If the book wasn’t a children’s book and had been placed in the children’s section by mistake then I’d move it. Otherwise it would stay where it was as long as I had anything to say about it. I wouldn’t care if he had the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and a marching band to back him up, library policy is not dictated by whoever can make the most noise.
The library board* might be swayed by public pressure and order the book moved or removed, though. If that happens, there may not be much the librarian could do about it aside from resigning in protest or appealing to the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union for support. If the book is still going to be available for checkout by patrons of any age then this may not be considered an issue worth fighting over, but it would definitely be the sort of thing that sticks in a librarian’s craw.
*He’d probably be out of luck unless he could get the board to order it so. Most librarians don’t look upon restricting access to books as being much better than outright banning them.
*Note that a library board is not made up of actual librarians. Members may be elected or appointed depending on local policy.
Generally what is literally behind the desk is the ready reference section–almanacs, addresses of celebrities and Senators, the Polk directory, the Kelley blue books, and in our case a large collection of Nolo books. When I worked in a large urban library we kept the anime magazines back there because otherwise they were either stolen or cut to shreds–easily stealable, small items go there. Another library I knew of (also large and urban) kept Playboy back there because of the age thing. One must generally surrender a driver’s license or other collateral to get something from behind the desk, because of the stealing problem. (Likewise, we now keep all DVD’s behind the circ desk and insert them in the cases when they are checked out. They were disappearing, even though our DVDs are entirely older and near-valueless donations.)
This happened at my library (although the book was King and King) and they wanted it removed. They filled out a Challenge Form and the matter was placed in front of the library board. The library board wrote the woman a letter basically saying “we are not bigots, the book stays” but in a nice way.
That was several years ago and there hasn’t been a challenge since.
Over the past few months I’ve seen a blog post dealing with a very similar situation linked to by many librarians. The librarian in question, Jamie, had to deal with a patron who wanted the recent children’s book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding (Uncle Bobby is marrying another man) be “placed in an area designating the subject matter” or “labeled for parental guidance”.
Jamie posted his response to this “concerned citizen”, and it’s an excellent one. You can read it here. I think almost any librarian would agree that this is just the way such things should be handled.
Note that the end of the letter does say that the patron can appeal to the board if she still can’t accept the librarian’s decision. Librarians can wind up in a very bad position if the board members aren’t especially concerned about intellectual freedom. Fortunately this is not usually the case.
Wow, that’s excellent. I’ll have to bookmark that or something. Yes, I think almost any librarian would call that a model response to a book challenge.
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A couple of weeks ago I checked out about 7 books. I leave them on a bookshelf with my other books for safe keeping until I’m ready to read them.
I took one of the paperbacks out to start and noticed that about halfway through the book some of the pages are loose. In other words, pages 112-116 are completely not attached to the book but are attached to one another.
My question is this: Should I try to repair the book or should I take it in and tell a librarian about it so they may repair it. I don’t think that I tore them because it had been on the shelf since I brought them home, but I guess there is a chance that I did something in transit without knowing.
I honestly do not mind paying for the book if that is what is best, but I’m curious as to whether or not I should attempt to repair it myself.
thanks!
ETA: Oh snap, I just saw that the emphasis is on BOOK SELECTION on this thread. Crap.
NO! Never try to fix a library book yourself. We’ve got (very expensive) book glue and mending tape that work a lot better than the standard Elmer’s stuff. Bring it back, tell the librarian, and they’ll fix it.
As a used book dealer, I’ll second what Justin Bailey said. If you aren’t in the antiquarian book trade, book binding trade or the library industry, leave it to the pros.
Even if you were, honestly, there’s a chance you would make a mistake and wind up ruining the book. It’s better to let the liability for that rest with agents of the owner.