Parental notification bill passes Wisconsin House
According to this story in American Libraries, Wisconsin may institute a law permitting parents to find out what titles their children have checked out from public libraries. Many library-confidentiality laws and policies currently prohibit this.
Personally, I'm of two minds on the issue. On the one hand I recognize that parents have the right to oversee their children, especially if they are going to be held financially responsible for damaged or unreturned materials. On the other hand, I've seen many examples of overbearing parents who want to enforce ridiculously strict control of their children's mental development ("We don't let Johnny read anything that isn't endorsed by The Church." "We don't let Sally watch movies that glorify violence/sex/whatever.") I recognize that for such children, the comparative freedom of reading the books and other materials in the public library can be a Godsent release from a repressive environment.
Fortunately, libraries don't keep records of what books or magazines people browse through in the stacks, so this law will have little effect on those kids who are wily enough to avoid officially checking out the books their parents don't want them to read. Can the same be said for E-books?
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1 comment:
Carlos Zamora @ 6:34PM | 2003-11-22| permalink
Once when I was in grade school I was browsing the adult non-fiction shelves of the P.L. and the old lady librarian told me I needed to be in the juvenile section. I was offended but obeyed.
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Pablo @ 9:59PM | 2003-11-22| permalink
I couldn't spend a dime without my parents knowing about it. I don't know how I'd have been able to check out a library book without them knowing about it. Not that they were into censorship, but my mother did have to drive us there and then either stay or pick us up.
It seems to me that if parents let their kids run around unsupervised for hours each day they really shouldn't be blaming the libraries for what their kids turn into.
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Trebor @ 1:06AM | 2003-12-16| permalink
Gees.
By the eighth grade I'd read every book in our school's library about the Chicago mafia and World War II. I remember stumping our town librarian with a question about Japanese-American internments during WWII (this was in the 70's and long before the topic hit the popular press). She was very helpful, and together we found all three articles.
It didn't hurt me none. And you may ignore the fact that I once thought training to kill people (or "break things" as we called it) with tanks might be a kick. ~ Trebor
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