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At first, when I couldn’t find a post I had made on Chowhound yesterday morning before I left for work, I chalked it up to my own sloppy surfing. I have been acutely focused on Friday’s talk, as many people from MPOW are coming, which I am finding very stressful to the point of frazzlement and hair-pulling (if I flub a talk 300 hundred miles from home, I can fly home and be done with it; but I see these folks every day).

But then I looked in the cache for Bloglines and found my own Chowhound post and the one that prompted it, in reference to this discussion of Urbane, a new restaurant in Tallahassee.

It’s not even the first Chowhound post of mine that has evaporated into the net-ether. Last week I linked to my review of the Shell Oyster Bar, and that vanished. I thought, well enough: they don’t want bloggers using Chowhound as a honeypot.

But what was wrong with the following posts? (Posting dates refer to Bloglines’ feeds, not to Chowhound’s timeline.) I thought we were having a smart exchange about the nature of expression with respect to food.

And how comfortable are we about living in a world where commercial enterprises calling the shots on intellectual freedom — with nary a word to the authors? Yes, I know they say they can do that — but is that the world we want to live in?

The other poster’s comment (sorry, I don’t remember who it was!), Tue, Feb 12 2008 4:35 PM:

“Coffee & Doughnuts” sounds lifted directly from The French Laundry Cookbook. “Coffee & Doughnuts” is one Thomas Keller’s signature dishes. It is one of my most revered and treasured cookbooks. IMHO it is one thing for a recreational chef to prepare something right from a cookbook, but for a “Chef” who is paid for his creativity, technique, and talent to plaguarize…I would expect more than that. I have followed previous threads on different sites and this topic of chefs plaguarizing has been thoroughly dissected. Bascially, is it right for a chef to put a dish on his menu, take credit for it, when it has been directly lifted from another chef. Take classic dishes for example; Nicoise Salad, Beef Bourgogne, Tarte Tatin, the list is endless. These dishes are constantly replicated, however a good chef will reinterpret. In this case the classic dish is actually a cup of joe with fresh doughnuts. Thomas Keller is world renowned for his whimsical approach to classic dishes. So is it fair for another “chef” to steal his dish, even though it was published in his cookbook (meant for the home cook)?

My response (Wed, Feb 13 2008 9:54 AM):

Well — this was not a cup of joe with doughnuts (which I would not have bothered with); it was a silky mocha semifreddo topped with cream — a fake frozen latte — served with doughnut holes, really very moist, hot quasi-beignets. So if the name is borrowed but the dish is reinterpreted, is that not acceptable? In the literary world, titles of books are not copyrighted; unless someone outright trademarks them in advance, they are not protected. I can’t present the text of Pride and Prejudice as my own, but I can certainly use that title and then whimsically write my own take on this classic. To me this is not “lifting” (let alone plagiarizing) but responding. Food is a conversation. Urbane’s chef replied to Keller, “This is how *I* see this dish.” That to me is not only legitimate but delightful. Riffing on other chef’s interpretations is a way of saying we are all participating in an ongoing discussion about cuisine. Urbane’s interpretation may well be conditioned by the idea that in Tallahassee, palates are far less jaded than in the Bay Area, and a local diner might be acutely disappointed by a dish that would seem cute or whimsical for the culinary Brahmins of the world. I appreciate your erudition here, by the way — I will probably never dine at the French Laundry, but it’s nice to find out that a local dish has more classic roots than I realized. I just hope we never find ourselves dining on “Lamb Shanks French Laundry — All Rights Reserved.”

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I’d like to introduce you to a project between the Children’s Book Council (where I work as Marketing Director) and Knowledge Quest (the AASL journal). While many ALSC members are also AASL members, some of you are not and will be interested in this new initiative. We have partnered to bring readers a series of articles by children’s book authors and illustrators entitled “Meet the Author/Illustrator.”

I am a member of the KQ Editorial Board. When I joined the Board, KQ Editor Debbie Abilock and I sat down to discuss how we could bring more children’s book coverage to the journal. Debbie had been a fan of our online “Meet the Author/Illustrator” columns and thought such articles would be a great complement to the theme-based issues KQ covers.

