A library has been banned from doing a Banned Book display!

[thewayne]

Oh my Effing Gee!

Public libraries have been coming under a ridiculous amount of fire, the worst that I've recently heard is a town DEFUNDING THEIR LIBRARY! I can't imagine a more stupid thing to do!

Well, in this case, a library admin decided to not allow a banned book display! I don't know if they wanted to avoid controversy or what. I'm not sure if this was a city-level decision or within the actual library administration hierarchy. And the Reddit poster did not say which library or where it was.

Still, heck of a thing. The suggestions posted to sidestep it are brilliant! I think my favorite was the Ted Cruz Book Club!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Libraries/comments/wm5goj/weve_been_banned_from_doing_a_banned_books

Comments

[silveradept]

I would love to see those teenagers taking over as well. I'm a bit concerned that it'll be the Purity Brigade instead, either as the library board or as the legislators and officials.

"Nobody is forcing you to look at it" used to be the standard compromise about having materials in the library that weren't to everyone's taste. Since these states have decided to abandon that as the compromise and start saying that material that merely contains a thing is now unsuitable for anyone, it would be nice if library collections could respond in kind and start removing all the things they've been keeping, even though they found them distasteful.

If libraries are going to start being treated like this, we may as well live down to the reputation and keep what they want gone and get rid of what they want kept, to be the liberal bastion we're accused of being.