[PUBLIB] Harry Potter and Internet porn (fwd)

[PUBLIB]

Sender: Angie Brunk <angie at cybersolvers.com>
Subject: Harry Potter and Internet porn

>  You should be supporting your
>fellow (and sister) librarians in their desire to work in an environment
>without sexual harassment.  ALA should be supporting a safer, less
>harassing environment for their member librarians.

	"Protecting" librarians from all forms of hostility would 
require banning the public from the library.   Any job that requires 
interaction with the public is going to entail some less than 
positive experiences.  You put up with the everyday stuff and report 
serious threats-exactly what I did as a college newspaper writer and 
editor.

>Why are the feminist
>voices so silent on this issue?

	Probably because many feminists (including me) don't find 
pornography half as offesnive as Focus on the Family.  There is a 
definite market for femal positive porn/erotica, and various creators 
are working to fill that niche.

>
>Catholic Universities in general today are know for being liberal, not
>conservative.  My point was that the ALA gay-protection standards are
>incompatible with CONSERVATIVE Christian college and university standards.

	The need that *some* conservative Christians feel to 
intellectually isolate themselves from outside beliefs has always 
puzzled me.   An ALA MLS is a graduate degree, therefore, anyone 
entering such a program is at least 23 years old.  I would hope that 
someone who has reached that age is secure enough in their beliefs 
that a couple of years of graduate study is not enough to shake those 
beliefs that are so dear to them.  When I was attending IU, the 
conservative librarians who favored filtering felt free to speak up 
in class.

>This does not change the fact that libraries, to be useful places for
>education and research, must carry material that represents a variety of
>viewpoints on the questions about homosexuality.

	Well, we actually agree on one thing.

	I've been waiting to comment on the Harry Potter books until 
I could actually read one.  I happen to be a Wiccan-the religious 
group that FFL believes the Harry Potter books promote.  I can know 
say without the slightest doubt that anyone who actually believes 
this is showing a woeful ignorance of the basic tennants of Wicca.
-- 
Angie Brunk
MLS Indiana University School of Library and Information Science 1999
"As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man
objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever."--Clarence
Darrow