http://www.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=3245
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Rebecca J Knuth, (808) 956-3494
Prof, Library and Information Science Program
Posted: Nov. 30, 2009
A leader and “scholar who learns with and from her student,” Rebecca Knuth, a tenured professor in the Library and Information Science Program (LIS) at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, is the 2009 recipient of the Library Journal Teaching Award.
The award, co-sponsored by ProQuest, recognizes one outstanding educator who excels at educating the next generation of librarians. Knuth is notable for her ongoing engagement with and mentorship of her students and her commitment to the profession’s core principles through course development and scholarly research. Nominated by her students, Knuth was selected by the editors of Library Journal, the profession’s leading trade magazine, from a competitive group of nominations from across the United States.
Knuth began her work at UH Manoa 2004 as chair of the LIS program, part of UH Mānoa's Department of Information and Computer Science. Her professional accomplishments at the university include building courses in the LIS program and creating its popular elective course in intellectual freedom, a topic on which much of her research focuses. She teaches courses in Traditional Literature and Oral Narration, International Librarianship, and Information Policy. Knuth holds an MA in Special Education and an MLIS. She has authored two books on intellectual freedom and libraries, as well as peer-reviewed scholarly articles and more popular writings.
It is the meaningful content used in her classrooms, her educator-as-learner approach, and her student-centered thinking that prompted LIS student Karen Brown to nominate Knuth for the honor. “Not only is the subject matter fascinating and relevant, but Dr. Knuth seems to enjoy her time with us in each and every class,” says Brown.
Knuth credits much of her success to crafting a syllabus that provokes thought and discussion. “I try to build excitement about librarianship and learning in general. I think many students are interested in ethics, social responsibility, the profession, the broader social climate, and in standing for something,” Knuth says.
“Rebecca Knuth is an inspirational teacher,” noted Library Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Francine Fialkoff. “Her student-centered thinking marries theory and practice to create a challenging environment that pushes both her students and her own research.”
The award comes with a $5000 honorarium from ProQuest and a celebration at the 2010 American Library Association Midwinter meeting in Boston. Read about Knuth in the November 15 issue of Library Journal (www.libraryjournal.com).
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Overdue library books returned half century later
(AP) – Nov 16, 2009
PHOENIX — A high school librarian in Phoenix says a former student at the school returned two overdue books checked out 51 years ago along with a $1,000 money order to cover the fines. Camelback High School librarian Georgette Bordine said the two Audubon Society books checked out in 1959 and the money order were sent by someone who wanted to remain anonymous.
Bordine said the letter explained that the borrower's family moved to another state and the books were mistakenly packed.
The letter said the money order was to cover fines of 2 cents per day for each book. That would total about $745. The letter says the extra money was added in case the rates had changed.
Bordine said the money will buy more books, and the overdue books will be returned to the shelves.
Information from: KPHO-TV, http://www.kpho.com
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
PHOENIX — A high school librarian in Phoenix says a former student at the school returned two overdue books checked out 51 years ago along with a $1,000 money order to cover the fines. Camelback High School librarian Georgette Bordine said the two Audubon Society books checked out in 1959 and the money order were sent by someone who wanted to remain anonymous.
Bordine said the letter explained that the borrower's family moved to another state and the books were mistakenly packed.
The letter said the money order was to cover fines of 2 cents per day for each book. That would total about $745. The letter says the extra money was added in case the rates had changed.
Bordine said the money will buy more books, and the overdue books will be returned to the shelves.
Information from: KPHO-TV, http://www.kpho.com
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Child protection or censorship? Library employees lose jobs over book
http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/1011029.html?storylink=omni_popular
NICHOLASVILLE — Sharon Cook is either a hero or a villain.
She is either due your thanks for doing everything in her power to protect children from obscenity or she is due your disdain for wantonly taking away the constitutional rights of the people of Jessamine County.
She never meant to do the latter. She absolutely meant to do the former.
It all started in the fall of 2008, and she is still doing it. The proof is in her knapsack, in a bright yellow flexible file folder, hidden from prying eyes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier. It has pink and yellow highlighter tags sticking out, marking the pages that contain explicit sexual content.