As the project developed, we realized that each column really does embody common goals that AASL and CBC share - belief in the power of reading enjoyment and immersive learning and a commitment to a high level of literacy for every child. Columns are written by authors and illustrators with a wide variety of styles, genres and publishers. Readers can draw inspiration by learning about their lives and work. 

The first article, by Ying Chang Compestine, author of Revolution Is Not A Dinner Party (Holt, 2007), appeared in the September/October 2007 issue of the journal and can be found on KQ Web and on the CBC website. The theme of the KQ issue was “A Test of Character.” If you’ve already read Revolution Is Not A Dinner Party, you probably already have a good idea about why Ying was the perfect match for the issue.

The second article by Laurie Lazzaro Knowlton, author of Red, White and Blue (Pelican, 2002), appears in the November/December 2007 issue which recently arrived in mailboxes. This article can also be found on KQ Web and on the CBC website. With “Intellectual Freedom” as the KQ theme and Red, White and Blue as the book title, you can guess the connection.

Future articles from Stefan Pertrucha, author of the Nancy Drew graphic novels (Papercutz); Amanda Lumry and Laura Hurwitz, the author and photographer for The Adventures of Riley (Eaglemont); and Frank Beddor, author of The Looking Glass Wars (Dial, 2006), are scheduled for the Spring 2008 issues. These articles are fabulous insights into the lives and work of the creators of today’s children’s literature. I know readers will find them as fascinating and wonderful as both Debbie and I did when we received them in our email inboxes.

A few days ago, Library Link of the Day sent a link for “Children’s book outrages parents,” a November 30, 2007, article, from The Morning Call, a Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, newspaper. The book to cause the outrage: King & King (2002, Tricycle Press) by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland.

If you aren’t already familiar with your library’s material selection process and its materials complaint process, that should be high on your to-do list. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom offers Dealing with Challenges to Books and Other Library Materials, a very helpful resource whether you are dealing with a complaint or do not want to be overly surprised when/if a complaint arrives at your library.

My initial reaction to the article was, well, a little, shall we say, holier-than-thou. Good grief, I thought, it’s a library, it’s supposed to have materials for everyone. How hard is that to realize? Read the books yourself before you present them to your children. And then, I was reminded about one of my first jobs. The summer after I graduated from high school, I worked as a ride attendant at Cedar Point, an amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. You probably have been to an amusement park. Remember the yellow lines? The areas where you aren’t supposed to stand while a roller coaster train or ride car is in motion or out of the station? Many people forget. Many times a day, ride attendants have to remind people about the yellow line. In fact, sometimes it is easy, as a ride attendant, to forget that the person in front of you hasn’t heard about the yellow line or is so caught up in their own world that they have forgotten about where they are standing and the others around them.

I moved past my initial reaction to the article and a question came to mind. One that I want to share with you. When someone signs up for a library card, or even whenever they check out any children’s materials, should the library personnel and policy make more of an effort to offer a recommendation that a caregiver first review the material before sharing it with a child? Not to say that there is anything wrong with certain materials, but as a reminder that our libraries offer books that share many ideas, that represent all types of families. To help those people who forget where they are and that there others around them. Please share your thoughts.

Over the weekend I wrote about the threat to small and independent publishers from proposed postal rate hikes, which if not challenged will go into effect July 15, forcing subscription hikes and possibly causing some publications to fold.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times published an editorial co-authored by Teresa Stack, president of The Nation, and Jack Fowler, publisher of The National Review, in which they wrote,

Our respective magazines — the Nation and the National Review — sit on opposite ends of the political spectrum and disagree on nearly every issue. But we concur on this: These proposed postal rate hikes are deeply unfair.

You can bet your last p-slip that when the gingham dog and the calico cat agree on an issue, it’s important. Please take time now to contact your local and national representatives — elective and library association. This is a core intellectual freedom issue, directly related to the right to read.

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4 Comments on Update on Threat to Postal Rates, last added: 5/30/2007