CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Graydon Megan | April 17, 2013

Rejecting claims of a direct link between violent video games and violent behavior, Elmhurst Public Library board members Tuesday turned down requests by a small group of residents to change the library’s selection policy for violent video games.

“There’s no evidence I can see between these games and violent behavior,” said library director Mary Beth Campe.

Campe and board members made clear they see the inclusion of the materials in the library’s collection as an issue of First Amendment freedom of expression.

Schuetz, who spoke for the citizen group Tuesday, insisted the group is not asking for a ban on the games.

“We are asking the library to implement improved selection criteria and procedures,” Schuetz told board members.

Read on…

Related NDLA IF postings

CBLDF (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund)
Carol Tilley | April 19, 2013

Last month a Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) directive seemed to require that copies of Marjane Satrapi’s memoir Persepolis be removed from classrooms and school libraries. A later memo clarified that the book was allowed to remain in libraries; the concerns about its content — specifically, visual depictions of acts of torture — were limited to its instructional use in seventh grade.

How CPS handled this particular situation is beyond the scope of my comments. Similarly I don’t intend to address whether seventh graders are equipped to handle a couple of pages of visually stylized barbarism. Instead, as a librarian, I want to touch on the issue of what belongs in a school library’s collection.

Read on…

Original NDLA IF post

Related article:
“Sex, violence, and Radical Islam: Why ‘Persepolis’ Belongs in Public Schools“
(The Atlantic | Noah Berlatsky | March 19, 2013)

SALEM NEWS ONLINE
ACLU | March 6, 2013

In a consent judgment signed Tuesday, a federal district court-ordered the Salem Public Library to stop blocking patrons’ access to websites related to minority religions that the library’s web filters classified as “occult” or “criminal.” Blocking access to material based solely on viewpoint is a violation of the First Amendment.

Judge E. Richard Webber entered the judgment in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri on behalf of a Salem resident who was blocked from researching websites discussing minority religions’ ideas about death or death rituals.

“Even libraries that are required by federal law to install filtering software to block certain sexually explicit content should never use software to prevent patrons from learning about different cultures,” said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU-EM.

The resident had originally protested to library director Glenda Wofford about not being able to access websites about Native American religions and the Wiccan faith.

Read on…

Original NDLA posting.

RELATED ARTICLES:
“Judge rules Salem Public Library can’t block website content”
(5 KDSK | March 6, 2013)

“Missouri library agrees not to block witch websites”
(St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Robert Patrick | March 6, 2013)

“‘Access Denied’: Net Filtering in Rhode Island Schools”
(Bookshelves of Doom | March 14, 2013)

NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP BLOG
March 5, 2013

Early in February, we wrote a letter in response to reports that the public library in Paterson, NJ had banned the playing of video games on their public computers. While the policy was conceived with children in mind, it ostensibly applied to anyone.

Despite reports to the contrary, as soon as we sent them a stern letter, the library back-pedaled, claiming it hadn’t made any determination yet about the policies.

Read on…

Original and related NDLA postings.