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Books dumped en masse at Florida's New College, sparking controversy (www.wphm.net)

submitted 3 months ago by mautamu@midwest.social to c/usa@midwest.social

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The New College of Florida is under fire after what appears to be hundreds of books that have been wiped from its collection and discarded on the street.

The right-wing war on knowledge continues to be a five-alarm fire for American (and world) Democracy and getting worse by the day...

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[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Some of y'all have never been to a library or known a librarian. This is perfectly normal.

“The images seen online of a dumpster of library materials is related to the standard weeding process,” the statement read. “Chapter 273 of Florida statutes precludes New College from selling, donating or transferring these materials, which were purchased with state funds. Deselected materials are discarded through a recycling process when possible.”

Go to your local library and visit your section of interest. Mine's typically science fiction. Note all the crap you see. Libraries need to make room for new material and can't hang onto everything forever and ever.

“There were Bibles, there were stories of Black authors, of Latin authors, female stories, there were LGBTQ+ and queer stories, or trans stories, all thrown into a dumpster...

They're really stretching here. Yeah, given a cross section of books, you're going to see that. Read that quote again. The speaker seems to think fitting one of those categories makes for a worthy read. If such books were an outsized proportion, we got a story. But read the article. It states "some of the books", more than once.

But what about donating them, even if it was legal? Ever shopped the $1 book section at your library? Yeah. If the library doesn't want it, you probably don't either. Just because words are printed and bound does not give them intrinsic value.

I live in Florida. I know some school teachers and what they're facing. It's maybe worse than outsiders think. But this story is not what it's made out to be.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

New College used to be something really special and beautiful. I went to a different state school in Florida, but I’m glad it existed and would have encouraged the right kind of kid to jump at a unique offering in public higher ed. If nothing else, I hope this story just shines a light on what DeSantis and his goons are doing there.