PA author gets fired from job because of book

Bo Sullivan

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About 50% to 75% of "street people" have some sort of mental illness that wasn't addressed in earlier years. And most who are mentally ill are not street people. They live in homes with their families, or in group homes or some sort of placement where activities are done as a group. This PA "author's" characterizations could bring NAMI (National Association of the Mentally Ill) into the fray.

Another thought is that she makes accusations of perverts looking up porn on the library's computers, but surely if they were carrying out such covert activity, they would wish to do so in secrecy? The Police would have had the computers id numbers, traced them to the library, and sent Constables round to confiscate the computers for further investigation, surely? Or am I being too realistic? After all this is supposed to be a novel (except she has made it obvious that she is referring to real patrons of the library.)
 

Bo Sullivan

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I wonder if it's a protest against some libraries becoming havens for street-people, including the mentally ill, who are looking for a warm safe place to sit rather than a place to read or research.

I've been trying to decide whether to buy the book and understand what the fuss is about. Thanks to PA, though, it's priced at about $18. A bit steep to satisfy curiosity.

I might have bought the book if the author had concentrated her mind, before she wrote the book, and brought forward and pinpointed all the good reasons why libraries are wonderful places where people can borrow books and learn from them, rather than picking fault with patrons of the library (whether they are mentally ill or not), who walk through their doors looking dishevelled or otherwise. The mentally ill and homeless are people too, and most of them are highly intelligent and do not deserve to be portrayed as degenerate members of society.
 

LeslieB

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Another thought is that she makes accusations of perverts looking up porn on the library's computers, but surely if they were carrying out such covert activity, they would wish to do so in secrecy? The Police would have had the computers id numbers, traced them to the library, and sent Constables round to confiscate the computers for further investigation, surely? Or am I being too realistic? After all this is supposed to be a novel (except she has made it obvious that she is referring to real patrons of the library.)


I'm a bit confused. What 'tracing' do you mean? A librarian can call the police if there is something illegal going on in the library, but it isn't like the cops are going to show up and say, "Someone here is looking at porn."
 

Bo Sullivan

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I'm a bit confused. What 'tracing' do you mean? A librarian can call the police if there is something illegal going on in the library, but it isn't like the cops are going to show up and say, "Someone here is looking at porn."

In the UK the Police would have the right to confiscate computers if they were being used for the purposes of looking up porn.
 

BenPanced

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Another thought is that she makes accusations of perverts looking up porn on the library's computers, but surely if they were carrying out such covert activity, they would wish to do so in secrecy? The Police would have had the computers id numbers, traced them to the library, and sent Constables round to confiscate the computers for further investigation, surely? Or am I being too realistic? After all this is supposed to be a novel (except she has made it obvious that she is referring to real patrons of the library.)
Only if they had probable cause to believe the computers were being used for illegal activity. Many jurisdictions in the US still outlaw pornography in any format and as LeslieB noted above, police can't just march in and say "We're confiscating your computers" because they feel like it. Burden of proof and search warrants and all that.

But being in a public place doesn't stop people from doing stupid things so, yeah, you'll have a few out there who'll try to log on to porn sites at the library.
 
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endless rewrite

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I've been thinking about the impact this will have on other PA authors. You know how eager they are to increase 'sells' and this book is doing very well for a PA title.

Perhaps PA authors will corner the market by trying to write similar books and so start a new genre that could take off in the same way that the 'misery memoir' did. Books in which all the author does is slag off their work colleagues and/or customers.

I am tired so the best title I could come up with for this new genre was 'Bitchin' non fiction'. I know you all can do better.
 

LeslieB

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In the UK the Police would have the right to confiscate computers if they were being used for the purposes of looking up porn.

Any porn? Because in the U.S., at least where I live, porn that only involves adult human beings is perfectly legal. Child pornography and bestiality porn is illegal, but that's it. Though a library would be a special case, because showing legal porn to an underage person is illegal. Just sitting there looking at legal porn would get you some sort of disturbing the peace charge, but not much else.
 

Tsu Dho Nimh

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I wonder about the "librarian" title. One of the comments on the Amazon.com review is :"Using words like "imbred" and "retarted" shows the author has little education."

Most librarians - the ones with a degree in Library Science - at least know how to run a spelling checker.
 

SLThomas

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Wow, to be talked about on World Nut Daily!!

Seriously though it seems like she's in deep doo-doo. And whose idea was it to put a pic of her place of work on the cover?

I guess I'd be pi$$ed if the librarian at the library where I do my research and borrow books would do a tell-all describing me in recognizable terms. She seemed to describe in her book most people in her town as uneducated hicksters...

I'd bet $100 that PA didn't read a page of her manuscript.

Get out the lawn chairs, the fireworks are beginning!

S-L
 
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James D. Macdonald

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I wonder if it's a protest against some libraries becoming havens for street-people, including the mentally ill, who are looking for a warm safe place to sit rather than a place to read or research.

How many street people are there in a town of 8,000?

I wonder about the "librarian" title. One of the comments on the Amazon.com review is :"Using words like "imbred" and "retarted" shows the author has little education."

Those errors could have easily been added by PA's "editors."
 

Fillanzea

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By the way, there have been two "Wacky Library People!" memoirs published in the past couple of years by reputable publishers: "Quiet Please" and "Free-For-All."

I'm not sure whether the authors were still working at their libraries when those books were published...
 

