thoughts from a threshold

On Friday, I’m going to be talking to the Diversity Club at the school I work at - about Wicca, and historical witchcraft. I’ve only got 40 minutes or so, so it’s going to be interesting.

This came about in an interesting way - we’ve got a new Diversity Director this year, and he’s been picking a particular topic to talk about twice a week. At the end of September, he sent out a list of topics, through Oct 31st (which is both a regular meeting and Hallowe’en), with October 31st listed as a time to talk about the Witchcraft hunts, Hallowe’en and Wicca.

I looked at my work email, and wandered down the hallway to volunteer. (I’ve been quietly out at work to people I’m closer to, but haven’t been public about it, and he didn’t know my own religious affiliation.) We had a lovely chat - he has Pagan friends, but was delighted not to have to try and field questions directly.

We’re not sure whether I’ll out myself or not (I have been cautious of this with students, because my relationship with them is different than a teacher’s is: I see them far less consistently, and it’s important that all students feel comfortable asking me questions.) But at the same time, the school has a decent history of supporting different religious beliefs and (fact-based) discussion of them by faculty.

Having this conversation:

I’ve spent some time thinking about how I want to do this. I plan to be in there with an easel (my theory is that any conversation that includes the word Samhain, you probably want to have something write it on) and handouts (so that I can focus on taking their questions and discussing, rather than worrying about getting to everything.)

There are some things I know I want to touch on - for example, I’ve been told that a couple of them have made comments that Wicca isn’t a real religion, so I want to talk briefly about what makes a religion, and about how the US does and doesn’t recognise religions. (i.e. there’s no official process, but various Pagan groups and paths have the same kinds of recognition as other religious traditions - IRS non-profit religious status, recognition in the military, ability to grant ministerial credentials, and so on.)

I’ve also made a deliberate decision to avoid getting bogged down in details but to stay accurate (if simplified). For example, I say: “Traditional Wicca is a priesthood path - equivalent to a religious order with specific commitments. Many others adapt Wiccan practices and use the term Wiccan but may vary from what’s described below.” which gets the idea across (I hope!) that there are different ways people use the term.

Likewise, when I talk about ethics, I’ve said: “Ethics are based on personal responsibility for choices and their effects in the world. Free will is a particularly strong value. There is no concept of salvation by deity, but also no idea of original sin.” rather than getting into a discussion of the Rede and the Threefold Law.

I’m also focusing on witchcraft and religious witchcraft rather than the grand scope of Paganism, because that’s how it’s been advertised - but I do mention that it’s one of a larger grouping of Pagan religions, and made sure to include books that mention this.

And there are some things that are not in the handout at all - the “Are you Satanists?” thing, or the “What about sacrifices?” These are answered in a couple of the books I’ve referenced (and that our library owns: I’ll be leaving a few down there for a week or so), but I made a deliberate decision to avoid these questions in the handout, because why give people ideas if they don’t ask about it.

I’ve done my best to treat practices fairly and as if this is a totally normal and reasonable way for religions to work - straightforward, with a sense of depth and more going on for those who are interested.

Don’t worry, I’ll post something (probably Friday) on how it went. I’m talking to both lunch blocks, so it’ll be two different groups of kids. I suspect the hardest thing about it may be avoiding saying “We” and “I” in terms of Pagan practice.

(I’m also trying to figure out what I’m going to wear, since it’s also Hallowe’en. I think I’m going to make it the first wearing of a really gorgeous dress a friend found for me in a consignment store - it’s a pale green, with Celtic stenciling on the bottom) and a fun hat - a gift from the same friend, a Renaissance-faire style velvet snood style cap. And some of my amber jewelry, because I’ll be amused if anyone figures it out - none of it’s obviously Pagan, but anyone who knows a little about Wicca may make the connection.)

A post on one of the Pagan forums I spend time on caught my attention this week. This person was very unhappy with a post in a thread, and was upset that he couldn’t go and respond there. In other words, he didn’t really get the community culture.

All communities have an internal culture - at least if they’ve been going for more than a month or two. Some of this culture may be obvious - but some of it often isn’t. There are many nuances, and it’s often assumed that people will pick up the details as they go along. This isn’t hard - but a lot of people don’t seem to do it, or don’t seem conscious of how to. The list below - my list of “Stuff I pay attention to” isn’t new and bizarre. It’s stuff that works in your work life. If you move to a new area. And it works if you’re looking for a face to face group, whether that’s knitting or a coven.

