Shea and I have been showing the kids a lot of our favourite movies from when we were growing up – “Dirty Dancing” to “Adventures in Babysitting” to “Airplane!” – movies that both of us remember being allowed to watch by our parents at relatively young ages with no censorship or restrictions (*maybe* I’d […]
Through my work with the Writers Guild of Alberta, I became involved with the Calgary Freedom to Read Week Committee. I can’t find it online now but my memory is that this committee of writers, librarians, publishers and social activists was formed after some MLA held up some book in the Alberta Legislature to denounce […]
I posted this song in June 2019 with only a brief reference to the controversy around the song’s contents which evoke incest and rape. But I thought it might be worth revisiting for FTRW, especially in light of the news that came out in August 2020 that the band’s bassist had subsequently been accused of […]
I’m a huge Freedom of Expression guy and think Freedom to Read Week should be a highlight of every librarian’s calendar. I don’t think I managed to do it every year but ever since I was in library school in 2006 (also the year I started this blog), I’ve tried to do an annual series […]
I’ve long been an advocate for the importance of being skeptical as a generally useful approach to life. But, as the coronavirus has spread around the world over the past year, it’s also been fascinating (and alarming!) to see how often that line from genuine questioning crosses the line (and often goes completely off the cliff) […]
Had an urge to pose with this book at my library for some reason – “I Used To Be A Miserable F*ck”. 😉
There was a good Twitter thread recently which posed a simple question: “What’s your controversial library opinion?” I thought it might be interesting to record some of my responses to these opinions whether I agreed or disagree (if this isn’t clear, all the bolded opinions below were submitted by Twitbrarians and the plain text under […]
Can’t believe I’ve never posted this song before – so good! “Ragweed” – Koe Wetzel
A show ahead of its time in many ways…
There have been a couple major media storms recently – Toronto Public Library faced a huge outcry for allowing a controversial speaker to proceed with a presentation in one of their branch meeting rooms and Sportsnet faced a huge outcry after longtime hockey icon, Don Cherry, made controversial remarks where he accused recent immigrants of […]
