I used to be able to read the TV GUIDE and they put what was in a movie, for
example, a V for violence, SL for strong language and so on. In school I
read books that had adult content in them from NLS as well as the ones the
school had. Why couldn't we just put in the adult content in one of the
fields and leave it at that. I think it should be up to the parents of
children to tell their kids what to read or not read and bookshare just be a
provider of books with a rule of warnning on the nature of the book. I have
noticed over the years the TV is the baby sitter and parents didn't care
what their kids watch so why should bookshare tell kids what to read or not.
If we give all the info of the nature of the book we can, that would tell
the reader what they need to know and leave it at that.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 10:29 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: adult ratings Re: Re: Uh oh -- re weird, Adult
rating
I agree about the short synopses. I can't imagine anything offensive going in there. And a warning about possibly objective material could be put in the beginning of the long synopsis rather than at the end, where I've occasionally put it, so that people know up front what might be in the book.
I do agree that there are perhaps other ways that people can be warned about books they might not care to read other than blocking access to them, a couple of which I've suggested. But I do think of the Adult rating as more of an informative thing than a censorship think because people don't have to sign up for it and parents can give permission for their under-18-year olds to have access to the whole collection -- or did I misunderstand what someone said. But if it's kept rather than changed to something else, I definitely suggest lowering the age limit.
Cindy
--- Mary Otten <maryotten@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, Cindy, the problem is that since a kid can't even see the book's title, that kid can't ask his or her parents for permission to download it. The big problem is in censoring access to the full and complete list of book titles. After that, it should be between the child and their parents whether they do or don't get to read that book. I know that somebody from bookshare once said that they restrict access to titles because that also gives access to short synopses, and there was fear that somebody might be offended by something in a short synopses. To me, that is over the top big brother moralizing that may have some place in a very conservative private school, but not in a library, which is what BookShare is. Besides, in practical terms, have you ever seen a short synopsis for a book that actually contained any of the possibly offensive expressions? Its possible, but so unlikely as to not be worth worrying about imhho. At the very least, I hope Marissa and the gang can think about making a change that allowes everybody to see the uncensored list of available titles.
Mary
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