Why care?

These days, online,  many people create an account, and immediately start posting - and then wonder why they’re having problems in their conversations. This is uncomfortable and unpleasant - but it’s also a direct result of some of their choices. The thing that’s always gotten me is that many of these issues are easily avoided: a little time, attention, and patience go a long way in making an entry to a new group fairly comfortable. You don’t need any special tools beyond what you’d already be using - just a little time, patience, and self-control.

Step 1) Do your homework.

Don’t sign up for every group you can find on a topic all at once. It’s easy to get confused between different forums, and it can be harder to learn a particular list or forum’s style and approach. (It’s also easy to get overwhelmed and have a hard time keeping up with new posts, and that’s not much fun.)

Focus on a couple of groups that seem like the best fit for what you’re looking for. Read their rules and guidelines - often these will tell you whether or not it might be a good fit for you. The guidelines often will mention their expectations, sensitive topics, and other things you will want to know to avoid a rough entry.

Larger groups often have rules about everything from signature size to where or how advertisements can be posted, to how they handle people asking for research participants. These rules are there because the situation’s come up, and needed to be addressed - even if the reason isn’t obvious to you, there’s probably a good reason for it. You can ask about it - later - if you still have questions, but for right now, just follow their rules.

2) Listen more than you talk for a while:

New posters online used to be advised to ‘lurk’ (read without posting) for 2 weeks or so when entering a new group. You’ll get a good sense of frequent posters, common topics, and issues that keep coming up. (My take on this is “I prefer to learn from other people’s mistakes - less painful!”)

You also begin to get a sense of the more frequent posters - who do you find thoughtful? And a sense of  people you might want to ignore or at least pay less attention to - people who constantly turn the discussion to their pet topic, who troll looking for emotional responses, or who are needlessly cruel or snippy. And you’d get a good sense of the way specific terms are used on the group, both terms in the area of interest - and some group in-jokes.

Restrain yourself from jumping in to correct someone who is obviously mistaken - chances are, in a larger forum, that someone else will post and correct factual errors - and people will tend to prefer their own opinions, preferences, or experiences to that of a total stranger. Give people time to get to know you, and you’ll be more persuasive. If you still really want to comment on something, let it sit overnight before posting: you’ll probably find ways to make your post a little calmer when you review it.

3) Learn the forum’s culture:

Some forums are fine with long, detailed posts. Some have many shorter posts, and people who apologise if they go over two paragraphs. It’s probably clear which of the two I tend to do better in! (Brevity and conciseness are not my virtues without a lot of editing work.) Some forums like examples and informal references - others rely heavily on personal experience and see references as distancing or elitist.

And in the Pagan community, there’s one particularly strong distinction: some forums are focused on fellowship and support, while others are focused on debate, discussion, or critical thinking and evaluation. People who want one and end up in the other tend to be uncomfortable - but fortunately, many forums make it clear which way they lean.

4) Take it slowly:

Once you’ve read for a bit, you’ll have an idea which topics may be sensitive, prone to producing lengthy discussion, or that may get a bit heated. If you’d like a more comfortable introduction to the forum, avoid those. Start with something else. As you continue to get a feel for the forum, you can branch out into more complex discussions more easily.

Plus, as regulars on the forum get a feel for you, they’re more likely to give you a little bit of leeway if you say something a bit odd. If you have consistently come across as friendly but very new to this and you say something that’s potentially insulting, you’ll get different responses than someone who’s come across as antagonistic from their first post.

5) Consider how you want to present yourself:

As in face-to-face settings, people will form opinions of you based on how you behave - this is especially true in your early interactions on a forum (the first 25-50 or so, depending on how often you post, and what about.) It’s worth paying some extra attention to how you come across - take a moment to check what you’ve written for clarity, and whether there’s anything that might be misread.

Don’t make your first posts to a new forum at a time when you’re really rushed, emotional, or unable to think clearly unless you really do need urgent help with something. (And if that’s the case, ask your questions, calm down, and *then* come back and post more.) Just like meeting a group of new people in a face to face setting, why not put your best foot forward?

