Google has just announced the launched the Government Request tool. This tools offers people “information about the requests for user data or content removal [Google] receive from government agencies around the world.” I sense the launch of this tool might be Google response to the criticism they received while negotiating whether they were going to [...]

Fahrenheit 451: A Novel by Ray Bradbury My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is one of those books I always heard about, but hadn’t actually read, so I finally got around to it. This short novel follows “fireman” Guy Montag as he begins to question the society he lives in, and its emphasis on [...]

My friend found this article and started a great conversation. The article explains the story of two women (Sharon Cook, and Beth Boisvert) who work at a public library in Jessamine County, Kentucky, who decided what material was “appropriate” for young patrons, and went so far as to remove a book from the collection so [...]

My friend Lars just found this great map that plots all the challenges against books that took place in the USA between 2007 and 2009. Information to create this map was taken from statistics gathered from ALA documentation and the Right to Read Project. You can click on each pin to get a brief description [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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,” [...]

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, [...]