One of the semi-frequent questions/complaints I get from our branch librarians is how to deal with patrons who are looking at pornography.  But during my training, one branch librarian mentioned that she'd had an incident with a patron looking at something much much worse: rotten.com

(I don't usually do warnings on my blog but I'm doing one here.  Although there's nothing disturbing on the Rotten.com front page that I linked to above, remember that you can't "unsee" anything you see once you start clicking on the links on that page! ) 

Rotten.com bills itself this way:

But Rotten.com isn't just a database of the disgusting; it's also a venue for making a point about censorship, at least according to "Soylent," the pseudonymous proprietor of Rotten.com, whose highly graphic content has earned him enemies around the world. The site is currently being investigated by Scotland Yard and the FBI for cannibalism. The German Family Ministry has threatened Soylent with legal action if he doesn't find a way to shield minors from his site. And then there's the endless cease-and-desist letters that flood in from a long list of major corporations that object to the site.

"Rotten dot-com serves as a beacon to demonstrate that censorship of the Internet is impractical, unethical and wrong," Soylent writes in his manifesto, adding that nothing he posts there can't be found elsewhere. "To censor this site, it is necessary to censor medical texts, history texts, evidence rooms, courtrooms, art museums, libraries, and other sources of information vital to functioning of free society."

A bit of sad news today, right in the middle of Freedom to Read Week...

Dear colleagues in the Book and Periodical Council,

We sadly note that Nancy Fleming has died. Nancy was the executive director of the BPC from 1979 to 1999. She helped organize the Freedom of Expression Committee and Freedom to Read Week. Her obit in The Globe and Mail is below.

Franklin Carter

_____________________

Tuesday February 26, 2008
FLEMING, Nancy Barbara (née Chisholm)
Chief Executive of the Book and Periodical Council for over twenty years and laureate of the Canadian Library Association Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada, died peacefully on 24 February 2008 at Toronto Western Hospital following declining health in recent years. She was 76. Nancy leaves bereaved her three children by the late Allan Fleming, Martha, Peter and Susannah, as well as their partners; grandson McCullough and many friends and colleagues. Cremation will be followed later by a memorial event in Spring (contact peterfleming@sympatico.ca). Donations to Freedom to Read (www.freedomtoread.ca) would be appreciated.

Thanks to Heather M. for forwarding this to me...

Message from Terry Epperson, chair of PLG’s Braverman Prize committee

Hello –

We’re pleased to announce the fifth annual Miriam Braverman prize, sponsored by the Progressive Librarians Guild, for the best student paper on progressive library issues. Below are the guidelines for the prize. The announcement flyer can be found at: http://libr.org/plg/Braverman-08-flyer.pdf. Feel free to pass this announcement on to other listservs or groups that may be interested.

Braverman Prize Guidelines for PLG

1. Entrants must be Library/Information Science students attending a graduate level program in the United States or Canada.

2. Entries must be the original, unpublished work of the entrant, in English, and must not exceed 3,000 words.

3. The topic of the paper should concern an aspect of the social responsibilities of librarians, libraries, or librarianship. Papers related to archivists, archives, or archival work are also acceptable. Topics could include, but are not limited to, such concerns as professional ethics in the age of the USA PATRIOT Act; the commodification of information; the political value choices of cataloging and indexing; the role of libraries in bridging the information gap; democratic management systems within libraries, etc.

4. Each entry should include a cover sheet containing the entrant’s name, full contact information (address, phone number, e-mail address), name of the institution where the entrant is enrolled, and the title of the paper. No identifying information, other than the title, should appear on the paper itself.

5. Entries must be submitted electronically, in MS Word or RTF format, to bravermansubmissions@gmail.com

6. Entries must be received no later than 6pm on, April 15, 2008.

7. The winning entry will be published in Progressive Librarian and must conform to MLA in-text citation style. The winning entrant will also receive a $300 stipend toward attendance at the 2008 American Library Association annual conference in Anaheim, CA and an award at the annual PLG dinner. Award money is available only for ALA conference attendance; if the winner is unable to attend, the money will remain in the Braverman Award fund account or be donated at the discretion of the committee..

8. The judges’ decision is final. The act of submission implies the unqualified acceptance of the conditions of entry by the entrant.

Terrence W. Epperson, Ph.D.
Social Sciences Librarian
TCNJ Library
The College of New Jersey
P.O. Box 7718
Ewing, NJ 08628-0718
Phone: (609) 771-3352
Fax: (609) 637-5177
E-mail epperson@tcnj.edu
http://www.tcnj.edu/~library/epperson/index.html

From Books to Beers and Stacks to Snacks (Leap Year Edition)

"You Work An Extra Day This Year - Why Not Celebrate The Fact?"

Come to O'Hanlon's at 1947 Scarth St. -- we'll start at 5 pm on Friday February 29.  

RSVP on the event page. Spread the word far and wide -- especially to others who are not on Facebook.  The event page has RSVP instructions for those who are not on Facebook or you can post to the wall to let us know you are bringing more people.

Hope to see you there!

Your hosts,
Julie Arie, Jason Hammond and Julie McKenna