I don't see the relevance either. I have never either read or not
read any book because it either did or did not contain sexual
content. Again, if you don't like the book, whether it is because of
the presence of certain words or descriptions of virtually anything
or for any other reason, you can just stop reading it. It is
completely beyond reason to expect other people to read your mind
and to pick and choose and label books for you so that you will
never get one that you do not like,. That goes for teens and kids
too. If a child picks up a book that contains something that the
child does not like or finds objectionable then the child will most
likely get bored and just stop reading it. The whole idea that
adults need to decide for children what they can and cannot read is
offensive to me.
On 11/10/2012 1:09 PM, Sandi Ryan
wrote:
I have read BARD books since I was ten, and have never once
picked a book simply because it did or did not have the symbols
indicating "Explicit descriptions of sex, strong language, or
violence." I suspect some people use those designations as a
positive reason for choosing certain books, but I have always
believed that if I chose only those books without such
designations, I'd miss out on an awful lot of real life.
Your choice is your own, but I see no reason for Bookshare
(or the BARD, for that matter) to judge the contents of books.
It might be helpful for kids and teens, but in those cases, if
the parents are concerned, they should pick what books their
kids can read.
Sandi
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2012 12:02 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Adult Content
In addition, there is no way that we can relabel all 170000
books currently in the collection to reflect what kind of
language they contain or if there is violence and sex. I
suppose, if you really, really cared, you could create a program
that counts every instance of swear words, and would insert some
kind of label such as "strong language" into the book's
metadata, say the short or long description, based on the number
of times it found "obscene" words in the text, but why do that?
If our experience is to mirror that of the able-eyed user at a
bookstore or library, adding such labels would be
counterproductive to that goal, since the sighted don't have
giant stickers on their books that say that a book has swearing
and sex. And such a program would only work for strong language,
since different writers use different words to describe violent
and sexual situations. Your best bet if you're sensative and
want your books to be free of that kind of thing is to read
reviews and excerpts rather than make everyone else do the work
for you.
On 10-Nov-12 12:51, Roger Loran Bailey wrote:
I
will say this again. There is no way possible to know that you
will not like a book until you read it. You might get an idea
by reading reviews and listening to people discuss books, but
you will not actually know until you try it. You should also
not expect other people to filter your books for you. Their
opinions of what you will or will not like may not be the same
as your own opinions. For that reason I would suggest that
books just be submitted in the same manner as any other book
no matter what kind of language they might contain. If a
proofreader turns out to not like it then that proofreader can
just release it.
On 11/9/2012 8:03 PM, Cindy
Rosenthal wrote:
Hmmm. But what about our sensitive members who
don't like to read books with profanity or explicit sex;
should we, raher than label them AC, put some kind of
warning somewhere? Does what we put in the Comments
section get attached to the book fle? I'munder the
impression that those comments are only for the book share
administrators, e.g. like errors in punctuation and
spelling are as they are in the print book.
I think I have in the past put such "warnings" in the
synopsis or somewhere but told it didn't belong there.
Cindy
On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 2:53 PM,
Madeleine Linares <Madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi everyone,
I thought it was about time for
a refresher course in what we mean by Adult
Content (also known as “AC”). There has been some
confusion (off-list) and I’ve noticed it
incorrectly marked in the Approval Queue.
Here is a note from our
Collection Development Manager on our definition:
“Our policy, developed in
conjunction with our OSEP funders, is that there
are certain kinds of content -- explicit
depictions of sexual acts with no redeeming social
value, as well as extreme and gratuitous violence
-- will require a minor to get an adult guardian's
permission to access. As a "content-neutral"
collection, we will never exclude a title for any
potentially controversial or distasteful content,
but we will tag some content for adult (or minors
with a guardian's permission) use only. The idea
is that parents can control the access their kids
have to content deemed potentially inappropriate
-- but they don't have the right to control or
limit access to anybody else's kids.
The "walking into a bookstore or library" test
continues to be a good one. Could a
non-print-disabled kid walk into a good bookstore
or public library and get a copy of this book
without an adult being involved? If the answer is
yes, a print-disabled kid should be able to do the
same on Bookshare. We are not interested in
placing additional barriers to access for our
members that their peers do not experience. This
means we do have stuff available to members under
18 that has sex, and swearing, and violence, and
substance abuse in it, and that is okay and in
keeping with the generally recognized standards of
"freedom to read" policy in this country.
We don't have a perfect implementation of this
policy yet -- I see evidence that we were a little
more strait-laced in the early days (and fix it
when I come across it), and our automated
filtering from publisher feeds still needs some
fine-tuning. When I'm trying to navigate
something particular "gray area-y" like the
steamier of the romances coming in, I ask myself
about the intent -- is the action (even if hot and
heavy) designed to move the characters towards
relationship, or is the plot driven only by the
need to get body parts intermingling again? It's
the latter that's clearly AC, while the former
continues to be ambiguous. Author intent is,
alas, pretty gray-area-y and subjective itself,
but I think it can help separate the sheep from
the goats.”
Adult content is confusing and
clearly not black and white. Many romances (such
as a lot of the Harlequin ones), though certainly
racy, should not be labeled as AC. A 16-year-old
could walk into a book store and buy ones of those
books just as easily as a 38-year old, although
his or her parents might not approve and might
consider the content inappropriate. Anyway, just
thought it couldn’t hurt to remind everyone!
Feel free to contact me with
questions, as always.
Best,
Madeleine Linares
Volunteer Coordinator
Bookshare, a Benetech
Initiative
650-644-3459
madeleinel@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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