Sunday, October 4, 2015

Librarian Versus Librarian; Sexual Harassment Wins

Some librarians are willing to keep other librarians silent about sexual harassment and its causes within librarianship.

This "Sexual Harassment of Librarians" resource has been recognized as useful by at least one actually sexually harassed librarian, apparently, after only a month in existence as a locus for information that could help sexual harassed librarians.  What a great feeling it is for someone to say she wants other librarians to see this resource.

Still, she was afraid of the attacks, "reprisals" as she put it, against anyone who speaks out against the American Library Association [ALA] policy that enables sexual harassment of librarians, namely, its law-defying, pro-child porn policy (link).

Sure enough, a member of the "TeamHarpy" group of librarians (link) tries to convince people *not* to follow her advice to read Sexual Harassment of Librarians by attacking the messenger and never addressing the issue.  He proclaimed I violated copyright and that I have not received permission of the author, one of the TeamHarpy members.  Some people will do anything to keep people from learning how ALA is directly responsible for sexual harassment of librarians.

Michael Sauers, bully
of Nebraska Library
Commission.
Watch as an anonymous librarian praises this Sexual Harassment of Librarians resource while getting repeatedly bullied by a TeamHarpy supporter, right up to the point where she feels her sexual harassment has been triggered.  See how see fears exactly this kind of personal attacks the TeamHarpy supporter uses to silence her, and she turns out to be 100% correct.  Eventually, she feels her sexual harassment has been triggered and she deletes her account, silencing herself forever, the very censorship TeamHarpy and those like them seek when they ignore the real issues and relentlessly attack the messenger.  Now there's one less sexual harassed librarian willing to speak out.

The importance of noting this is that librarians need to know there are others out there who have been sexually harassed while working in a library.  They are afraid to speak up.  They are bullied into silence.  Or they are constructively discharged (link).  But they are there and some people are willing to listen.

Sexual Harassment of Librarians is hereby asking those librarians to contact us and we will publish your stories anonymously here.  Hopefully pressure will build to the point where people finally decide to put an end to the sexual harassment of librarians, no matter who stands in the way with diversionary ad hominem argument.  Similar pressure is beginning to foretell an end to the Banned Books Week hoax (link).

Here is the announcement of the link to "Starting a Dialogue about Sexual Harassment in Libraries (link)" posted by anonymous librarian "hereitis8819," now showing as "[deleted]."  Watch as she is bullied for posting the link instead of a link to the original ALA publication called American Libraries.  Watch the bullying build to the point where the women feels triggered.  Eventually she deletes her account, forced into silence by the bullying, which is the whole purpose of the smears.

The bully is TeamHarpy supporter Michael Sauers, who at the time was the Technology Innovation Librarian, Nebraska Library Commission, Lincoln, NE and is "currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE (link).


To read all the comments, you will have to click on "[+]SafeLibraries comment score below threshold  (20 children)" because TeamHarpy worked together to vote my comments not worthy of reading so that they get hidden by default.  This is how the free speech people work together.

Face of a bully for TeamHarpy,
Michael Sauers.
Republished below are the comments by the likely sexually harassed librarian and the bullying comments to which she responds.  It is shameful how she was treated by TeamHarpy.  It shows that some librarians will do absolutely anything to promote ALA no matter who gets harmed, in this case, triggering a sexually harassed librarian and forcing her to delete her account.  And I had just told him, before he bullied the librarian, to stop harassing me (link).

Michael Sauers's only regret for having bullied the sexually harassed librarian into feeling triggered then into self-censoring was that he got caught doing it, as this 6 August 2015 comment shows: "Michael Sauers: Do not engage. Repeat DO NOT ENGAGE! I've made that mistake. Please do not fall into the trap (link)."



His comment has three "likes."  One of the "likes" is from Kristen Pekoll, the Assistant Director of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom.  So much for intellectual freedom from the Office for Intellectual Freedom.  Does she know she's high fiving the guy who bullied a sexually harassed librarian into silence?  Her Office for Intellectual Freedom, after all, is directly involved in claiming sexual harassment of librarians never happens (link).

Here are the Reddit comments with my notations intercalated:

Anonymous Librarian (hereitis8819):  "Starting a Dialogue about Sexual Harassment in Libraries #teamharpy (link)"

[Note: she includes the #TeamHarpy tag likely because she wants the alleged sexually harassed librarians using the #TeamHarpy hashtag on Twitter to see what she linked on Reddit, and I updated the link.]

