bits on books.

i'm going to at last take a moment to try to extract myself from the attentions i'm giving to the suicide site debate (see a couple of postings down) and get on with it.
but before i do, a tip of the hat to them; for any/all of you torontonians who may be reading, check out "suicide site guide to the city" at buddies, it's a thought provoking piece.
and weigh in, by all means, on the discussion below.
had a guest speaker from kids publishing in this marketing class of mine today. kids' publishing seems to be the hidden rock beneath which all individuals with strong opinions go to work.
that sounds deprecatory; i mean the Opposite though. he was Fantastic.
one of the few speakers with spine we've had in the past semester.

a few notes of significance:
(on why book banning is so much more incendiary than other kinds of censorship; we are terrified of the word because the word is so PRIVATE. "i read this book separate from you and you and you..." and there is no telling where that word goes when it is absorbed in private, what influence it may have, as opposed to the influence of media messages disseminated in darkened rooms with a fellow audience, or at public rallies with coercive leanings.

fact: the toronto public library system is the largest library board in the world, second only to hong kong. that's the statistic. but only 18% of these libraries are manned by a full time librarian.

and from yesterday: "in the western world we've never trained consumers to understand the VALUE of what they are purchasing." what it COSTS to make it in the first place. in a realistic situation. magazines, for example, are sold at next to nothing (subscription rates anyhow), and they are sold as something disposable, some fleeting temporal entertainment. this says something to the consumer, it makes a tactful statement about how much all the work that goes into them is worth.