From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: [Republicans] On Pornography
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 14:24:05 GMT

Chuck.Lavazzi@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Chuck Lavazzi) writes:

[...]
>	And, yes, the same theocratic ninnyhammers who want to ban everything
>in sight are also active in making the Bard of Avon morally acceptable for
>our public schools by (for example) cutting out any sexual references in
>"Romeo and Juliet" or "Hamlet", thereby rendering huge chunks of the plays
>incomprehensible.
[...]

This called "expurgation". It is an insidious form of censorship
because the reader often doesn't even know it has happened. I'm
enclosing an American Library Association statement on expurgation.

- Carl

=============== ftp.eff.org:pub/academic/library/expurgation.ala =========

                      EXPURGATION OF LIBRARY MATERIALS

                An Interpretation of the LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS


Expurgating library materials is a violation of the LIBRARY BILL OF RIGHTS.
Expurgation as defined by this interpretation includes any deletion, excision,
alteration, editing, or obliteration of any part(s) of books or other library
resources by the library, its agent, or its parent institution (if any).  By
such expurgation, the library is in effect denying access to the complete work
and the entire spectrum of ideas that the work intended to express.  Such
action stands in violation of Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the LIBRARY BILL OF
RIGHTS, which state that "Materials should not be excluded because of the
origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation," that
"Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or
doctrinal disapproval," and that "Libraries should challenge censorship in the
fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment."

The act of expurgation has serious implications.  It involves a determination
that it is necessary to restrict access to the complete work.  This is
censorship.  When a work is expurgated, under the assumption that certain
portions of that work would be harmful to minors, the situation is no less
serious.

Expurgation of any books or other library resources imposes a restriction,
without regard to the rights and desires of all library users, by limiting
access to ideas and information.

Further, expurgation without written permission from the holder of the
copyright on the material may violate the copyright provisions of the United
States Code.

Adopted February 2, 1973; amended July 1, 1981; amended January 10, 1990, by
the ALA Council.

[Made available by permission of the American Library Association.]

ANNOTATED REFERENCES

(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)

=================
library/README
=================
* Library Policy Statements

Library Policy Archive
  [part of the Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive
     [part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Archive]]

This is an on-line collection of library policy statements. It
includes the American Library Association's Freedom To Read statement
and the ALA Library Bill of Rights. (The ALA material is made
available by permission of the American Library Association.)

If you have gopher, the archive is browsable with the command:
  gopher -p academic/library gopher.eff.org

The archive is also accessible via anonymous ftp and email. Ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4). It is in directory "pub/academic/library".
For email access, send email to archive-server@eff.org. Include the
line:

send acad-freedom/library <filenames>

where <filenames> is a list of the files that you want. File README is
a detailed description of the items in the directory.

For more information, to make contributions, or to report typos
contact Carl Kadie (kadie@eff.org).

=================
=================

If you have gopher, you can browse the CAF archive with the command
   gopher gopher.eff.org

These document(s) are also available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):

  pub/academic/library/README

To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):

send acad-freedom/library README
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Xref: sparky alt.censorship:8024 alt.politics.elections:15987