Old Hack

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It's dropping down the rankings now: at the time of typing (nearly 9am, GMT) it's at #41,496 in Books at Amazon.com.

I just love this thread. And I am so glad not to be Miss Miketa.
 

HeronW

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Coming under the multiple headings of:
Just because you can write doesn't mean you can write
Fiction should be recognizable as such
and
PA gets the shaft they've given to others
:}
 

Marie Pacha

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http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-58295

This post is apparently by Ms Miketa and made on the 11th. If so, among the patrons she apparently doesn't mind commenting about are those who review alien sightings.

In this particular statement she makes reference to this being a whistleblower case, and I don't know how she can attempt to do that while maintaining her stance that the book is fiction, but that's just my opinion.

According to this portion of the Mason County Library's (Ludington) website http://www.masoncounty.lib.mi.us/PublicInternet.htm

"4. Access to ‘Adult Sites’ is STRICTLY PROHIBITED, as is viewing obscene or pornographic images from web sites or email. The library randomly monitors workstations to assure compliance with this rule."

and

"8. The Library staff will be the sole judge of these rules.—patrons not following these rules may be restricted or prohibited from using these computers"

This is the library's main website: http://www.masoncounty.lib.mi.us/missionvision1.htm

I've lived in small towns in the Midwest for most of my life. I volunteered for years at various library functions, and the staff if the libraries I was a patron of took the rules regarding Internet access quite seriously.

I guess what I don't understand in Ms. Miketa's actions is why she chose to write a fiction book about the potential risk to children as opposed to a serious article that she could have submitted to the library board of directors, a news agency, or why didn't she go to the local police?
 

Marian Perera

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She said,

Meanwhile, I am on my way to bankruptcy and the pedophiles roam free!

If you want to stop pedophiles, there are better ways to do so than to write a potentially libelous book printed by a vanity press.

As for bankruptcy, maybe the royalty checks will help in this regard. Then again, maybe not.
 

nerds

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The whole story is very interesting to me.

This bit from the linked article -

. . . She said she decided to write “The Library Diaries” because, “I’m concerned about what goes on in public libraries everywhere.” She said she is particularly concerned that known sex offenders are given library privileges which allow them access to computers where they routinely view pornography— sometimes in close proximity to children.

“I don’t think they should be allowed in (the library) — these sexual predators,”
. . .


I saw this all the time with my own two eyes at the small library I used in Tennessee. Over time I befriended one of the librarians there (and yes, small-town librarians often have no degree) and she said, look them up in the Offenders' Registry, you'll be shocked. I did, and there they were, eight men and one woman who use(d) the computers continually and spent hours on end, sometimes all day in the library. There were days when I saw preteen girls being sat down next to by these people and up would pop dicey pics right next to them on the screen. Not porn, because that was locked up and inaccessible, but ordinary pics of young girls in bathing suits on the beach and so forth. Cripes.

When that happened they would be ejected from the library but only when it happened, not pre-emptively. One day there was in fact an arrest right there at the computers, a registered offender had active warrants out on him and was recognized.

Other than that event though, there seemed to be more hand-wringing than anything else and no effective, clear policy in place. I couldn't believe it. In fairness to this PA librarian, whatever her mistakes and errors of judgment, this part of her story rings 100% true for me.
 

Prozyan

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Has she seriously not investigated what freedom of speech entails and does not entail?

Unfortunately, this is often the case in America. Some idiot screaming about their rights when they have no clue about anything pertaining to said "rights".
 

C.M. Daniels

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I learned about libel laws when I was a high school journalism student. You'd think a librarian, college degree or not, would be smarter than this.

This is one "happy author" to keep an eye on.
 

Sparhawk

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Here's a suggestion for a book: 'Tales of the PAvidian.' We could write an anthology of every PA Author that's imploded from HB MArcus, to Porno guy to Pavel the Cancerboy wonder to Sheela Watkins, the Pavidian on Dr. Phil, the PAvidian whose book pissed off her whole family by claiming they were all Warlocks and Witches and so many others. This anthology of PA author exploits would let a future PA wannabe see in, one bound document, the trials and misadventures that other 'Happy Authors" have experienced. Each story could be a spine tingling account of each PA author and how he/she arrived at PA with dreams of sugar plums and then simply imploded. The tales of self destruction could be read from sea to shinng sea and ferment the dreams that litter the PA fruited plain.

I personaly beleive that HB MArcus would require an entire book and not just one story. We'd probably outsell every other AP book available.

How can a person land in such a pile of poo and still not comprehend the consequences of her actions?
 

AnneMarble

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Now, at 4:50 EST, it's at a sales rank of #17,547 in Books.

But what does that roughly translate to in sales per day? Or can we even tell?
:Shrug:

Edited to Add:
I noticed the newest review mentioned the ALA. I wonder if that reviewer is any relation to the Safe Libraries blog that gave good press to this book while talking about the dangers of the ALA and nefarious ALA acolytes? (Yes, it used the word "acolytes." I pictured librarians in robes dancing around a pentagram.)

But even if the PA author did bring up important points about people looking at "pr0n" on the library, my impression (from people who read it) is that the book wasn't just about that. Apparently the author also criticized patrons simply for being poor. (Last I read, being poor isn't a crime.) I'm sure other patrons were criticized simply for being rude (jail them!) or because she thought they were stupid (stone them!) Oh, that's right, being rude and stupid isn't a crime, either. :)
 
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