No, They Broke The Chalice From The Palace.  Now The Pellet With The Poison’s In The Flagon With The

This is so adorable!

The Guardian Of Good Grammar

This is incredibly frightening.  In addition to the definition of domestic violence, the definitions of stalking (old vs. new) and sexual assault (old vs. new) were changed between December 2017 and April 2018.

The Trump Administration Quietly Changed the Definition of Domestic Violence and We Have No Idea What For

It is too early to assess the full impact of the change.

Without fanfare or even notice, the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women made significant changes to its definition of domestic violence in April. The Obama-era definition was expansive, vetted by experts including the National Center for Victims of Crime and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The Trump administration’s definition is substantially more limited and less informed, effectively denying the experiences of victims of abuse by attempting to cast domestic violence as an exclusively criminal concern.

The previous definition included critical components of the phenomenon that experts recognize as domestic abuse—a pattern of deliberate behavior, the dynamics of power and control, and behaviors that encompass physical or sexual violence as well as forms of emotional, economic, or psychological abuse. But in the Trump Justice Department, only harms that constitute a felony or misdemeanor crime may be called domestic violence. So, for example, a woman whose partner isolates her from her family and friends, monitors her every move, belittles and berates her, or denies her access to money to support herself and her children is not a victim of domestic violence in the eyes of Trump’s Department of Justice. This makes no sense for an office charged with funding and implementing solutions to the problem of domestic violence rather than merely prosecuting individual abusers

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Your flat tire is more likely to happen during difficult conditions, when it’s harder to see the road and any hazards.  If you can, keep an old blanket or sleeping bag in your vehicle so you have something to kneel or sit on when you’re changing the tire.

Pride hair -- so pretty!

This is the first set, but there will be more!

Well, that's massively creepy! My library (and our OverDrive consortium) don't have any eAudiobooks with "synthesized voice" narrators. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean that we don't have AI narrators that aren't identified that way. We do have books by Blake Pierce, Molly Black, Fiona Grace, Rylie Dark, and some of the other authors listed in the article though.

Our Collection Development Policy doesn't specifically mention AI; we'll have to keep that in mind for the next review. I would recommend against purchasing AI-generated materials based on our criteria of artistic and literary quality, and reputation of the author, artist, or publisher. (Not to mention the damage that it does to the literary industry and the people in it!) However, that depends on us knowing that something is AI-generated. We don't have the time to do a deep dive into every author and narrator like Robin Bradford and SB Sarah did for this article.

Personally, I'm disgusted by AI-generated material being used in place of human-created works. Machine "learning" should be taking over repetitive, boring, and/or dangerous work to give humans more time for creativity! Using AI for creative work and leaving people to do more drudgery, is sickening. The fact that most of the bases that AIs are using come from people who are neither credited nor compensated for their work just makes it worse.

(This is my personal opinion and not the opinion of my employer.)

Is your library unknowingly buying AI written and/or narrated books?

OK, I know it sounds like clickbait. But smartbitchestrashybooks.com makes a pretty compelling case in their recent article,

AI Audiobook Narrators in OverDrive and the Issue of Library AI Circulation Policy

It's a long article, but worth the read. I wonder if it started before or after KKR bought Overdrive.

Any thoughts, @bibliofran ?

Pride dragons (part 1) -- SWOON!

The pride dragons are back for pride month again (now with more bc there was a few I didn’t get around to last year heck)!! Happy pride month everyone!!!!!!!!!

(Part 2) (Stickers available Here) (Last year’s posts: X X )

Thank you!

Thanks to the person who sent me The Patriarchy Isn't Going to Smash Itself from TeePublic!  (Hooray for geeky, nerdy goodness with strong females!!)  Unfortunately, the package arrived without any indication of the sender. :(  If you let me know who you are, I will happily shower you with direct appreciation as well as indirect.

Sometimes, this is the same cat.

There are two types of cats

Ace owls!

Ace + gender identity owls for anon~

From top to bottom:

Ace and Transgender, Ace and Nonbinary

Ace and Genderqueer, Ace and Pangender

Ace and Demigirl, Ace and Demiboy

Ace and Genderfluid, Ace and Genderflux

Ace and Agender, Ace and Neutrois

People are free to use them as icons.

Know your rights! Also, check your workplace's policy on sharing information about staff, customers, clients, etc.

ICE agents are complaining that the push to make sure people know their rights is making their jobs harder. Keep it up!