6) If you have questions, be polite:

Assume that a rule is there for a reason. Don’t single people out. Be thoughtful and polite. (Please and thank you never hurt.) For example, the person who got me thinking about this would have gotten a different response if he’d said “Hey, what’s the reasoning behind the full membership thing? I saw something in a folder I can’t post in that frustrates me, but I can’t respond.” than he did by posting something more antagonistic (and quoting the specific post.) Sometimes, it’s all in the style.

(By polite, I don’t mean obsequious - I just mean that you should avoid insults, dismissals of others, and other things like that.)

And here’s the thing:

These things? If you treat them like habits, will make it easier for you, if and when you do go looking for a group in person. Or you move, and want to break into a new social community. Or you start a new job. They’re not an obsolete set of random rules, they’re things that are common to human communities.  But that only works if you make them a habit - and apply them in different areas of your life, so they become second nature.

(I do intend to get back to the rest of the Banned Books week postings sometime this week. My brain got eaten last week by other needful things.)

One of those things has been putting together the website for the shiny new coven. You can see the website here, and our Witchvox listing here. So, now seems like a good time to talk about what I think makes a good group website.

(We’ll pause here and note that I started doing basic webdesign back in something like the fall of 95, and did some educational design for my college for a year after graduation. Which is to say, I am opinionated. I don’t think I’m fabulous at this stuff, but I do aim for competent.)

Design:

I don’t think that design is the only thing that matters - but it is a big part of first impression. Design also plays a big role in navigation and site organisation, so it’s worth looking at before you do anything else.

I think there are lots of ways to go about looking at design. When I redesigned my former group’s website a few years ago, I wanted to keep a hint of the Egyptian focus that the group had started with (and that the former website reflected) - but I also wanted to include the sense of transformation, movement, and potential for change that’s part of a teaching group.

And so, there, you see that the background is a very faded out parchment image - just a hint of texture and shading. The header image is from a photo of the sun through a stained glass phoenix image made by a former student and now initiate (it’s a *stunning* piece: this photo just shows a strip of it.)

For Phoenix Song, I wanted to reflect our emphasis on intentional simplicity and on .. well, okay, giving people a lot of information so they can evaluate it. We do intend to have a nice header graphic at some point (L’s working on some designs) but we expect to keep the dark green color as the dominant color on the site with a white background and gray/black text. (That said, I didn’t want to wait for the art to get the site up: it’s been nagging at me more and more the last few weeks, which is why I pushed to finish it this past week.)

You will notice that neither site has spinning pentacles, blinky text, or other such things. (I consider them bad design, even if they’re sometimes sorta fun to poke at.)

CotP’s site is done in straight HTML with a simple CSS overlay (and a chunk of it was hand-coded for various reasons.) I recently offered to shift them to WordPress (to make it easier for others to edit: they’re currently hosted on my website account and I do the changes as needed since they require the master account password), but no word on that yet.

Phoenix Song’s is set up in WordPress as pages (for easy editing), currently using a slightly edited (color choices) version of the Skimmed Milk theme. (I may well change the theme slightly when we get the graphic, though, as I’m not entirely crazy about some of the spacing.)

Content:

There are different ways to approach content. Some groups put the bare minimum up online, and encourage people to talk to them if they’re interested in the next step. Some groups put a good bit more information up there.

The first thing about content is “Why are you putting this up there?” The second thing is about making it easy(ish) to read and move around in.

Phoenix Song’s site, if you look at it carefully, falls into 3 categories.

1) The “About our group” stuff.

This is designed to start general, and get more specific (ideally, you start at the main page, if you like what you read you get the “More details” which has some other useful practical specifics. If you’re still interested, you get to the membership stuff (which is three pages to make it slightly less painful to fiddle with - one general, one “Here’s how the process works, so there’s no surprises” and one with the letter of introduction.

The last 2 pages could have been handled in email, but I chose not to do that for two reasons.

- I think it’s often useful for people to see how other groups handle things - having it online may be useful to someone else.

