CA libraries pull ‘explicit’ magazine

mdoneil says:

Not part of the collection
Just to be clear it was a give-away and not part of the collection.

mdoneil says:

Re:Not part of the collection
Sarcasm really does not become those who post anonymously. We can’t tell which anonymous you are, thus we don’t know if you are being an arse, an idiot, or simply you.

Freely distributed publications that are not part of the library collection do indeed recieve less scrutiny than those items which are collected or vetted against the established collection development policy.

The article says that the publisher would have taken them back, and I think the library should have offered to return them rather than disposing of them. Even if for only the newsprint stock recycling value, they had value to the publisher.

No one has a First Amendment right to leave free newspapers in the library and insist they be left there for public distribution. Sure you can give away your free newspaper but if someone wants to take them home and read them, or build a papier-mache (accents not working) igloo out of it the library, nor frankly the publisher can control that.

The library director had the right to remove the newspaper if it offended him, as did you or I. One man’s news is another man’s icky perversion. The fact that they were not part of the library collection is indeed important. If he were trying to remove Out or American Rifleman, serials that were collected in the library and if it was done without regard to established procedures as to challenges that would have been improper. However tossing what he considered dirty newspapers was fine and dandy. It may not have been what I would have done, but it did not violate any laws nor library rules.

mdoneil says:

Re:Not part of the collection
When the heck did I say that?

I think it is a freedom to throw out stuff that offends you. The First Amendment also gives me the right to stick my fingers in my ears and sing La-La-La-La-La….not real adult, but then if we were all being adults they would have given the papers back to the publisher.