, and she is still doing it. The proof is in her knapsack, in a bright yellow flexible file folder, hidden from prying eyes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier. It has pink and yellow highlighter tags sticking out, marking the pages that contain explicit sexual content.
It is the Jessamine County Public Library's copy, which she has checked out and not returned. She is being fined 10 cents a day for her breach of library contract — and for her moral stand.
She was, she says, simply appalled that a child could find a book that contained so many outright visually obscene graphics in the Jessamine library where she worked. So nine months ago, she challenged its right to be included in the collection, and when that failed, she simply checked it out herself.
In effect, she removed the book from circulation. She checked it out over and over and over with her library card until a patron of the library, unaware of the circumstances of the book, put a hold on it, asking to be the next in line to check it out.
When Cook went to renew The Black Dossier on Sept. 21, the computer would not allow it because of the hold. Cook used her employee privileges to find out that the patron desiring the book was an 11-year-old girl.
This would not do.
On Sept. 22, Cook told two of her colleagues at the library about her dilemma, and Beth Boisvert made a decision. She would take the book off hold, thus disallowing the child — or the child's parents — ever to see the book.
On Sept. 23, both Cook and Boisvert were fired. They were told by library director Ron Critchfield the firings were a decision of the library board.
Cook, 57, and Boisvert, 62, suddenly got support from people they didn't even know who heard about it on the Web or at church or in the news.
What followed has become a battle of principles that is larger than the women ever imagined.
It has become a question of what public libraries are enshrined to do, what role they are to play in monitoring children and whether they get to decide what people get to read.
What complicates this is that the graphic novel in question meets no standard of obscenity by the law.
While it does contain many images of varied and explicit sexual behavior, it has been the subject of academic study. It was named by Time Magazine as one of its Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2007 and called "genius," applauded for its ability to "pluck out the strange and angry and contradictory bits that underlie so much of the culture we live and think with today."
On Oct. 21, at its first meeting after the firings, the library board of directors found they needed a policy for public comment. Fifty people showed up unannounced to tell the library what they thought on the board's recent personnel actions.
Also on hand were Cook and Boisvert, who had prepared a power-point presentation of their case. It wasn't, they say, about keeping their jobs. It was about the fact that they had thought the book they found on the shelves of the library had originally been a mistake.
And the shock, they say, was that it wasn't. (The book had been bought originally because a patron had requested it.)
The presentation was created to explain that the Jessamine library's collection "currently contains material, readily available on its shelves, that is improper for children to view."
Moreover, they say they wanted to warn the library board that Kentucky law prohibits distribution of pornographic material to a child and they are concerned that the Jessamine library could be in felony violation.
They wanted to offer a plan for resolution: Because the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1973 that obscenity could be determined by local community standards, Jessamine County citizens should determine what they want their children to have access to.
They wanted to then suggest that the library change its policy on censorship.
Boisvert said she wanted them to know that "because we are a conservative community, we will choose to have our children protected."
Cook and Boisvert were never given the opportunity to speak. Neither was anyone else in the gallery. The reason given: It was not on the agenda.
People left really, really riled.
Director Critchfield has repeatedly said the library will not comment on personnel matters. The library, instead, has been left to try to speak through its policies.
The one most often pointed to is that any child 17 or under must have the consent of a parent or guardian to have a library card. And no child under 11 should be in the library unsupervised. (Parents choose if their children can access the Internet or if they can check out DVDs.)
Last week, new 81/2-by-17-inch posters went up around the library. "Parents and guardians, did you know?" they blare, explaining the policy the parents signed when their children took out cards and how to review the materials the child has checked out.
The Jessamine library had, before any complaint, adopted the American Library Association's policy manual and code of ethics as its own. (It is also the policy and code of ethics adopted by the state library association.)
It states: "Expurgation of any parts of books or other library resources by the library, its agent, or its parent institution is a violation of the Library Bill of Rights because it denies access to the complete work, and, therefore, to the entire spectrum of ideas that the work was intended to express."
Further, in the ALA's Code of Ethics: "We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representations of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources."
Critchfield has made a form of public comment: an open letter in the Jessamine Journal. In part, he wrote:
"As customers of a public library there is a First Amendment expectation to respect the rights of all persons — what one person might view as questionable might be quite important and relevant to another."
As to the charge about Cook's concern that the library was in violation of the state obscenity laws?
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom, says no U.S. library employee has ever been charged with that in a situation like this. Most states, including Kentucky, have written in an exclusion provision to that law, barring prosecution of libraries and education and scientific institutions.
Cook and Boisvert are not librarians. Generally, you must have a master's degree in library science to merit the professional title "librarian." The majority of library employees do not have an MLS. These paraprofessional positions go by a variety of titles depending on the library system.
Cook and Boisvert do not pretend to be librarians. Cook was a full-time employee of the library for four years before her firing. Boisvert worked 11 hours a week for more than two years before she was let go. Both women live in Jessamine County.
Cook says she consulted with a manager at the library at almost every step in her decision-making process about the graphic novel. She says when it first came to her attention, "someone suggested we spill a cup of tea on it. Instead I checked it out."
She then went through the proper procedure of challenging the book, something any patron can do. That required a committee, including Cook, to read the book.
"People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head," she says.
Read more at Kentucky.com
From: McClatchy
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