The whole problem is the idea of responsibility, intellectual freedom is a fine term to spout when one feels threatened, however, there is also a responsibility that comes with that freedom, and the American Library Association is obviously all about denying that responsibility with the cute little phrase “it must be the responsibility of the parent…” All fine and dandy until we take a look at what is happening in public schools and with teen culture.

I do not advocate Nazi style censorship by any means, but there is a certain point where some things are to be considered obscene, and even some comic book shop owners have stated that this particular issue of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is obscene and should be for mature readers only, one even went so far as to say she has warned parents of its content before they made the purchase for their children, because like most people with a dose of common sense, she realizes not every parent takes the time to read or look through what their children are reading. If they did the Gossip Girl “genre” of books wouldn’t be on shelves.

I’m not sure what some libraries are doing with Scientific American, but yes, a library can make a financial decision about what to carry or not. In the cases I’m aware of, the paper subscription is being dropped, but the library still has online access through multiple pathways. In fact, MANY libraries are shifting MANY journal and magazine subscriptions to electronic only. That is not censorship, because patrons still have unrestricted access.

As to “in loco parentis”, a public library has no legal right to do that, unlike a school (or even a school library). For a public library to decide what a minor patron can or cannot read or check out would infringe parental rights and responsibilities.

It saddens me to see comments like this one from a university librarian: “I think they should have been fired. We have enough problems with censorship without our employees helping it along.”

A university librarian. If taking a book off hold is considered “censorship,” what is it called when university librarians are ditching Scientific American magazine in droves just because the price is going up for university subscriptions? Might it also be called “censorship”? Is saving money an acceptable justification in multiple libraries while protecting children or acting in loco parentis in a single library is not? See, “Scientific American Price Change Defended; Oberlin Group Not Convinced; Library Directors Say They’re Disappointed, Will Let Market Respond,” by Norman Oder, Library Journal, 23 October 2009.

Thank you. The university library/”censorship” of SciAm issue is an aside. Feel free not to respond.

Be that as it may, your blog post and response are so informational, I’m going to be checking in on this blog more often. Thanks again.

I didn’t want to go too far astray in my blog post so I didn’t address the severity of the punishment. If the sole offense of these two staff members was to take the requested book off the hold shelf, I think firing them was far too severe. The point of my piece was that all of us (“real” librarians or support staff) will feel a strong antipathy toward some materials and, unless we are kept well trained on intellectual freedom issues, we act on our feelings rather than on our professional ethics.

Firing these two women seems draconian to me. As seriously as I take their misstep, I think it calls for serious conversation and training and not unemployment. Indeed, by acting so severely, the Jessamine Public Library has made the punishment the focus of the story. I don’t think WTVQ-TV would have covered the story, but for the firing.

Thanks. Interesting blog post. I blogged on this too. Click the link on my name to see what I said.

Buying books in those areas was, however, something I found worrisome. I wanted some of the popular press treatments of these issues, but so many were being published I could hardly purchase them all. Moreover, it was often hard to distinguish between what holders of those positions would consider scholarly and what I considered popular press.

I was always questioning myself as to whether I was rejecting a book because I disagreed with it or because its content was already well established in the collection. And, when I bought such books, I would question whether liberal guilt was leading me to buy something that truly wasn’t worthy of the collection.

The publishers of the Journal of Homosexuality manipulated Verstraete and De Cecco’s trust in order to resolve their immediate problems with “Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity.” In doing so, they demonstrated a complete indifference to wasting the efforts of those two men as well as the scholars who wrote articles specifically for “Sexual Intimacy between Adult and Adolescent Males.”

The Taylor and Francis Group neither violated a contract nor broke a law. Indeed, because the volume can be published elsewhere, they have not engaged in censorship. But conning people who trust you is something of which honorable people and corporations should be ashamed.