Am I right to be angry..........(warning images are horrid) (Page 5)

Make mine a Cub sandwich.

We're all focused on the point of checking out the book, that need not be the solution.  I am sure the school could follow the mechanism they have for meals and have the books checked out by our children available for us to view online, giving us a view after the fact.  Now before the fact is not too challenging either, the online system could easily be connected to the point of check out, as a parent you could make filter selections based on theme/content/state determined age range etc.  the point of check out scan could easily flag red for parent restricted book.

would this catch 100%, perhaps not, would it be implementable and practical and encourage both school and parent responsibility.  sure would.  is the tool already in existence...sure, all over the place, you try and check out of a supermarket with alcohol and the system stops the process for age verification.

The lion King would have been so much better though if it was done with Gecko's instead of Lions - isn't that right Yanti?

This thread has been very interesting to follow and I am glad everyone has kept it civil. very nice to see all the different beliefs and parenting styles bandied about.

Actually, you're the one who keeps talking about the point of check-out.

I do think the meal system your school already has is an excellent idea, if it were possible to adapt, transfer, and implement the software to the library.

What say you, librarians/IT professionals?

If so, then viewing the materials your child is checking out would be, yes, a workable solution.

"Before the fact" is a whole different story.

To use your grocery store analogy, we're not just talking about booze. We'd be talking about assigning multiple categories to every single item in the store (theme/content/age range), inputting that into a database, and then programming filters.

NOOOOOOOOOO! You just crossed WAY over the civil line! Take it back!!!

Actually, the data capture is no issue, software exists to do this perhaps manually as they do when checking a book into the library, the storage of that data is very simple, and the filters can be set up easily enough using,, perhaps ODBC via a web based interface interacting with a simple SQL database for each parent to manage their own child's "access rights".  there I just did it for them :-)

1. I would not have caught it had he not brought the book home and instead read it in school.

2. I have not been called "silly" for a very long time.  that made me chuckle :-)

ETA: just because my son reads above grade level and can comprehend what is in the material he reads, it does not mean he has the emotional maturity to deal certain subjects.  I'm sorry, I think this book is wildly inappropriate for a 7 year old.

LEADER 00000cam 2200385Ia 4500 001 23729458 003 
OCoLC 005 20100715013803.0 008 910510s1981 nyua j b 000 1 eng d 
010 |z80008728 020 0397319274 020 9780397319275 
020 
035 (OCoLC)23729458|z(OCoLC)25726257|z(OCoLC)36585430 
040 OCO|cOCO|dORO|dMLA|dOCL|dIXA|dOCLCQ|dBAKER|dXY4|dOCLCG |dKZH|dYDXCP|dVHC
 043 n-us---
 049 VHCJ
 050 00 PZ8.1.S399|bSc 1981 
100 1 Schwartz, Alvin,|d1927- 
245 10 Scary stories to tell in the dark /|ccollected from American folklore by Alvin Schwartz ; 
with drawings by Stephen Gammell 
260 New York, N.Y. :|bHarperCollins,|cc1981
 300 viii, 111 p. :|bill. ;|c24 cm 
504 Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-110) 
505 0 "AAAAAAAAAAAH!" : the big toe -- The walk -- "What do you come for?" -- 
Me tie dough-ty -- Walker! -- A man who lived in Leeds
 -- Old woman all skin and bone -- He heard footsteps coming up the cellar stairs : The thing
 -- Cold as clay -- The white wolf -- The haunted house -- The guests 
-- They eat your eyes, they eat your nose : The hearse song
 -- The girl who stood on a grave -- A new horse -- Alligators -- Room for one more -- 
The wendigo -- The dead man's brains -- "May I carry your basket?" 
-- Other dangers : The hook -- The white satin evening gown - - High beams -- 
The babysitter -- "AAAAAAAAAAAH!" : The viper -- The attic -- The slithery-dee --
 Aaron Kelly's bones -- Wait till Martin comes -- The ghost with the bloody fingers 
520 Stories of ghosts and witches, "jump" stories, scary songs, and modern-day scary stories
 650 0 Ghost stories, American|vJuvenile literature
 650 0 Tales|zUnited States|vJuvenile literature 
650 0 Folklore|zUnited States|vJuvenile literature 
700 1 Gammell, Stephen 





This is the record that the majority of libraries in the country (maybe the world) 
are using to catalog this book.
The codes for age range are thus:
22 - Target audience (006/05)
# - Unknown or not specified
a - Preschool
b - Primary
c - Pre-adolescent
d - Adolescent
e - Adult
f - Specialized
g - General
j - Juvenile
| - No attempt to code
That's all the library software has to go on.

You could make it like Netflix. The parent creates and organizes the "queue" the child gets to check out from said queue. The only problem left would be how to communicate the queue's contents to the child so they pick out a book that they will be able to check out. I suppose that could be left to the parent.

I still think that if the book wasn't there in the first place this wouldn't be a problem. "Scary Stories" doesn't seem to hold much educational value to me, and it is obviously controversial as noted earlier. I don't have kids but I don't like my tax payer dollars going to books that are not educational. Now who decides what is "educational" is of course a whole 'nother thread. But I am reasonably sure "Scary Stories" wouldn't make the cut.