It is the Jessamine County Public Library's copy, which she has checked out and not returned. She is being fined 10 cents a day for her breach of library contract — and for her moral stand.
She was, she says, simply appalled that a child could find a book that contained so many outright visually obscene graphics in the Jessamine library where she worked. So nine months ago, she challenged its right to be included in the collection, and when that failed, she simply checked it out herself.
In effect, she removed the book from circulation. She checked it out over and over and over with her library card until a patron of the library, unaware of the circumstances of the book, put a hold on it, asking to be the next in line to check it out.
When Cook went to renew The Black Dossier on Sept. 21, the computer would not allow it because of the hold. Cook used her employee privileges to find out that the patron desiring the book was an 11-year-old girl.
This would not do.
On Sept. 22, Cook told two of her colleagues at the library about her dilemma, and Beth Boisvert made a decision. She would take the book off hold, thus disallowing the child — or the child's parents — ever to see the book.
On Sept. 23, both Cook and Boisvert were fired. They were told by library director Ron Critchfield the firings were a decision of the library board.
Cook, 57, and Boisvert, 62, suddenly got support from people they didn't even know who heard about it on the Web or at church or in the news.
What followed has become a battle of principles that is larger than the women ever imagined.
It has become a question of what public libraries are enshrined to do, what role they are to play in monitoring children and whether they get to decide what people get to read.
What complicates this is that the graphic novel in question meets no standard of obscenity by the law.
While it does contain many images of varied and explicit sexual behavior, it has been the subject of academic study. It was named by Time Magazine as one of its Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2007 and called "genius," applauded for its ability to "pluck out the strange and angry and contradictory bits that underlie so much of the culture we live and think with today."
On Oct. 21, at its first meeting after the firings, the library board of directors found they needed a policy for public comment. Fifty people showed up unannounced to tell the library what they thought on the board's recent personnel actions.
Also on hand were Cook and Boisvert, who had prepared a power-point presentation of their case. It wasn't, they say, about keeping their jobs. It was about the fact that they had thought the book they found on the shelves of the library had originally been a mistake.
And the shock, they say, was that it wasn't. (The book had been bought originally because a patron had requested it.)
The presentation was created to explain that the Jessamine library's collection "currently contains material, readily available on its shelves, that is improper for children to view."
Moreover, they say they wanted to warn the library board that Kentucky law prohibits distribution of pornographic material to a child and they are concerned that the Jessamine library could be in felony violation.
They wanted to offer a plan for resolution: Because the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1973 that obscenity could be determined by local community standards, Jessamine County citizens should determine what they want their children to have access to.
They wanted to then suggest that the library change its policy on censorship.
Boisvert said she wanted them to know that "because we are a conservative community, we will choose to have our children protected."
Cook and Boisvert were never given the opportunity to speak. Neither was anyone else in the gallery. The reason given: It was not on the agenda.
People left really, really riled.
Director Critchfield has repeatedly said the library will not comment on personnel matters. The library, instead, has been left to try to speak through its policies.
The one most often pointed to is that any child 17 or under must have the consent of a parent or guardian to have a library card. And no child under 11 should be in the library unsupervised. (Parents choose if their children can access the Internet or if they can check out DVDs.)
Last week, new 81/2-by-17-inch posters went up around the library. "Parents and guardians, did you know?" they blare, explaining the policy the parents signed when their children took out cards and how to review the materials the child has checked out.
The Jessamine library had, before any complaint, adopted the American Library Association's policy manual and code of ethics as its own. (It is also the policy and code of ethics adopted by the state library association.)
It states: "Expurgation of any parts of books or other library resources by the library, its agent, or its parent institution is a violation of the Library Bill of Rights because it denies access to the complete work, and, therefore, to the entire spectrum of ideas that the work was intended to express."
Further, in the ALA's Code of Ethics: "We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representations of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources."
