Princeton University Library May Add Trigger Warnings to ‘Offensive’ Archive Materials
“As part of inclusive and reparative description efforts, archival staff in Special Collections have recently begun to implement harmful content mediation features”
Why do we allow progressive activists to make these decisions for the rest of us?
The College Fix reports:
Princeton library adds trigger warnings to ‘offensive’ archive materials
Princeton University soon may add more trigger warnings to its library archives after a focus group met to identify content that “marginalized communities” may find “harmful” or “offensive.”
In late January, library archivists hosted a focus group study about “harmful content” within the Princeton University Library’s online archives, according to a Jan. 16 post on the university’s Special Collections blog.
“As part of inclusive and reparative description efforts, archival staff in Special Collections have recently begun to implement harmful content mediation features as a way to mitigate harm for researchers, particularly those from marginalized communities, who encounter damaging, injurious, or otherwise hurtful description and/or collection content,” the post states.
Their group study aimed to listen and understand students’ thoughts about “harmful content” and the way that the library handles it, according to the blog.
“In particular, we are interested in hearing from those who identify as member(s) of marginalized communities as well as those who are interested in archives, archival research, and social justice,” the post states.
The researchers said they hope the study will help the library be more effective in moderating its archives for content that may hurt or offend people.
The Princeton Library has included content, or trigger, warnings on materials at least since 2022, according to its website.
One example of a warning appears on archived photographs of a bus burning incident in 1961 in Anniston, Alabama. The photos are previewed with the message: “Content warning: Photos/materials depict scenes of anti-Black racially-motivated violence.”
The library website also asks individuals to notify staff if they find “problematic language” in materials, because “terminology evolves over time” and “efforts to create respectful and inclusive descriptions must be ongoing.”
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Comments
but but a library is a white mans construct
Snowflakes. Soon, they’ll put out warnings such as: beware, book has 2 syllable words; beware, book has mathematical symbols; beware, book discusses the advantages of “white” paint, etc.
In the 1960’s, I remember reading Tom Sawyer in High School.
I am curious if Princeton has either banned the evil book or placed a warning label on it.
Naw, Hollywood just took the other tack — a new streaming series about “Thomasina Sawyer,” Mark Twain’s first trans hero.
(If you remember, Tom spent a short time wearing girl’s clothes after secretly returning from his runaway river voyage, in order to watch his own funeral without being recognized. From the trailers, it now seems like he wore drag for a significant portion of his childhood.)
Bless their hearts.
Can you imagine the discussions, the staff meetings, the email exchanges that led up to this new policy?
And no administrator said, “Uh, let’s put a pause on this….”
These folks’ behavior seems to be a lot like the Southern slaveholders prior to the American Civil War — they are so full of themselves , so set in their ways, that they cannot see that the world has passed them by.
For most people, Princeton can’t help you succeed
If you want to succeed, you’ll need a marketable skill. Or two. Or three
And you’ll need to be fluent in another language. Or two
If you do not want to live in the reality of 2024, going forward you’ll find out.
And there won’t be any trigger warnings, old sport.
I’m surprised these idiots didn’t just burn the offending materials.
One thought I had is that librarians may be including these trigger warnings in self-defense, to keep suddenly-offended idiots from destroying those library materials.
the constitution is first in line for them