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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Calderdale Council librarians censoring books! By women of course.

54 replies

MrsOvertonsWindow · 31/07/2023 22:06

It appears that librarians working for Calderdale Council believe it's their job to hide books from the public if they personally disapprove of the content. Of course they're books written by women - Helen Joyce, Kathleen Stock, Abigail Shrier, Heather Brunskell Evans and a number of others. They've been removed from the shelves and hidden them!
An unbelievable level of censorship and none of them have been disciplined - the council appear to be supportive of anti democratic censorship like this:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/31/gender-critical-books-hidden-librarians-calderdale/

Gender-critical books hidden by ‘tinpot censor’ librarians

The works removed from public view are all critical of gender ideology and transgender activism and include Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/31/gender-critical-books-hidden-librarians-calderdale

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Rudderneck · 29/10/2023 19:52

IcakethereforeIam · 29/10/2023 09:51

Sorry, side issue, but why 'bespectacled'?

I hate that they say a book is 'banned' when they mean restricted to an appropriate age group. This seems to be a US and Canadian thing.

Yeah, I think this is a problem with the way freedom to read organizations deal with questions about books.

Different libraries have different purposes and collection development plans that define how they decide what firs into that remit. That document 99% of the time is the basis for assessing challenges to books. It's not unheard of for there to be more basic challenges to the document itself, but that's not usually what happens.

Patrons have every right to challenge books that they think don't fall within that. Usually they aren't supported, but sometimes they are, and in particular they may be supported to be moved to a different part of the collection. Just as an example, within the last five years in my library there was a challenge to some books in the graphic novel collection, which resulted in that collection being divided into adult, youth, and junior sections, and there was a challenge to a Dr Seuss book that resulted in it being moved out of the children's general collection and into the HQ collection where it would still be available in the catalogue.

None of that should be seen as censorship, IMO, and even on occasion if a book is shown to be right outside the CDP, that is a solid reason to ask for removal. (I can't think of anything like that I've seen in person, in most cases books like that don't make it into the collection in the first place.)

What gets my goat is that the same librarians freaking about censorship of "queer" books seem to think it is absolutely ok to censor books they don't like. What they seem to tell themselves is that these books are "non-factual" or represent bad research.

I can only conclude that they are very poorly educated and don't understand the difference between avoiding a science book because it says that gravity is caused by gomes with magnates, and avoiding a book because it has political views they think are incorrect.

IwantToRetire · 30/10/2023 00:50

Its good that both papers are focusing on books by women, but on another level strange that they dont reference Graham Linenan because for the majority of their readers his name will be more recognised.

IcakethereforeIam · 30/10/2023 08:53

An archive link for the above Times article

https://archive.ph/mn1ML

The geezer from CILIP avoided answering the question by going on a flight of fancy. Then saying that libraries can ignore their guidance anyway. Which seems, to me, an admittance that they were caught bang to rights.

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