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In How to Tell When We Will Die, Johanna Hedva writes about how they are going to be in pain no matter what, so they choose to go out and have experiences that might cause them more, because they can’t avoid pain. I thought I wasn’t like that, but lying here in pain after spending the day at the zoo with my kid, I realize that’s where I make this choice. I do stuff with my kid even if it will cause me pain, because pain will come anyway. It’s just a matter of degree.

Finished reading: The Secret Garden by Mariah Marsden and Hanna Luechtefeld 📚

The Secret Garden is one of my favorite books from childhood and this is an excellent graphic novel adaptation that captures its magic beautifully.

💬📚 “Rather than seeing ChatGPT as a threat that will destroy things of value, we should be viewing it as an opportunity to reconsider exactly what we value and why we value those things.” John Warner, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI

💬📺 “The thing, Hastings? Do you think Poirot concerns himself with mere thingness?” Season 1, Episode 2, “Murder in the Mews,” Agatha Christie’s Poirot

Finished reading: I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long 📚

A headstrong lady! Shipboard romance! As always, Julie Anne Long does the job.

Fight for libraries and our right to read

This week is National Library Week in the US and today is Right to Read Day. @cygnoir@social.lol wrote a great post about how you can show up for libraries. United Against Book Bans has a page on actions to take for Right to Read Day.

Here in North Carolina, I’m tracking House Bill 595, the latest parental rights bill filed. As soon as it’s moved far enough to go to a vote, I’ll be contacting my state legislators and urging then to vote NO on it.

Here are some of its chilling library-related provisions:

  • placing responsibility for the selection of materials in the hands of superintendents and boards, instead of in the hands of library professionals with training and professional expertise in selecting materials
  • requiring that all library books selected are “integral to the instructional program,” which will likely limit the purchasing of materials for students’ free choice of reading
  • the creation of a “content access designation” (read: rating) system, flattening complex evaluation of books for a given community’s needs
  • requiring that all materials selected be available for a 30 day review period by parents, which will place an immense administrative burden on library staff (I have a relatively small library budget and I order about 100 books at a time)
  • the use of a broadly defined designation of “harmful to minors” as a test of whether materials should be included in a collection, which is likely to target books about growth, development, and anatomy as well as disproportionately target books with LGBTQ+ topics
  • the establishment of standing “community library advisory committees” with as-yet-undefined requirements for membership, as opposed to ad hoc committees carefully curated to evaluate each materials challenge
  • the requirement that every book made available in a book fair be reviewed by “appropriate school personnel,” which will generate a large administrative burden for library staff and, I anticipate, result in the reduction of book fairs and the resulting budget they provide for libraries without any alternate method of funding provided
  • the criminalization of library staff who provide items deemed harmful to minors
  • the ability for parents to demand access to a record of their child’s library borrowing
  • the creation of restricted sections in public libraries, effectively requiring library staff to spend time reclassifying every work in a collection
  • the creation of a special category of library cards for minors (another immense administrative burden)
  • the revocation of library cards obtained by minors without their parents’ permission

Taken together, these provisions are likely to lead to librarian’s self-censorship in purchasing, administrative burdens grinding library services to a halt, library staff leaving the profession, school libraries losing funds, and most importantly, kids not having the materials they need to learn and grow as readers and people.

If you live in NC, please keep an eye on this bill and get ready to contact your state legislators about it. If you live elsewhere in the US, check EveryLibrary’s Legislation of Concern tracker to see what’s going on in your area.

Please join me in fighting for libraries. These are existential threats for libraries and library staff.

💬📚 “Do you want to look back on a life of items crossed off lists drawn up in response to the demands of others? Or do you want to hang on to, and repeat, and remember, the thrill of discovering things on your own?” Rob Walker, The Art of Noticing