In the last couple of days it has come to light that the term “abortion” had been taken out of Popline, a publicly funded health database managed by John Hopkins University. Popline receives money from USAID (United Stated Agency for International Development). Representatives of the university acknowledge that the term had been programmed out of the database, but later reinstated when the dean of the Public Health School objected.

Initially the term was disabled after complains from the development agency claiming that the database contained two articles which they believed did not meet the database’s standards (they were about abortion advocacy). A Popline manager explained at information could still be retrieved through “related” terms such as “fertility control, postconception” or “pregnancy, unwanted”, what they failed to point out is that these terms do not mean the same as “abortion”, and in any case, they are restricting information to the general public.

It’s amazing to me that such draconian measures were taken to appease an over zealous political position. There is no need to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Just because certain powerful people do not like a few articles in a database, is no reason to restrict everyone else’s access to them.

Loriene Roy, president of the American Library Association (ALA) best summed up the situation.

“Any federal policy or rule that requires or encourages information providers to block access to scientific information because of partisan or religious bias is censorship,” she said. “Such policies promote ideology over science and only serve to deny researchers, students and individuals on all sides of the issue access to accurate scientific information.”

You can read more about this case from an article form the NYT here, and Wired Magazine here.

Back in late February Álvaro Colom (official website), Guatemala’s president announced that he would be opening the country’s military archives to the public. The announcement was made in honor of Guatemala’s Día Nacional de la Dignidad de las Víctimas del Conflicto Armado Interno (National Day for the Dignity of Victims of Internal Armed Conflict). During his speech Colom acknowledge that the country will not be able to heal unless the state assumes responsibility for the violence that was perpetuated against the country’s indigenous population.

The archives should contain information on military activities during the country’s civil which lasted over 30 years, between 1960 and 1996. It is estimated that at the time as many as 2000,000 civilians were killed and about 50,000 were disappeared. The archives should also shed light as to the location of unnamed graves. In 1999 the UN truth commission estimated that about 90% of these deaths could be attributed to the army and state.

The military establishment and former national leaders have not welcomed this announcement, although it is expected that the opening of these archives will go forth since is it mandated by a presidential decree.

You can read more about this from a BBC article here, and from a Voltairenet article here (in Spanish).

Just a couple of days ago Boston.com ran an article about a woman in Maine who has decided that certain books are not adequate for the library and has taken it upon her herself to remove them. JoAn Karkos has checked out two copies of “Perfectly Normal: Changing bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health,” claiming that she was horrified by the illustrations, and “the sexually graphic, amoral abnormal content,” and refuses to return them. The book contains cartoon-like illustrations of naked people.

Oddly, Mrs. Karkos did send a check to the library for the cost of replacing the book, but library personal explain that if she wanted the books removed from the shelf she needed to follow standard procedures. The Library has since returned her money, and has ordered additional copies to meet increased interest in this title.

Earlier this week there was a similar story reported in American Libraries told about a young girl in Brookwood, AL, who borrowed Sandpiper, by Ellen Wittinger, for a school assignment and now refuses to return it on grounds that it teaches students about sex, when school policy is to promote “abstinence-only.”

“Perfectly Normal” is no stranger to controversy. It was the ALA’s most challenged book in 2005, toping a list that includes authors such as J.D. Salinger, Toni Morrison, and Judy Blume.

You can read the full article from Boston.com here, and the article from American Libraries, here.

01.05.08 - Initially Karkos tried to get the police to remove the book on grounds of obscenity, but the police refused to pursue the complains. In the end this case actually ended up going to court, where Karkos plead not guilty to civil charges that were subsequently filed against her. It was determined that the book does not violate city ordinance. You can read more about this at American Libraries.

Image info; Perfectly Normal, & Sandpiper.

Recently the Bureau of Prisons decided that material being housed in prison chapel libraries has been inciting more violence and disorder than it was fomenting good will, and has begun removing books, tapes, CD, and any other material it does not approve of.

A standard list of 150 titles for each from 20 religious groups, ranging from Baha’ism to Yoruba, has been established, with a promise of being expanded in October. Still religious experts who have seen the list are baffled about the choices on it, commenting that there are inclusions by C.S. Lewis, but none by theologians such as Reinhold Neibuhr, Karl Barth, and Cardinal Avery Dulles, nor Robert H. Schuller.

Then there is also the issue that regardless of who is on those lists, this is an affront to the First Amendment, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons was quoted in a NYT article arguing that a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department recommended that books in prisons should be taken a closer look at after the events of September 11, 2001. This argument feels more like an excuse for further censuring, since material entering prisons all over the country is already highly controlled. Besides, it is interesting that a government that has been so vocal in promoting their personal religious beliefs as a way to become a better human being, is now removing the very tools that will aid this process.

I visited a medium security prison while taking a class on library services for under serve- populations, and got to see and learn first-hand how prison libraries function. While laws vary from state to state, it is standard procedure to evaluate the intellectual content of library material before adding it to the collection. Some states further restrict books depending on whether they are hardbound or paperback; none allow material containing violent or sexual material. The only material that is federally required to be housed in every prison library are legal books, short of this, your local prison library looks very much like your local public library; hardly a breeding ground for violence and chaos.

10.04.07 - After much outcry from civil libertarians and religious groups, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has agreed to return to prison chapel libraries all the material that had been previously removed. You can read more about this new development from an article in American Libraries. Or from an article in the New York Times.