Michael Sauers:  "Really, if you're going to link to this article, link to the original, not to a copy that's been posted in violation of the author's copyright and has been asked to be removed by the original publisher."

[Note, he is telling the original poster she should not have linked to me.]

Michael Sauers:  "Ok, I'll admit that I'm not the person who gets to determine whether this reprint of the complete article is a copyright violation or not. That's just my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong. Even if it isn't a copyright violation, general scholarly, blogger, and librarian ethics says you should have quoted from the article, provided your commentary as you are want to do, and then linked to the original giving those who choose to read the whole article the opportunity to do so, and to give the original author and publisher the Google juice, not you, the commentator.  Fact: The original publisher has asked that you take it down and you've refused. You also changed your post in response to their request. Is that an admission that at least in part you got it wrong?  However, my original comment and down-vote still stands. If the redditor's intent was to draw attention to the original author's article, then, like any good librarian, the redditor should have linked to the original."

[Note: the "redditor" is the original Reddit editor, namely the anonymous librarian who posted the Sexual Harassment of Librarians link.  He's telling her she's not a "good librarian" because she did not link directly to American Libraries.  So much for free speech.  The sexually harassed librarian might not have seen that post buried in American Libraries were it not for it's having been added to Sexual Harassment of Librarians.  Essentially, Michael Sauers is complaining I made the article visible and more accessible for sexually harassed librarians and he does not want people to do that.]

Michael Sauers:  "For the record, I've taken back nothing. I still believe you're violating copyright. I just said that it's not my ultimate decision to make and pointed out that I'm willing to consider that I may be wrong. I also did not tell people not to look at it, I told the original poster that it would have been better to link to the original, not your copy, and included my reasoning for doing so."

[Note:  So this is the third comment now where he bullies the original poster for linking to Sexual Harassment of Librarians instead of American Libraries.]

SafeLibraries:  "Did you ever consider there might be a reason why the original poster linked to my version? Perhaps he/she wants people to see the entirety of 'Sexual Harassment of Librarians' instead of the entirety of 'American Libraries' magazine?"

[Note:  As we shall see, this turns out to be right on the money.]

Michael Sauers:  "Yes, and the original poster is more than welcome to reply to my comment."

[Note:  This TeamHarpy supporter is now bating the anonymous librarian to speak up.]

Anonymous Librarian (hereitis8819):  "sorry, I was just trying to raise awareness about an issue that's important to me... :( "

[Note: Isn't that a sad answer?  Frowny face and all.  She was "just trying to raise awareness about an issue that's important to me" and Michael Sauers and members and other supporters of TeamHarpy are right there to ridicule her for posting the link on Reddit and me for posting it at all.  They show absolutely zero interest in the underlying issue.  When Michael Sauers sees this, he has to immediately correct her thinking, as we are about to see.]

Michael Sauers:  "Fair enough and I appreciate the effort in general. However, as I've written elsewhere in this thread, the more appropriate and good-librarian thing to do would have been to notice that Dan's post was a reprint (legal or otherwise,) and then posted a link to the original.
As I see you're new to Reddit and the /r/librarians board, (this being the only thing you've posted as far as I can tell,) I hope you take my advice in the spirit in which it was intended."

[Note:  After patronizing her, Michael Sauers continues the bullying and just will not let up on correcting the wrong thinking of the anonymous librarian.  Watch what happens next.]


Anonymous Librarian (hereitis8819):  "ok, sorry i'm a bad librarian for caring about preventing sexual harassment...  i found this website (Safe Libraries) about sexual harassment in libraries and wanted to share it here, but this is a throwaway account because i'm worried about reprisals."

[Note:  He bullies her into saying she is "sorry," into admitting she is a "bad librarian," and into being sorry for "caring about preventing sexual harassment."  Thank you, Michael Sauers, the bully of the Nebraska Library Commission at that time.  But look what else she reveals.  Yes, she "found this website (Safe Libraries) about sexual harassment in libraries and wanted to share it here," and that made us authors (Kevin and Dan) feel terrific that we were already helping likely sexually harassed librarians after only month building this new resource.  But she also revealed that librarians like her are afraid of librarians like Michael Sauers!  "[T]his is a throwaway account because i'm worried about reprisals."  Reprisals!  And Micheal Sauers delivers that in spades, to the point where she is apologizing for being a bad librarian and caring about the sexual harassment of librarians!  Way to go, Michael Sauers!  You've done yourself proud!  Oh no, Micheal Sauers is still not done harassing this woman.  Read on.]