Yes I read the arguments about "some kids won't read educational books" well then there is a really spiffy thing called a public library. The parent of the child who will only read fiction with gory images can feel free to take their kid to the public library and check them out whatever book they want.

I would be much more comfortable knowing the school library only contained strictly educational books. Perhaps the kids won't like it as much, but perhaps we should expect a little more out of the kids rather than taking everyone down to the lowest denominator of the child who will only read fiction.

So, the child would have absolutely no creative choice in what books they wanted to read? Sad.
And also, there would be nothing in the school library but textbooks and encyclopedias? Sadder.

Talk about stifling a child and steering them away from reading/learning.

Sorry, I didn't red ink it, but I did add a smiley face....would be programmer/SW developer, I don't think so but nice assumption.

Here's one from me....

What you're saying is if no-one has thought of it and developed it already it's not viable....if it's a simple solution.  I'm not so sure.

Never said the parent had to lock their child in the closet while they decide on what goes in the queue. Heck if it were my kid I would let them create their own queue then I would approve it.

Apparently you missed my point about the definition of "educational book" as well, I never limited it to encyclopedias. It just didn't include the particular book in question.

Sorry but nothing I said would "steer a child away from learning". What it does is to keep the responsibility where it belongs, with the parent. It would give the parent the tools to control the situation when need be, rather than the school controlling the situation.

Oh okay, cause I could swear up there it says "the parent creates and organizes the queue..."

You're right about the definition of "educational books"... but I don't see why a "scary story" book would be any different than a "Nancy Drew" book (dating myself here)... it's all labeled "fiction" and I don't see how you can feasibly filter one form over another.

Okay, regarding the software that a library has to catalog and check out materials. 

As someone mentioned earlier, the libraries do not have a lot of choices, as the vendors do not make a lot of money off of library systems.  Thus what is offered to us is often limited and we spend years telling them how we would like to upgrade or customize for our own systems.  Yeah, each library seems to have their own customizations that they want which is totally different from what another library would want.  It took several years before we could get our vendor to modify the system to limit a childs card to just Juv and easy materials in the public library.  The parent makes the decision now as to whether or not they want their childs card to be limited to that materials, and guess what.  More than 50% of the parents say the child can have unlimited access to what is in the collection.  Easier to do that here because usually the child is not here without the parent.  But even if the child is limited to J & E, they have access to all the material in the area for the reasons I stated earlier.  Not every child reads at the same level so it is hard to make the appropriate level determination.  Also, not every paren objects to the material that you may find offensive.  And they might find something offensive that you feel is appropriate.

There are children in our school systems here whos parent made the choice that their child cann't use the school library.  They cannot go to the reading time at the library with the rest of their class.  Instead they either stay in a neighboring classroom or the school office while the rest of their schoolmates are in the library choosing books. 

I saw mention of the cafeteria plan earlier, but I noticed that you also mentioned that when your child chose the choc milk and the icecream in the same day you knew.  They were not stopped from making those purchases even though you had discusse your childs options with him, but you were made aware that they were purchased, right?  Of course, they are spending your money in the cafeteria, so you do have a right to know where your money is going.  So the system in place does not stop him, only makes you aware of the purchases.  So, a solution similar to this would be to have the school library catalog available online to the parents and allow the parents to have access to their students card and be able to see what has been checked out.  That way, if he checks out the book, but keeps it in his desk because he knows his parent would not approve, you would know because you are online everyday checking up on him.  Most library systems are set up to erase from the account the book once it is checked in.  The library is not Big Brother.  The library is a vessel in which to share knowledge among the masses and to allow people to read for recreational use along with educational.

OK, I am out for the night, I really appreciate the thoughts from everyone.

if you agreed with my take on the situation then you were correct, well done.

if you challenged my take or in any way had a differing view you were wildly, inappropriately and very very wrong.

Seriously though, I thank everyone so far for raising some good points and discussing them civilly...

night all.

I hate to tell you, but many parents do not take their kids to the public library.  Our school system has over 150K students in it and we only manage to get 30K involved in summer reading.  Of that 30K, I would say that 15% is the preschool crowd.  There are so many students who are never introduced to the public library.  It is really a sad thing. 

Creates means they set up the account online. Organizes means they assign accounts for each of their kids. So there... I never said who picks the books. :P

The talk with your son was a good idea.  The images are scary.

But I would oppose a parent hovering over every reading choice a child makes -- especially once the child is past the 4th grade or so (yes, older than your son.)  I truly believe that my lifelong love of reading stems in part from the fact that nobody ever told me what to read or what not to read.  If I chose books that were over my head --or, alternately, "too easy," just for fun-- well, so be it.  If I was disturbed by something I read, I either learned something from it (e.g., the rape of Kizzy in Roots) or did not select that kind of literature again (e.g., the one Stephen King novel I ever read.)  It was just part of my learning and development.

As a kid I loved to read. I read so much that I got in trouble for not doing other stuff besides reading. One time when I was younger, I read a scary book. It scared the crap out of me. I never read another scary book after that. The end.

Seems like a valuable lesson.