Comments on: Happy Birthday, OIF!

By: Doug Archer

Doug Archer — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:43:24 +0000

If I’m reading Sowell’s article correctly, his main point is that most of the books highlighted during Banned Books Week every year aren’t actually banned. Therefore, the name is misleading. What he fails to note is that, these books would most definitely have been banned if people had not resisted.

As for elitism, most intellectual freedom activists advocate truly diverse collections representing all points of view on any given issue — or at least as many as a local library’s budget can handle.

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:51:08 +0000

Dan,
Thank you for your comments.

The Office for Intellectual Freedom maintains IFFORUM, an unmoderated discussion list which was established so that subscribers could freely–and without a moderator deciding which posts are acceptable–discuss intellectual freedom issues and post news items, particularly, but not solely, relating to intellectual freedom. To SUBSCRIBE (or UNSUBSCRIBE) to IFFORUM, just follow these simple steps:

1. Go to lists.ala.org ;

2. Enter “ifforum” in the Search lists box; or click view all lists, and search for ifforum@ala.org;

3. Click ifforum@ala.org;

4. Click Subscribe or Unsubscribe;

5. Enter your email address and click Submit. A welcome message with your password will be sent to you.

Karen

By: Dan Kleinman

Dan Kleinman — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:17:08 +0000

I’ve been scratching my head — can anyone tell me why the Office for Intellectual Freedom has a blog where the comments feature has been disabled? Ironic, no? Also, can someone at the OIF respond here to what Thomas Sowell called “NATIONAL HOGWASH WEEK” that the ALA calls “Banned Books Week”? I have so many more questions.