Or perhaps katniss is writing a book about a catholic kid running a library of illegal books out of a large luxurious locker of likes we haven't seen for decades...and writer's block has sunk in and hesheit needs a little world feedback ont eh very plausibility/world response/world view on this sort of behavior...

The unusual name Katniss is the name of the heroine in the popular YA book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

<br>Boy, things really do slow in academia between the end of classes and the start of the summer conference circuit.<br><br>This is the most annoying thing in your professional life that you can blog about?<br>br>How sad.

"Is it the sort of false event that at least allows us to gain a lesson from it, or is it so implausibly stupid that we can learn nothing at all even by talking about it?"

Probably the latter.

It's probably some do-gooder liberal. I'm going to ban a bunch of books at my library just for spite.

Yeah, those do-gooders are the worst. Don't you just hate people that do good?

I sold beer from my locker... what the hell was I thinking?

6ds35 commented:
"Boy, things really do slow in academia between the end of classes and the start of the summer conference circuit.

"This is the most annoying thing in your professional life that you can blog about? How sad."

THIS.

<b>After all, if the behavior in question is actually illegal, then it's probably not okay. Compare: "Is it OK to run an illegal heroin sales operation from my locker at school?"</b></p></p>
Well, this was at a Catholic school, and they've got a whole set of rules. You never know.

I definitely thought this story was b.s. from the get go. It just had a Harlem Globetrotter slam dunk feel to it.

The part that really irritated me about this is that by the time it hit the library blogs, it had already been pretty thoroughly debunked in the comments. And yet it was being forwarded around by the library community as gloriously true. We keep hearing about how librarians need to prove they're still relevant, and how one of those ways is by pointing out the lack of information literacy in the general public and how they need to be taught not to believe everything they read online. Reputable sources and all. But when it's an exciting intellectual freedom story, they don't follow their own procedures. There's some credibility.

I also believe it's a hoax. I went to Catholic school and read most of these books as part of classes. Also 62 books i a locker, sorry that screams hoax to me.

Finally one obvious book that is overlooked in this hoax is Last Temptation of Christ. When they made the movie, tons of people wanted it banned. Yet I was in a Catholic HS and reading it.

"And if you're not stupid enough to believe it happened, is it something worth discussing at all?"

No. Next topic, please!

As "Amen" to Kristen. No one seems more inclined to embrace hoaxes than librarians, fearful of every virus report, celebrating anything resembling free speech.

If the stories about libraries are happy stories, they must be true! So there's no reason not to be credulous.

Yet this was a story of a smelly locker so I say it stinks

If you're going to design such a hoax, at least gear it a little better towards the gullible buffoons who will lap it up. For example, the kind of librarians who got all hot-and-happy about this would have frolicked in their buffoonery even more if the student had been a political progressive involved in various green causes, understanding for alternative lifestyles, etc. and attending not a Catholic school, but a school affiliated with an evangelical protestant demonination. I think the political polarization in that case would rise to the characiture-like level that the frolicking buffoons seems to enjoy the most.

Oh-h-h-h. "Banned books." When I first heard about this story I thought they were saying "Band books" and I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about.

I am continually surprised that librarians, who should be the most discerning of information consumers, fall for things like this. That should be the topic of discussion.

Seriously, get a cultural anthropologist to look at something like this...it's not so much that the librarians actually believe it. What's more important is the ritual of collective self-affirmation they get from yammering back and forth to each other about how wonderful and courageous the kid is. Many of them probably know the story isn't credible but its credibility isn't important. It's the social meaning that's important. Basically, it makes them feel good about themselves regardless of it veracity. So even if they know it's not true they don't really care. Insecure people feeling better about themselves is more important than verifiable accuracy.

I can only echo what others have said -- we claim that we need to teach information literacy, but when a story like this pops up, library bloggers take the bait and take it at face value without even bothering to check its veracity. How are we supposed to then go, with a straight face, and ask that our libraries be supported because we're needed to help people navigate information and steer them toward credible sources?

I agree with Marshal Auverquerque. It's probably more of a fascination with the idea that if this were true then this would be one cool kid. At least he would be cool to librarians which is to say he would not be very cool at all. If this fictional kid wants to increase the circulation figures for his library, he should also stock some glossy "adult" magazines.

Speaking of credulity...

How many librarian blogs picked this up, exactly? The comments to the Yahoo question were more than a little ridiculous, but we can hardly blame sunny librarian bloggers for those. Let's moderate our invective before we pillory our colleagues, shall we?

Running a library from his locker, huh? Wonder if s/he has enough room for the guitar hero, smelly homeless people and soiled couches?

I can't believe how many librarians were too stupid to do some basic fact checking.