- It gives us a good read on whether someone’s willing to read 6 pages into the site and follow some specific directions. If they send us a generic “I’m interested in your group, tell me more.” they probably aren’t a good fit for us. (In practice, I’d probably do a “Our website has all the basic info you need: we’re glad to answer specific questions not answered there” and see what happens.)

2) General information and resources:

Mostly, this is outreach stuff. We’re a small group, we don’t do public ritual, etc - but we can choose to point to other local resources. Doing so, I think, makes it a little easier to say “Not for us, bye!” Having it online (rather than in email) means I can say “Oh, we don’t seem to be a good fit - but here, go look at this page, it has links to a bunch of local options” in a way that’s easy for me to keep updated or edit on the fly.

Likewise, the music resources page is because as soon as we say Phoenix Song’s got a focus on music in ritual, people go “Oh, really, what kind of music?” And doing the listing once (with edits as needed) is a lot easier than trying to remember what’s on the iTunes at home.

The “Visiting us” page falls into both this category and the “About us” one. It’s obviously useful for people visiting us, but it’s also useful for people wondering what kinds of things they might want to be aware of with other groups.

3) Member info:

For actual members, there are some other useful bits of information - links to stuff for class discussions/resources, plus password protected page of other info. I’m thinking basic meeting dates plus some general training sequence stuff - stuff that would not be the end of the world if the password protection failed, but which we’d rather not make broadly available.

Stuff to be added:

• Photos (of things, not people, probably)
• L is going to work on a bio and some music notes (she’s already agreed with everything else on there.)
• The members-only stuff

Other choices:

Now, one set of choices here is about how much text to have up. As you can see, for Phoenix Song, I erred on the side of “More information is good”. This is my natural inclination, but I did think about it a great deal (and about each segment), and in the end, decided it needed to be there.

I wanted to provide enough information that someone could make a reasonable choice about whether it was worth their time (and ours) to explore this further - that means that a lot of practical details (location, scheduling, etc.) are in some ways a lot more immediately relevant. At the same time, I wanted to give enough of an idea of what we do in ritual that people could say “Yes, that sounds interesting” without giving out too many personal/intimate details on the web.

It’s also informative to note which things we don’t talk about in detail - you’ll notice, for example, that there’s nothing about which deities we work with on there, because that’s a conversation we’d rather have in person. At the moment, it takes a bit of explanation. (That said, we do mention polytheistic practice, etc. etc. so people should be aware of what they’re looking at.)

The choice of amount of text is also deliberate in some ways: the way we’re planning on training involves a fair bit of reading (there are some alternatives if that’s an issue for someone, but it’s our base assumption.) If that’s an issue for someone, better we figure that out early, before taking everyone’s time.

What frustrates me in Pagan group page design:

There are - okay, more than afew things - that frustrate me as I’ve looked at sites over the years.

1) Playing music at me.

No. Just no. Bands get to do that, and even then, please make it easy for me to turn off (I’ve got my own music playing, thank you!). Everyone else? No. Really no. I love sites that *include* sound files - but please give me the chance to decide what to play, when.

2) Graphics that take away from the actual information about the group.

I deeply appreciate good web art - but I also believe that good art in an information source should support the information, not make it hard to find or read. I’m in the design camp that says that attention to good basic design (readability, structure, color choices, etc.) goes a great deal to support the art, as well.

If you do choose to use eye-catching graphics, a few go a long way. Or set up a page to play with the pretty shinies, and let people click into it only if they want to.

3) Navigation issues:

If your goal is information, people need to be able to find it. Sequential pages are one thing (like how our membership pages work so that you must read the initial pages first) - but it should generally be easy to get back to the index or general info and find your way around. (This is one of the reasons that doing this in WordPress makes my life easier: set the links up once, and they continue to work.)

Broken links? Not good.

4) Currency

I always wonder when I look at a site where it says “Brand new for 2006!” (and it’s 2008). It doesn’t imply regular editing, certainly. Makes you wonder what else has changed that they haven’t mentioned.

There’s two ways to handle this - avoid time-based stuff entirely (which is what most of our site does), or limit it to a small number of pages that can be easily updated. (which is what we do in the exceptions: I know where the dated stuff is.)

5) Sites that give you little idea about the feel of the group

I’m not talking about ‘put everything out there’. But I do wonder about groups that have very minimal text info, very little design coherency, and very little.. well anything. How is an interested reader supposed to distinguish you from any other group out there?

