Jen SorensenA bill in Louisiana, HB 777, would make it a crime for librarians to use public funds to join the American Librarian Association or attend an ALA conference, punishable with prison time and hard labor for up to two years.
For more info: https://bookriot.com/louisiana-hb-777/
Frances LarinaI guess, "Freedom of association" is next on their list?
Space Hobo@Frances_Larina @jensorensen I feel like the opposition needs to call it the "anti-American bill" or something.
soc@jensorensen
> ALA deserves criticism as an organization for many reasons,
> both from those within it and those outside it.
... and these reasons would be?
Orc@soc @jensorensen yeah, that was an interesting aside to drop into the penultimate paragraph of that article.
Jessamyn@jensorensen @orc @soc My take on this, as someone who just stepped down from an ALA Councilor position is that ALA has been poorly positioned to respond to a lot of these challenges (their office of intellectual freedom is under-resourced), they have no real "social/network" game to speak of and there is a lot of endless committee work when they should be out fighting a war.
They did not do a great job supporting/championing their president Emily Drabinski, a truly terrific woman...
@jensorensen @orc @soc They've had some leadership challenges (their Exec Director left during Banned Books Week for some reason that wasn't communicated). Their interim ED is lovely but it's a tough time to be her. They are losing membership. They seem to think that if you just say "Libraries change lives" enough, it will eventually work. And this may be true in the long run, but in the short run, they're struggling. I don't know this author, but I suspect it's something like that.
@jensorensen @orc @soc I am definitely on Team ALA and not Team These Assholes so I don't speak publicly about this too much because I think it's important sometimes to be clear these are nitpicks in the grand scheme of things.
But it's hard to support them entirely when they had a lot of chances to really support and back up their gay president when she was homophobically attacked in the press and... they did not. Not cool. We all saw that.
@jessamyn @jensorensen @soc It just seems weird to offhandedly toss a vague reference to Things The ALA Did Wrong as a throwaway line at the end of the article, because it's not really germaine to the fash trying to make ALA membership a criminal offense.
@orc @jensorensen Probably Americans both-sides-ing as usual? 🤔
Cameron Talley@jensorensen wouldnt this criminalize every library in the state? I’m assuming all the university ones at least are associated with the ALA
@cameron_talley I don't know for sure, but it seems any publicly funded university or community library would be vulnerable.
Marcel@jensorensen The article doesn't seem to support the headline. It also says "librarians would be sentenced to hard labor for daring to join their largest professional organization". The HB777 text they quote, however, 'only' bans the 'use of public funds' to do so. Still bad, of course, but let's stick to facts. So I'd love to know if librarians doing all this with their own money, are also 'criminalized'.
Margaret Moonshadow@kritischelezer @jensorensen Good question. Librarians themselves are renumerated with the public dollar. It's my bet that eventually, if not imminently, all control over their every action will be censured if such trends continue.
Gordon J Holtslander@jensorensen Is Alberta Canada’s Louisiana? Premier Smith offers legislation to limit federal “Liberal” bias in post-secondary research funding. Long standing peer reviewed funding councils not conservative enough? https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/danielle-smith-ideology-universities-alberta-analysis-1.7179680
ANALYSIS | Danielle Smith wants ideology 'balance' at universities. Alberta academics wonder what she's tilting at | CBC News
The premier wants to do... something about what she argues is a lack of conservatism in post-secondary thought. It might include creating Alberta's own research programs, something the UCP has done before.
@jensorensen For the non-Canadians and the tragically naive Canadians, Alberta’s premier( Canadian equivalent of governor) Danielle Smith interned at Fraser Institute the country’s most accomplished organ of misinformation and willful ignorance, <-the cohorts Smith relies upon. https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fraser_Institute