'Empty shelves with absolutely no books'

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle

Amazing to see all the rightwingers here losing their marbles over a book renewal programme, with additional checking to see if the books were appropriate, being done badly and a bit ovre-zealously in a couple of schools.

Oh and the governor of Ontario is one of the Ford brothers, best described as T**** avant la lettre.

We don't have no Governor -- we do have a Premier -- and, although Doug Ford is certainly right wing, he is not Trump Junior. For one thing he can, and has, changed his mind and has no cult-like following. If you read the link I provided above, you'll see that he has come out against the extreme application of the book culling directive.

YMMV.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Donal

OK, so people at one school in Canada go their signals crossed, no one stopped to questions orders from On High, screwed up a renewal program because they didn't properly implement a new parameter, and now are looking for someone to blame.

And this is being equated to Republican governors and other elected officials publicly and proudly proclaiming banning books on ideological grounds.

Did I get that right?

You've won an internet!

[Gulliver Foyle]

Originally Posted by Gord_in_Toronto

We don't have no Governor -- we do have a Premier -- and, although Doug Ford is certainly right wing, he is not Trump Junior. For one thing he can, and has, changed his mind and has no cult-like following. If you read the link I provided above, you'll see that he has come out against the extreme application of the book culling directive.

YMMV.

Sorry for getting the terminology wrong. I'm not that well up on Canadian provincial politics.

And I called him and his brother "Trumps before Trump", which I would maintain they are to a large extent.

[novaphile]

It seems perfectly legit to me.

If stupid legislation requires all books prior to a certain date to be 'reviewed' before they are allowed to remain on library shelves, and no funding is provided to conduct that 'review', then the libraries have no choice but to remove the books, until such time as they have been 'reviewed'.

I'm pretty sure that tactic, of requiring something to be done, without providing the funding for that something to be done, has been well honed over the years.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Originally Posted by Gulliver Foyle

Sorry for getting the terminology wrong. I'm not that well up on Canadian provincial politics.

And I called him and his brother "Trumps before Trump", which I would maintain they are to a large extent.

He ain't that bad. Maybe "medium" extent.

[Donal]

Originally Posted by novaphile

It seems perfectly legit to me.

If stupid legislation requires all books prior to a certain date to be 'reviewed' before they are allowed to remain on library shelves, and no funding is provided to conduct that 'review', then the libraries have no choice but to remove the books, until such time as they have been 'reviewed'.

I'm pretty sure that tactic, of requiring something to be done, without providing the funding for that something to be done, has been well honed over the years.

Look at how useless the service we cut all the funding to is!

[TurkeysGhost]

Worth pointing out that the prior status quo of a library collection was not apolitical. A library collection, especially a school library collection, is always guided by certain ideological priorities. There's only so much money to buy new books and replace old books and only so much library capacity to keep books. It's a zero sum game where some books get selected and a lot of others get rejected, and how those decisions get made have always been guided by various ideas, policies, and values.

A huge part of a librarian's job is curating the collection, deciding which books get bought or not, which books get space on the active catalog vs going into deep storage or the dumpster.

That said, this sounds more like an organizational screw up than any intentional ideologically driven outcome. We know what the latter looks like, it's happening all across the US and the people advocating for empty libraries aren't shy about it.

I could easily see librarians being faced with a huge work request, like a sweeping change in curation policy, and not having time and resources to do it properly, resulting in what we see here. Wouldn't be the first time upper management has made impossible requests.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Originally Posted by TurkeysGhost

Worth pointing out that the prior status quo of a library collection was not apolitical. A library collection, especially a school library collection, is always guided by certain ideological priorities. There's only so much money to buy new books and replace old books and only so much library capacity to keep books. It's a zero sum game where some books get selected and a lot of others get rejected, and how those decisions get made have always been guided by various ideas, policies, and values.

A huge part of a librarian's job is curating the collection, deciding which books get bought or not, which books get space on the active catalog vs going into deep storage or the dumpster.

That said, this sounds more like an organizational screw up than any intentional ideologically driven outcome. We know what the latter looks like, it's happening all across the US and the people advocating for empty libraries aren't shy about it.

I could easily see librarians being faced with a huge work request, like a sweeping change in curation policy, and not having time and resources to do it properly, resulting in what we see here. Wouldn't be the first time upper management has made impossible requests.

That's pretty much my take on the situation.

There's been lots of press here in Ontario of course and a librarian or two has pointed out it is standard practice to purge a collection of old and/or unread books to make way for new ones. I spent a lot of time in the library of my high school in Montreal when I went in the late 50s and actually managed to be the first student to take out a couple of books that been put on the self 25 years previously. Not a huge call for Cathedrals of England I guess.

[Craig4]

I'm sensing some malicious compliance here to make a point.