censorship

censorship

‘Freedom’ to Read on the Inside

‘Freedom’ to Read on the Inside

, , , , , books, Matt Dilworth
What do you do if you want a book, but can’t pay for it?  The answer is obvious – get it from the library.  But not all libraries are created equal, and some lack the resources to acquire the material their patrons need.  In particular, prison libraries are more dependent on donations of books than public or academic libraries are, which generally enjoy more public support and stable funding.  This isn’t a small problem – almost 2.3 million people in this country are in prison; and 47,000 in Indiana. However, recent technological advances have resulted in many states issuing e-readers to prisoners, similar to educational initiatives in schools.  This allows incarcerated people to maintain more of the human connection the … Continued
Tales from the Comics Database: A Brief Look at EC Comics

Tales from the Comics Database: A Brief Look at EC Comics

, , Library Resources
“It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  No!  It’s Superman!”  While Superman is among the very first successful comic book characters, period, and the earliest comic book superhero, many important comics came in his wake.  A market whose art and ideas were dominated by immigrants and their children, women and religious minorities, comic books were conceived by and for an audience left out of what might be termed “high culture.”  The success of Superman, and other comic titles like New Fun, All-American Comics and others, led to a thriving comic market, where up to 15 million comic books were purchased by Americans every single week by 1941. Indiana University East boasts a large digital database of comic books, the Underground and … Continued
Blackout

Blackout

, , Matt Dilworth
If you tried to use the Internet on Wednesday, you may have noticed that a lot of your favorite sites, like Wikipedia, were down.  Even Google changed its logo with a big black ‘censored’ bar.  All of those outages were in protest of legislation before the U.S. Congress, which could change the laws on how the government deals with stolen content on websites, known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, HR 3261) in the House of Representatives and PIPA (Protect IP Act, S 968) in the Senate.  Opponents claim that this proposed legislation is too intrusive, that it will eliminate a lot of good content and chill new attempts at innovation and online speech.  They say that the burden of … Continued