Sites don’t need to be fancy, but most witches are aware of at least basic color theory (since we use the same stuff in ritual and spellwork!) and it’s nice to see it applied or handled accordingly. If your site is all reds and orange, but you’re talking about calm reflection, I’m going to raise an eyebrow.

(Likewise, I expect some people will go “Phoenix? Why the green?” with ours. Which is okay: there’s a specific reason for it, and once we get some graphic work up, I think it’ll be better. And otherwise, I think we give a good sense of the overall feel.)

So. My opinions and thoughts. If you do have comments on the site, or think I’ve left something out, I’m open to suggestions. (Don’t promise I’ll follow them, just that I believe in listening to reasonable suggestions.)

It’s Monday. I spent all weekend helping run this year’s Twin Cities Pagan Pride event. This is my third year on the board (Programming, plus picking up some other stuff - most of the work on the website is mine, for example, after getting info/data from the appropriate chairs.)

I’m really pleased with this year’s event. We had 24 programming items for adults, a kids track, a teens track, many talented and amazing entertainment performances, and a sizeable dealer’s room. We had a few minor glitches, but nothing major (for example, someone turning off the sodium lights in the gym/vendor space - they take a few minutes to come back on because they have to heat up.)

We also had some great conversations. Over this year, it became clear that one of the things we really wanted to talk about was community - and what the next step looks like for us.

Instead of a keynote speaker, we instead had a keynote panel, where we asked representatives from groups who are working to build community beyond individual paths and public rituals (both of which are fine and wonderful things, but we’ve talked about those in the past, and there’s also quite a few of them, which would make a more challenging discussion).

We had representatives from Twin Cities Pagan Pride, Earth House (looking to build sustainable community space), the Upper Midwest Pagan Alliance (activism and education), Harmony Tribe (a 9 day festival in southern Minnesota) and the couple who are trying to get a teen/youth group going. The conversation spent quite a lot of time on the generational issues, but also talked a lot about acceptance in the broader community (with some really great stories) and about different kinds of service and community projects that are getting underway.

After the lunch break, we had our traditional “Meet the Pagans” panel, where anyone who shows up gets a couple of minutes to speak about their group if they wish. (Upcoming events and announcements, etc.) It’s a lovely way to see all that’s going on in our area.

After that, it was into other panels. I didn’t get a chance to see much, except for a bit of the chant panel late in the afternoon (and of course, the class I taught on Sunday morning.) but by and large everyone seemed to have a good time. I know of only one panel that cancelled itself due to lack of attendees - otherwise, discussions ranged between two (mine!) and about 25, with most in the 8-13 person range.

But overall - I think people had a really good time. I saw a lot of people smiling, talking, having conversations with random people they wandered by. I know I had a couple of great conversations in between other things. That’s a great goodness in such an event, and it was totally a success from that point of view.

Next year:

One thing I continue to struggle with is how many programming items. We did actually cut down a bit this year (from about 32 to 24) but we still had 3 programming rooms going full blast. That means we have smaller attendance at each item - this year, one panel had 0 (my apologies for that!) to about 25 in one room, with most items in the 5-15 range.

I actually don’t think that’s a huge problem in some ways (smaller groups help people make more focused connections and networking) but I know it can also be frustrating for teachers. One of the things I want to look at for next year is what the optimum balance looks like. (There will be surveys! Up later today, probably, for folks who are local.)

I also wish we’d had a better balance of witchcraft-related items (Wicca and other forms of religious witchcraft) versus other strands of Paganism. This is something I’ve really tried to do in my time here, but it seems like we go in waves. Last year had many items from Heathen, Druid, and reconstructionist groups, and few that were specifically witchcraft focused. This year was the opposite (due to some scheduling and internal group demands from various groups.) I’d like to have a more event balance - and maybe try to get a panel together talking about different strands of Paganism.

All of this said: people learned things. They had meaningful conversations. Teachers got to try some new things out. We went away thinking. Those are all fabulous things, even if we have some new ideas for the next time round.

