# Are fundamentalists secretly stealing "Origin of Species" from public libraries?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fundamentalists-secretly-stealing-origin-of-species-from-public-libraries/489361>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 13, 2009, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fundamentalists-secretly-stealing-origin-of-species-from-public-libraries/489361 "2009-03-13T19:58:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fundamentalists-secretly-stealing-origin-of-species-from-public-libraries/489361/41 "2009-03-16T21:55:03Z")

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> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#):
>
> Specifically, they want to read them, but are embarrassed to check them out from a librarian.

Yup. Which is why all the sex-ed books disappear from high-school libraries.

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**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-fundamentalists-secretly-stealing-origin-of-species-from-public-libraries/489361/42 "2009-03-17T00:56:41Z")

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> [@constanze](#):
>
> You do know that all librians have a special place in hell for people who do that? We hate that with a passion, and with limited personell because of funding it’s simply impossible to search the shelves for misfiled books more often.

Yep. One of the things that volunteers at my local library are asked to do is simply “read the shelves”, that is, find and retrieve misfiled books. We’re supposed to give them back to the librarian or volunteer supervisor for proper filing, or even just pull them and put them on a table if nothing else, so that someone will come along and reshelve them properly.

As a reader and library patron, I also have a measure of wrath\* for people who purposely misfile books. A person who does this is stealing the use of that book from other library patrons, and wasting library funds.

\*I’m an atheist, I don’t believe in hell or special places therein, and so I will have to settle for the Wrath of Lynn, which has to be felt to be believed.

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