Michael Sauers:  "I apologize if you feel that I've misrepresented you or made you feel like you needed fear reprisals in any way. I'm also someone who cares about harassment issues. All I was trying to address was the link to a disputed copy of the article as opposed to the original. My intent was to raise a netiquette issue and nothing more. Again I apologize for any discomfort I may have caused you."

[Note:  The patronizing continues, then there's the fifth or sixth time Michael Sauers is telling her she's a bad librarian even after he knows he has successfully bullied her into apologizing for caring about the issue.  To hide the issue of the cause for the sexually harassment of librarians being the ALA, he pulls "a netiquette issue and nothing more" out of his hat.  Netiquette is way more important than the sexual harassment of librarians, after all.  Obviously his repeating the same thing over and over shows he is not listening to her.  It shows he could care less about her concerns because his are far more important.  It belittles her and her feelings.  It reminds her of how she was treated when she was sexually harassed in her workplace and wanted the library to stop it.  How do I know?  What follows is the saddest comment of all.]

Anonymous Librarian (hereitis8819):  "thanks, that's nice of you to say. it's just frustrating to try and talk about an important issue and then see people downvote it like it doesn't exist. like, if you look through this thread, no one's even talking about the issue itself, it's all about a copyright/reprint deal.sorry, don't mean to dump on you, guess i've just had enough internet for one day, feeling kinda triggered tbh.
have a nice day. :)"

[Note:  And there it is, "feeling kinda triggered tbh" where tbh = to be honest.  Isn't this truly sad?  Michael Sauers has beaten her down so much, and Team Harpy member Lisa Rabey feigns concern only for copyright and permissions issues, that someone who apparently is a sexually harassed librarian seeking help and trying to let others know about a resource she found useful gets bullied to the point where she gets triggered into feeling like she did when she was being sexually harassed.  Well done, Team Harpy, you've defended your turf and ALA's by bullying and censoring a sexually harassed librarian.]

Michael Sauers:  "I would really like to take this conversation with you off Reddit. If you're willing, there's a contact form on my site @ travelinlibrarian.info."

[Note:  Finally Michael Sauer realizes his reeducation process has been unsuccessful but does not want her to respond further since it makes him look worse and worse, so he tells the women whom he is harassing to contact him!  Offline!  Personal mansplaining (link) since he obviously was not successful here!  And as his 6 August 2015 comment pictured above shows, he blames me for his harassing the woman, not himself, and urges other librarians, "Do not engage.  Repeat DO NOT ENGAGE!"]

Anonymous Librarian (hereitis8819):  "ok, another day maybe. thanks."

[Note: Actually, no other day will she contact him because she was bullied into silence by him and others in Team Harpy and immediately deleted her Reddit account.]

This has got to be one of the meanest and most embarrassing incidents in librarianship.  Yes, librarians tell off other librarians occasionally, especially members of ALA Council telling off each other, but for a librarian to repeatedly bully an obviously sexually harassed librarian for daring to link to Sexual Harassment of Librarians, particularly where that librarian is a supporter of TeamHarpy that supposedly opposes sexual harassment of librarians truly takes the cake.  What is disgrace.  Michael Sauers, you are a disgrace.

People should also know this, all the attacks and down votes where designed to distract from the total fraud that was Team Harpy:


Of course, everything written at Sexual Harassment of Librarians not from a reliable source is our opinion.  The way Michael Sauers belittled and triggered that anonymous sexually harassed librarian repeatedly is plain for everyone to see, and it is in his own words.  What a disgrace.

When Sexual Harassment of Librarians says ALA will not help sexually harassed librarians because ALA policy is directly responsible for the sexual harassment, this is just another incident along the way of how ALA bullies sexually harassed librarians into silence, in this case via acolytes.

By the way, hundreds of librarians including ALA leadership at the Facebook group called ALA Think Tank (link) where bully Michael Sauers warned people DO NOT ENGAGE are working to delete from the Internet years of evidence of the sexual harassment of librarians and library employees at a page called Fans of Megan Fox (link) written by Sexual Harassment of Librarians coauthor Kevin DuJan.

As the Michael Sauers bully shows, when it's librarian versus librarian, sexual harassment wins.  Want your voice to rise above the bullies?  Contact us, Kevin and Dan, and we will publish your story anonymously.  We will go over the heads of ALA and, as anonymous sexually harassed librarian hereitis8819 (bullied/triggered into being deleted) illustrates, people are noticing.


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