Speaking of which: it’s a tradition that the opening ritual is done by the Twin Cities Pagan Pride board. I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t time to end this tradition. Several of our board members strongly prefer not to participate in public ritual or do not wish to take roles in leading it. (Naturally, of course, we are choosing people for board positions based on their ability to do a particular task - not for their ritual skills!) Those of who don’t mind the idea in general are stressed, harried, and trying to juggle eight other things already - definitely not the best way to do meaningful ritual. Maybe we should stop trying to make this work.

One other option we’ve talked about is having a TCPP chaplain, so to speak - who would be responsible for making sure that each board member got appropriate support (not so much in a religious sense, but someone to check in with if they needed to vent confidentially, or who could help mediate with specific issues.) And who would also have specific responsibility for planning our opening ritual and making it work. Board members could participate if they wanted, but they wouldn’t be trying to juggle the planning and set-up in the same way.

Incidentally, I’m beating up on myself here: absent another option, opening ritual is a programming duty, and thus firmly in my sphere. The opening ritual I put together this year is not the worst I’ve ever done, but I found it quite unsatisfying and nervewracking in a couple of ways, and … I’d like to not do that again. I don’t think it does anyone any good. (Plus, I hate doing less than really good work in that kind of public setting.)

Closing ritual, which I planned in a more personal role with a friend and former TCPPD member, was a lot more successful for me, in part because I had a chance to breathe and focus beforehand in a way that it’s impossible to do at the beginning of the event and also because we’d had a specific concept we’d wanted to work with.

But either way, most of my ritual design work is done in a very different context (small group, well-known participants, specific expectations, and using a standard structure.) The further I get away from that, the more work it is - and the less I can just rely on my trained instincts and experience. They’re different sets of skills - small, known group vs. large public event, and I’m not nearly as good at the latter as I’d like to be, at least with these kind of planning demands and other pressures.

Finally:

I am feeling very tired (and I called in sick to work last night when it was getting painful to walk.) Sleeping over 10 hours (from about 10 last night to 8:30 this morning) seems to have helped a lot, but I still have a headache and other minor signs that my body definitely needs rest.

I was joking this weekend about the Pagan Pride exercise program - do laps around the programming space upstairs checking on people for walking, climb stairs for cardio, lift and move tables for strength training, bend to put down colored tape on the floors. (The last because the building we’ve been using is a community center and former city school. It’s a little confusing to find things. We use colored tape on the floors for directions.)

But I’m now off to make all sorts of updates on the TCPPD website to reflect the fact the event is over. And to put up surveys. And email all my lovely programming presenters with thanks and a link to a survey.

Wow! I notice that Chris Crutcher has linked here with glowing compliments. Thanks! (And for folks not familiar with him, check out some of his letters to people about censorship issues here.)

For folks who might be new over here, I go by Jenett online. I’m a librarian in Minnesota, and I think knowledge is power. This blog is mostly about my religious life and group work, but every year during Banned Books Week, I’ve made a point of posting a series of posts about freedom of information access issues. (And I always do a special focus on religion and freedom of information access issues.)

Please feel free to ask any questions. Just be aware I may be a little slow to get back to you, as I’m on the board for a sizable public community event this weekend, and will be away from my computer much more than usual between now and Sunday night (and tired and worn out when I’m home!)

I’m anticipating 2-3 more posts on this topic this year after this one - but because of my other commitments, they’ll probably finish sometime next week.

Banned Books posts to date:

• Introduction to this year (includes links to posts from past years)
• A particular look at how politics can play into this.
• A discussion of how context matters.

These posts are also mirrored to my LiveJournal (most of my entries there are non-public, but the Banned Books week posts are public, and have some extended discussion in the comments.)

The question of controlled access:

There are three different things I want to talk about in this post: rating systems, ‘behind the counter shelving’ and the question of people stumbling across things they don’t want to see (or their parents don’t want them to see.) All three of these are somewhat focused on parents being able to better control what their kids see - but they also have implications for adults (some good, some bad.) And, like everything else I’ve talked about this week, they’re not simple issues.

Behind the counter:

This is in some ways the easiest. In this model, certain books are kept behind the counter - a library staffer has to fetch them for you. People who’ve used rare book collections or genealogy resources or historical archives are probably quite familiar with this: in that case, it’s done to preserve the materials and protect them.