Critchfield has made a form of public comment: an open letter in the Jessamine Journal. In part, he wrote:
"As customers of a public library there is a First Amendment expectation to respect the rights of all persons — what one person might view as questionable might be quite important and relevant to another."
As to the charge about Cook's concern that the library was in violation of the state obscenity laws?
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom, says no U.S. library employee has ever been charged with that in a situation like this. Most states, including Kentucky, have written in an exclusion provision to that law, barring prosecution of libraries and education and scientific institutions.
Cook and Boisvert are not librarians. Generally, you must have a master's degree in library science to merit the professional title "librarian." The majority of library employees do not have an MLS. These paraprofessional positions go by a variety of titles depending on the library system.
Cook and Boisvert do not pretend to be librarians. Cook was a full-time employee of the library for four years before her firing. Boisvert worked 11 hours a week for more than two years before she was let go. Both women live in Jessamine County.
Cook says she consulted with a manager at the library at almost every step in her decision-making process about the graphic novel. She says when it first came to her attention, "someone suggested we spill a cup of tea on it. Instead I checked it out."
She then went through the proper procedure of challenging the book, something any patron can do. That required a committee, including Cook, to read the book.
"People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head," she says.
The book was off the shelf for months while the committee reviewed it.
Cook says she found the book back on the shelves before she received a letter denying her request to have the book removed. She says she again told management she would check out the book indefinitely. She says she was not warned that this was a firing offense.
Cook says that she never wanted the book taken off the shelves so adults couldn't see it.
"I'm an adult. I do not want you telling me what I can read," she says adamantly when you ask.
She just didn't want this book in the Graphic Novel section, which is located next to Young Adult Fiction. She didn't want it adjacent to what she calls "exaggerated comic books," like the X-Men series, and real comic books, like Spider-Man, which are so enticing to children.
In Scott and Woodford counties and in Lexington and Louisville, parents and legal guardians must sign for a child to obtain a library card. As such, in each of these libraries, as in the case of the Lexington Public Library, parents assume the "sole responsibility for their child's reading, viewing and listening of library materials. Neither the library nor library staff shall act in loco parentis. Selection and/or shelving of materials will not be influenced by the possibility that materials might inadvertently come into the possession of minors."
Earlene Arnett, director of the Scott County Public Library, explains that "libraries take censorship very seriously. We also take the parent's role very seriously. I'm sure they don't want me to make their decisions for them."
Arnett says that the Scott County library places graphic novels in the teen collection. "They are selected with the teen in mind," she says.
Martha White, acting director of the Lexington Public Library, says that some of the library's graphic novels are in juvenile literature and some are in adult fiction or adult non-fiction, depending on the content, the publisher and the review.
Neither the Scott or Lexington libraries had the book in question. The Louisville Free Public Library did, and it is placed in the adult section.
Both Cook and Boisvert applied for unemployment benefits in October. When the state inquired, the library denied their claims. Both appealed. Boisvert won because her basis for dismissal was too slight to merit a loss of benefit. Cook continues to appeal.
Both women say they remain baffled as to the reasoning behind their dismissal.
Critchfield would not comment on the terminations because they are personnel matters. According to the Employee Manual, grounds for dismissal can include insubordination, theft or misuse of the Jessamine library's property, breach of confidentiality information and any other violation of library policy.
At this point, Cook and Boisvert have not hired an attorney. They are not sure if they want their jobs back. They do, however, want their reputations back. Both say they have never been fired before.
On Nov. 4, a special meeting of the Jessamine library board was called to set procedures for taking public comment. On Nov. 18, at 3:30 p.m., the community will have its opportunity to speak.
Cook says the library, which she dearly loves, has a chance "to be champions here."
Judging from some comments on various Internet sites, it either already is or it will never be.
LuAnn Farrar and Elizabeth Price of the Herald-Leader Staff contributed to this report. Reach Amy Wilson at (859) 231-3305 or at 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3305.
NICHOLASVILLE — Sharon Cook is either a hero or a villain.
She is either due your thanks for doing everything in her power to protect children from obscenity or she is due your disdain for wantonly taking away the constitutional rights of the people of Jessamine County.
