YA Outside the Lines

  So while having lunch with my father today, we began discussing my career as a school librarian, and he jokingly said 'Be glad you're not a librarian in Florida.' And he's right. The current governor is on a tear about book banning and withholding funds from schools that deviant from the official approved topics. Librarians are often at the forefront of that fight. But I had to tell my dad that I have little reason to be happy right now. Firstly, that governor has more than a fighting chance of becoming the next President of the United States. Secondly, book censorship has become the new hip thing in certain circles. My state of Missouri recently passed a law stating that any teacher or librarian that provides visually obscene materials to a student could be found guilty of a criminal act (only visual, not print works, though I'm sure that's in the pipeline). Now here's the questions: what constitutes obscenity? Who decides what is obscene? The librarian?