banned books week looks at union issues

So, it’s banned books week. I have a few links I’ve been sitting on for a while trying to find a way to look at them together but I think this week has given me the nudge. Banning books is bad. Challenging books is an exercise in free speech and a totally appropriate way of giving community feedback on library selection policies. Lumping challenged and banned books together confuses two different issues, to my mind. For some reason thinking about free speech and libraries makes me think about union issues. There have been a few in the news lately and not so lately and I apologize for not getting to them sooner.

You can read more about this sort of thing over at Union Librarian.

Going to Access 2007?

Hi. I have an odd request. I’m going to be speaking at the Access 2007 conference in Victoria BC on October 11th. I’m really looking forward to it. However, travelling there involves going from Tinytown USA to Tinytown Canada which means two small airports which means two long (or expensive, or both) trips. If anyone is driving to Access and heading either through Vancouver BC or Seattle WA on their way there and wouldn’t mind giving me a ride to the conference — I speak on the morning of the 11th, pretty flexible otherwise — I’d be happy to chip in for gas, share my hotel room if it’s logistically possible, or otherwise make it a non-sucky experience for you in the interests of saving the conference promoters money and me some time. Drop a note in the comments or find me in the usual places. I’ll be buying tickets sometime this week. Thanks.