She never meant to do the latter. She absolutely meant to do the former.
It all started in the fall of 2008, and she is still doing it. The proof is in her knapsack, in a bright yellow flexible file folder, hidden from prying eyes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier. It has pink and yellow highlighter tags sticking out, marking the pages that contain explicit sexual content.
It is the Jessamine County Public Library's copy, which she has checked out and not returned. She is being fined 10 cents a day for her breach of library contract — and for her moral stand.
She was, she says, simply appalled that a child could find a book that contained so many outright visually obscene graphics in the Jessamine library where she worked. So nine months ago, she challenged its right to be included in the collection, and when that failed, she simply checked it out herself.
In effect, she removed the book from circulation. She checked it out over and over and over with her library card until a patron of the library, unaware of the circumstances of the book, put a hold on it, asking to be the next in line to check it out.
When Cook went to renew The Black Dossier on Sept. 21, the computer would not allow it because of the hold. Cook used her employee privileges to find out that the patron desiring the book was an 11-year-old girl.
This would not do.
On Sept. 22, Cook told two of her colleagues at the library about her dilemma, and Beth Boisvert made a decision. She would take the book off hold, thus disallowing the child — or the child's parents — ever to see the book.
On Sept. 23, both Cook and Boisvert were fired. They were told by library director Ron Critchfield the firings were a decision of the library board.
Cook, 57, and Boisvert, 62, suddenly got support from people they didn't even know who heard about it on the Web or at church or in the news.
What followed has become a battle of principles that is larger than the women ever imagined.
It has become a question of what public libraries are enshrined to do, what role they are to play in monitoring children and whether they get to decide what people get to read.
What complicates this is that the graphic novel in question meets no standard of obscenity by the law.
While it does contain many images of varied and explicit sexual behavior, it has been the subject of academic study. It was named by Time Magazine as one of its Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2007 and called "genius," applauded for its ability to "pluck out the strange and angry and contradictory bits that underlie so much of the culture we live and think with today."
On Oct. 21, at its first meeting after the firings, the library board of directors found they needed a policy for public comment. Fifty people showed up unannounced to tell the library what they thought on the board's recent personnel actions.
Also on hand were Cook and Boisvert, who had prepared a power-point presentation of their case. It wasn't, they say, about keeping their jobs. It was about the fact that they had thought the book they found on the shelves of the library had originally been a mistake.
And the shock, they say, was that it wasn't. (The book had been bought originally because a patron had requested it.)
The presentation was created to explain that the Jessamine library's collection "currently contains material, readily available on its shelves, that is improper for children to view."
Moreover, they say they wanted to warn the library board that Kentucky law prohibits distribution of pornographic material to a child and they are concerned that the Jessamine library could be in felony violation.
They wanted to offer a plan for resolution: Because the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1973 that obscenity could be determined by local community standards, Jessamine County citizens should determine what they want their children to have access to.
They wanted to then suggest that the library change its policy on censorship.
Boisvert said she wanted them to know that "because we are a conservative community, we will choose to have our children protected."
Cook and Boisvert were never given the opportunity to speak. Neither was anyone else in the gallery. The reason given: It was not on the agenda.
People left really, really riled.
Director Critchfield has repeatedly said the library will not comment on personnel matters. The library, instead, has been left to try to speak through its policies.
The one most often pointed to is that any child 17 or under must have the consent of a parent or guardian to have a library card. And no child under 11 should be in the library unsupervised. (Parents choose if their children can access the Internet or if they can check out DVDs.)
Last week, new 81/2-by-17-inch posters went up around the library. "Parents and guardians, did you know?" they blare, explaining the policy the parents signed when their children took out cards and how to review the materials the child has checked out.
The Jessamine library had, before any complaint, adopted the American Library Association's policy manual and code of ethics as its own. (It is also the policy and code of ethics adopted by the state library association.)
It states: "Expurgation of any parts of books or other library resources by the library, its agent, or its parent institution is a violation of the Library Bill of Rights because it denies access to the complete work, and, therefore, to the entire spectrum of ideas that the work was intended to express."
