This is an excerpt of a email I received from Beth Yoke, the Executive Director ofthe Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association.
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Ms. Voss,
Thank you for taking the time to contact YALSA and for sharing your
thoughts about book ratings. Thanks also for all that you do to connect
your son with books that are appropriate for him and your family and for
helping him develop a lifelong love of reading. At this time YALSA has
no plans to institute a book ratings system. As a division of the
American Library Association, we uphold the Library Bill of Rights as
well as the guidelines associated with it, including the statement on
labeling and rating systems:
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretat
ions/labelingrating.cfm
........
Thank you again for getting in touch and please don't hesitate to
contact me if you have further questions.
-Beth
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If you carefully read the content on the link above you will see that that ALA equates providing information about the content of a book that users could potentially use to limit the use of the book for themselves or their children is censorship. It does not matter the intent of those providing the information.
I find this whole thing very ironic. In the past, those banning or burning books did so to keep information from the public because they were afraid of what they would do with the information. Now, libraries are keeping information from the public because they are afraid of what the public will do with it.
And it is not completely true that libraries are bastions of access to what is available under the First Amendment.
A comment on Facebook: Just ask them why they libraries don't carry porn then.
We are given information all the time to warn us, or help us make a decision. Another comment on Facebook about this topic was:
" What about Nutrition Facts on food and ingredient lists? That's labeling and could be considered food censorship."
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