{"id":35,"date":"2006-08-03T16:28:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-03T22:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/should-librarians-dump-mel\/"},"modified":"2006-08-03T16:28:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-03T22:28:00","slug":"should-librarians-dump-mel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/03\/should-librarians-dump-mel\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Librarians dump Mel?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mel Gibson has behaved like a cockroach. Already known for his homophobic statements, <\/span><\/span>under the influence of alcohol and an arresting officer<\/a>, <\/span>he’s come out of the closet as an Anti-Semite as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mel Gibson is also a poster boy for the American Library Association<\/a>‘s Read campaign (since 1984).
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>Poster boy<\/span><\/span>\n<\/div>\n

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\n<\/span><\/p>\n
“Should they dump him?”, asks Karen G Schneider over at The Free Range Librarian<\/a>. She says “yes<\/a>“. In the poll<\/a> at LISNews<\/a> about two thirds say “no” and one third say “yes”.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The arguments centre around whether ALA is endorsing Mel’s other opinions when he endorses their “Read” campaign. Do they want to be associated with his views? Should they use his celebrity power and appeal to people who otherwise wouldn’t look at their library?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A look at ALA’s online store<\/a> shows that there are also “Read” Posters <\/a>of Brittany Spears, Bill Gates, Colin Farrell, Kiera Knightly. Personally, I find the Indigo Girls, Tim Robbins, Melissa Etheridge and Yo Yo Ma posters very appealing, but know that some people would have real problems with the lifestyles or opinions of some of these.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe an association that sells an “I read banned books”<\/a> badge, isn’t in a moral position to ban one of their own posters due to slimey beliefs of the person in it? (But, is the logical extension of this that they should actively go out and find people with a wide range of views…even offensive..for their campaign?).<\/p>\n

I like the approach of the University of Wisconsin law librarians, who created a series of “Read” posters<\/a> featuring UW Law Faculty members. Or the Lansing Public Library<\/a>, who has a series of Read posters<\/a> featuring prominent local citizens like the Fire Chief or the Youth Centre Director.<\/p>\n

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\nI think the Australian Library and Information Association<\/a> got it right with their poster promotion. See their “webcards” page<\/a> for more. Who needs Mel, when you can be associated with a super-purple-cosmic-librarian ?<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>\"\"<\/a>The super-purple-cosmic-librarian.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Imported from the earlier version of my blog that used Blogger. Commenter’s email and URLS will not show up.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mel Gibson has behaved like a cockroach. Already known for his homophobic statements, under the influence of alcohol and an arresting officer, he’s come out of the closet as an Anti-Semite as well. Mel Gibson is also a poster boy for the American Library Association‘s Read campaign (since 1984). Poster boy “Should they dump him?”,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3BXdd-z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/librariansmatter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}