Baggett’s BookLens demonstration

Preserved source reading copy
# A Look at the tool called BOOKLENS and "What Unbreakable Looks Like" by Kate McLaughlin
# id=gi7hNw_lt1U published=20260722 duration=445s views=28

[00:00:01] Good morning. For my Watchman Wednesday
[00:00:03] report today, I'm going to show you
[00:00:06] about a really cool tool that you
[00:00:09] librarians, you can use, but especially
[00:00:12] for parents or grandparents or citizens
[00:00:14] who want to
[00:00:16] um make sure that their kids are reading
[00:00:18] appropriate content, okay? This is a
[00:00:21] really cool tool. It is no secret. I
[00:00:24] have been trying to help clean up
[00:00:25] libraries for right at 4 years. Over
[00:00:29] that span of time, I have met some
[00:00:31] really, really cool people from here,
[00:00:34] but from other states, and they like me
[00:00:37] are also working with various districts
[00:00:41] um with legal people trying to have
[00:00:46] policies enact policies with some teeth.
[00:00:50] I've met a lot of techy people, and this
[00:00:52] that I'm about to show you is one of
[00:00:54] those really cool tools. I highly
[00:00:56] suggest that you take advantage of it.
[00:00:59] And you can download it on your phone,
[00:01:01] or you can just use it from your laptop.
[00:01:03] I'm going to show it to you from my
[00:01:07] Okay, this is a tool. It's called
[00:01:14] Bookmark it on your computer, or
[00:01:16] download the website. You don't have to
[00:01:18] have an app, but download it on your
[00:01:20] cell phone, and it's a Citizens for
[00:01:24] Decency Initiative.
[00:01:26] And do is you literally can scan the
[00:01:30] cover of a book, or you can scan the
[00:01:32] ISBN number, or you can even type in the
[00:01:35] name of the book manually. I'm going to
[00:01:38] click on um
[00:01:40] scan cover of a book, and you can see
[00:01:44] that it's now access my camera.
[00:01:47] And I am going to
[00:01:51] let it take a picture
[00:01:53] of the book title. This is 101
[00:01:59] It has to see the author.
[00:02:02] And it shows you, "Hey, I'm preparing a
[00:02:05] report." And you see what it did. It
[00:02:07] tells me this is suitable for readers
[00:02:10] under 18 year old 18 years old. The
[00:02:13] content is family-friendly.
[00:02:16] And it gives me a little synopsis.
[00:02:21] It uses Open Library, Google Books, and
[00:02:25] Amazon for its reviews. Now, it's not
[00:02:28] going to have every single book or every
[00:02:31] single report, but it has a lot of them.
[00:02:34] So, this is a good little tool
[00:02:37] for you to have if you need a quick
[00:02:39] review on a book that maybe you're not
[00:02:41] familiar with.
[00:02:42] There are so many tools out there now,
[00:02:45] especially with AI, that there's no
[00:02:47] excuse for any library to contain
[00:02:50] inappropriate content. For instance, it
[00:02:54] it again it's no secret, Escambia
[00:02:56] County, Florida, is leading the way in
[00:02:59] solid policy. I can tell you I can name
[00:03:02] about 30 states
[00:03:04] where school districts are trying to
[00:03:07] copy the policies that Escambia County
[00:03:11] have enacted because they're so
[00:03:13] impressed with them. We've got some fine
[00:03:16] school board members. Um Kevin Adams,
[00:03:19] Paul Fetsko, David Williams are up for
[00:03:21] reelection again. They do not have a
[00:03:24] problem following the law. The law
[00:03:26] states you cannot have inappropriate
[00:03:29] content in front of minors. What is
[00:03:32] inappropriate content? Um every week I
[00:03:35] show you inappropriate content. When you
[00:03:37] have content where people are having sex
[00:03:40] on the page and it's graphic, that is
[00:03:43] against the law.
[00:03:45] For me, that's a no-brainer. Um the
[00:03:49] other two board members, you've got Tom
[00:03:51] Harrell who has come in with requiring
[00:03:55] teachers to sign off that books do not
[00:03:57] have inappropriate content before they
[00:03:59] order the books. If they don't know,
[00:04:02] then they better not order the content.
[00:04:05] Now, we still see some things going on
[00:04:07] in Escambia County. Something I have
[00:04:09] seen this summer, some e-books have
[00:04:12] crept in and they've been allowed to be
[00:04:14] open and students are accessing things
[00:04:17] that they were not supposed to be
[00:04:19] accessing. Um I'm being told, "Oh, I
[00:04:21] don't know how this happened. I'm going
[00:04:23] to try to find out." Again, this sort of
[00:04:26] thing cannot happen. In Santa Rosa
[00:04:28] County, we see a lot more sexual
[00:04:30] content. The library director is
[00:04:34] certainly trying to do something about
[00:04:36] it. Um she takes responsibility for
[00:04:39] actions. Last week, I shared with you an
[00:04:41] extremely sexual book that was found in
[00:04:44] the new high school sound side that's
[00:04:47] going to open up. She said that she is
[00:04:49] the one who ordered that book. I do not
[00:04:51] know on what basis she ordered the book.
[00:04:53] She has not answered that question yet,
[00:04:56] but I do believe she's trying to her
[00:04:59] best ability to make sure that books are
[00:05:02] appropriate. So, I did want to show you
[00:05:04] that tool. Now, in saying that, I also
[00:05:07] want to tell you in Escambia County,
[00:05:10] it's not new books that I'm finding.
[00:05:12] Although Although in the elementary
[00:05:15] level, we have a lot of books that are
[00:05:17] violating our own policy in that they
[00:05:19] have curse words all in them. That's
[00:05:21] against our own county policy.
[00:05:24] But, I'm still finding books at the high
[00:05:27] school level which contain extreme
[00:05:29] sexual content. Let me show you this one
[00:05:32] I just found.
[00:05:33] This book is called What Unbreakable
[00:05:36] Looks Like by Kate McLaughlin.
[00:05:39] It was only found in Escambia County,
[00:05:42] Florida and it was found at West Florida
[00:05:44] High School.
[00:05:46] Okay, this is a 2020 publication
[00:05:49] and it is loaded with inappropriate
[00:05:52] sexual content especially um
[00:05:55] pedophilia, has the F word over 130
[00:05:58] times, deviant content, um controversial
[00:06:02] discussions, child abuse, bullying.
[00:06:05] Let's just look at some of this and I'm
[00:06:07] just going to go to some of the sexual
[00:06:10] content because that alone makes the
[00:06:15] book inappropriate.
[00:06:17] Uh you've got rape going on, specific
[00:06:19] graphic details.
[00:06:22] Uh later you've got penetration, direct
[00:06:25] penetration takes place. There's an 847
[00:06:28] violation right there. Um here's
[00:06:34] He's the one who taught me how to give
[00:06:35] blow jobs. Isn't that nice? Okay, here
[00:06:39] she's talking about coming, had not come
[00:06:41] during sex, oral sex, graphic
[00:06:44] description of rape here. Um
[00:06:50] descriptions of sometimes bleeding
[00:06:52] during sex. Here she is
[00:06:56] again, just shoved until he was inside.
[00:06:59] This goes on all throughout this book.
[00:07:02] This book actually received a five out
[00:07:05] of five rating um
[00:07:08] with ratedbooks.org
[00:07:11] and once again it's inappropriate
[00:07:15] content for minors.
[00:07:17] Why is this book still available for our
[00:07:21] students? Parents, beware.