Further, in the ALA's Code of Ethics: "We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representations of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources."
Critchfield has made a form of public comment: an open letter in the Jessamine Journal. In part, he wrote:
"As customers of a public library there is a First Amendment expectation to respect the rights of all persons — what one person might view as questionable might be quite important and relevant to another."
As to the charge about Cook's concern that the library was in violation of the state obscenity laws?
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, acting director of the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom, says no U.S. library employee has ever been charged with that in a situation like this. Most states, including Kentucky, have written in an exclusion provision to that law, barring prosecution of libraries and education and scientific institutions.
Cook and Boisvert are not librarians. Generally, you must have a master's degree in library science to merit the professional title "librarian." The majority of library employees do not have an MLS. These paraprofessional positions go by a variety of titles depending on the library system.
Cook and Boisvert do not pretend to be librarians. Cook was a full-time employee of the library for four years before her firing. Boisvert worked 11 hours a week for more than two years before she was let go. Both women live in Jessamine County.
Cook says she consulted with a manager at the library at almost every step in her decision-making process about the graphic novel. She says when it first came to her attention, "someone suggested we spill a cup of tea on it. Instead I checked it out."
She then went through the proper procedure of challenging the book, something any patron can do. That required a committee, including Cook, to read the book.
"People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head," she says.
The book was off the shelf for months while the committee reviewed it.
Cook says she found the book back on the shelves before she received a letter denying her request to have the book removed. She says she again told management she would check out the book indefinitely. She says she was not warned that this was a firing offense.
Cook says that she never wanted the book taken off the shelves so adults couldn't see it.
"I'm an adult. I do not want you telling me what I can read," she says adamantly when you ask.
She just didn't want this book in the Graphic Novel section, which is located next to Young Adult Fiction. She didn't want it adjacent to what she calls "exaggerated comic books," like the X-Men series, and real comic books, like Spider-Man, which are so enticing to children.
In Scott and Woodford counties and in Lexington and Louisville, parents and legal guardians must sign for a child to obtain a library card. As such, in each of these libraries, as in the case of the Lexington Public Library, parents assume the "sole responsibility for their child's reading, viewing and listening of library materials. Neither the library nor library staff shall act in loco parentis. Selection and/or shelving of materials will not be influenced by the possibility that materials might inadvertently come into the possession of minors."
Earlene Arnett, director of the Scott County Public Library, explains that "libraries take censorship very seriously. We also take the parent's role very seriously. I'm sure they don't want me to make their decisions for them."
Arnett says that the Scott County library places graphic novels in the teen collection. "They are selected with the teen in mind," she says.
Martha White, acting director of the Lexington Public Library, says that some of the library's graphic novels are in juvenile literature and some are in adult fiction or adult non-fiction, depending on the content, the publisher and the review.
Neither the Scott or Lexington libraries had the book in question. The Louisville Free Public Library did, and it is placed in the adult section.
Both Cook and Boisvert applied for unemployment benefits in October. When the state inquired, the library denied their claims. Both appealed. Boisvert won because her basis for dismissal was too slight to merit a loss of benefit. Cook continues to appeal.
Both women say they remain baffled as to the reasoning behind their dismissal.
Critchfield would not comment on the terminations because they are personnel matters. According to the Employee Manual, grounds for dismissal can include insubordination, theft or misuse of the Jessamine library's property, breach of confidentiality information and any other violation of library policy.
At this point, Cook and Boisvert have not hired an attorney. They are not sure if they want their jobs back. They do, however, want their reputations back. Both say they have never been fired before.
On Nov. 4, a special meeting of the Jessamine library board was called to set procedures for taking public comment. On Nov. 18, at 3:30 p.m., the community will have its opportunity to speak.
Cook says the library, which she dearly loves, has a chance "to be champions here."
Judging from some comments on various Internet sites, it either already is or it will never be.
LuAnn Farrar and Elizabeth Price of the Herald-Leader Staff contributed to this report. Reach Amy Wilson at (859) 231-3305 or at 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3305.
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