Someone has tippexed out all the four letter words :O. After reading a “Could I climb Everest” thread where someone suggested reading the book Into Thin Air*****. I picked it up at the library last weekend (and finished it in one day). It is an account of disasterous events on the mountain in 1996 (eight people died) And some of the conversations related involve participants who are understandably not in the calmest state of mind. The word fuck and variations on it crop up maybe a dozen times through the book.
A previous borrower has decided that this is unacceptable and has censored all the fucks. This clown really pissed me off.
If you’re offended by the language don’t read the freaking book. If it’s your own copy and you don’t like the swearing OK cover it up. But this is public property dammit. Who did this person think they were protecting?
Does else anyone think this is weird behaviour?
*****I wasn’t planning on ever climbing Everest, but after reading this if someone offered me the chance I’d say NO.
Unfortunately it seems to be somewhat common. The librarian’s around here will even do some censoring themselves, such as “losing” a book, “misplacing” it, never ordering it in the first place, or using a permanent marker.
Luckily, I have access to the Oklahoma City library system as well as the college library, and they aren’t near as bad about this as my small town is.
This drives me crazy. Someone who uses my local library will make cross out things and make “corrections.” What makes it even more infuriating is that their corrections are often 1) wrong or 2) corrections of a character’s dialogue. Arrgh!
It worries me that the people who do this sort of thing probably think they are doing something good and useful. I fear for what other things they might be doing and what goes on in their sadly damaged minds.
I don’t want to put the library to any expense, the book is perfectly readable. Another previous borrower has used a kraft knife or something to chip off some of the offending tippex.
Anyhoo, it’s not hard to guess the words used by a person who’s oxygen has run out at 28,000 feet with a storm approaching when he says “Get the **** out of here”.
I suppose I could print out a load of four letter words in the same font cut them into teeny rectangles and stick them back in
Not to make too big a deal of this, but defacing a library book is a criminal act. It should have been reported if only to get the library to look into who did it. The library has records of who has taken the book out, so it shouldn’t be too hard for them to trace the culprit. Maybe paying for a new copy would make the ignorant fool think twice before defacing more books.
The only problem is, the book may not have been checked out. There’s a lot of nooks and crannies in a library, it may have been defaced without ever leaving the building.
True, but they might want to look into it, just in case. After all, someone may next decide to “edit” some books with photos, and ruin perfectly good books.