When it’s done with general books, however, it’s a little trickier.

Certain books have a history (statistically demonstrated) of being more likely to go missing - these are usually the books about sex, the books about magic and modern Paganism, plus sometimes a few others. Some libraries have chosen to place these books behind the counter to help stop repeated losses (and the need for replacement.)

In other cases, libraries have been pressured to have a restricted shelf because parents or other residents are concerned about the effect these books will have. (I’m going to come back to ‘Someone might be offended’ in a different post in the next few days.)

So, what’s the problem? On the surface, the books are still available, right? The problem is that many people will not ask for books on these topics if they have to talk to a librarian who might be disapproving. Many people I know have had poor experiences with someone putting down their interests in the past (and especially on these two topics) - and they’d much rather give up on the information, or look at (sometimes far less informative or useful) resources online.

The other problem is that it places an additional barrier. I’ll be up front here: I’m Pagan. [see the bottom of my about me page for more info] While I’m heterosexual, most of my social circle identifies as something that falls into the GLBTQ grouping. I believe sex is a normal healthy wonderful thing in the right circumstances (not just in marriage) - but that people need accurate and reliable information to help them make healthy choices. (Not just about specific sexual issues, but about relationship questions as well.)

So, when these kinds of books go behind the counter, that’s telling me - an adult, who pays taxes, who contributes to my community, who works to help provide education and information in a wide range of ways - that some of the things I’m interested in, I need to go through a gatekeeper for. You’re telling me that my choices (which are legal, mature, and responsible) are less worthy than other people’s.

It also ignores all sorts of other things. Do we add an additional step to checking out books on home canning, because doing it wrong can cause botulism? Car repair manuals because a mistake might lead to a major accident? Books on getting online, because someone who isn’t careful can have nasty things happen? No.

So while I get that people have reasons to treat religion and health and sexuality a little differently, I can’t say I agree - or that it’s a sustainable choice for libraries or communities.

Rating systems:

Another suggestion people have is the idea of rating systems - of somehow flagging books based on content (roughly similar to movie ratings.) Librarians have been against this since the idea first got brought up in the 1950s.

There are physical issues: maintaining labels like this is time consuming and complex, because it takes additional thought, not just standardised practices. (Plus, many libraries now outsource their processing to the wholesale sellers: we get about 90% of our new additions already labelled and with protective covers: all we do is property stamp them, add a quick note about price and date added, and shelve them.)

But there are practical issues. Let’s pick out a few based on challenges that actually happened:

• Is a mention of menstruation inappropriate in a book for 10-14 year olds? Bear in mind that many young women either have or know someone who has their period at the age of 11.
• Is discussion of bad things happening to children, teens, or adults deserving of a rating label? In what circumstances? How graphic does the language need to be? How does someone determine that without reading the entire book carefully start to finish?
• Sex and religion are often hot topics in challenges - but people also have disagreements about medical ethics (think Jodi Piccoult’s My Sister’s Keeper), politics, language (and writing style), and appropriate ways to spend time. Do we flag all of those separately?
• Different things will offend different people: some people are offended and upset by mentions of non-Christian religions or of choices that are not the ones they’d make. Equally, I’m frustrated by books that imply Christianity is the only possible true religion (and by some other kinds of choices.) The library has to serve both needs.

And that’s just for a start.

What’s a better alternative?

Parents can choose to limit their children’s reading. Many parents I know read books ahead of their children, so they can either talk carefully about any issues of concern. And adults can make use of a wide range of resources to help them find books that suit their tastes - online reviews, booklists, suggestions from people with similar tastes, etc.

Many librarians are also very good at helping parents find the best options for their situation - as long as parents are willing and able to be clear about what they feel is appropriate for their family, or the specific kinds of books they’re looking for. (Librarians are not mindreaders!)

A little patience helps, too - a librarian can do a lot more for you if you give them a little time to check other resources and don’t just demand a list in the next 5 minutes. Many online resources exist these days to help you find books that suit your values and needs. But it’s your job - not the library’s - to do much of that work, because only you know what you want and need for yourself and for your children.

I’m going to leave ‘randomly stumbling on something’ for another day, because I’m short on time, and on sleep, and I’d like to be more coherent for that post.