A Public Service Announcement! ;)

A Public Service Announcement! ;)

Monday, October 26, 2009

Kentucky Librarians Fired For Refusing Access to Child

Thanks to The Beat for drawing this story to my attention. Two librarians from Nicholasville, KY, thought Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels were too mature for one young girl (age unknown, but possibly 12). So, they didn't let her check out the book.

ABC 36, which broke the story in the media, also has published some community feedback, which is varied.

"The Jessamine County Library director says it's against their policy to speak about employee terminations but he did give me a copy of their policy and it clearly states the responsibilities of the child's reading must lye with the parents and not with the library," says the article's unnamed writer.

The librarians refer to the comics as "porn."

While the books do have sexual situations, they're far from porn. Furthermore, they're laden with more allusions to other "traditional" literature characters and motifs than they are with sex scenes (OK, maybe at least as much as).

This reminds me of a time when I visited my local public library in Mocksville, North Carolina. I saw this book on 1950s culture that fascinated me, and I also saw this reprint of a nude Marylin Monroe spread that confounded me: I couldn't tell if it was a painting or a photograph. So, I decided to check out the book and ask my mother what she thought. I explained this to the librarian, who knew of the nudity in the book, and she simply asked if she could call my mother to see it it was OK for me to check out the book. She said "yes," and I learned about photo-editing techniques using soft lighting and soft focus from the mid 20th century to help certain images/people look more sexy and mysterious. And, yeah, I enjoyed looking at Marylin too -- and I'm sure my mother accepted this -- but the busty bombshell was just one part of the book that interested me.

It seems to me that if the librarians had followed a similar protocol -- one in keeping with their employer's policy -- they'd still be working and the decision regarding access would have been a nice blend of bringing together all stakeholders in the matter.

2 comments:

Bucky C. said...

Access IC2's coverage here:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/16109.html

Ben Villarreal said...

Between this and the Dragon Ball thing, it seems we're telling American librarians they're damned it they do, damned it they don't :-( Granted, neither library in either case, handled the situation the way they should have--as I remember, all the libraries I was a member of growing up had age specific cards designating which sections I could check books from. If there was a book from a section I wasn't allowed to check from, my mom would take a look and, if it was okay to her, she'd check it out for me. Are libraries not doing this anymore? It seems this system, with proper shelving, could have averted both of these situations :-/