Woman may burn sexually explicit library book

Anonymous Patron writes “Reported Yesterday a woman found a book she described as “filth” on the shelves of the Simms public library. So, like any responsible citizen, rather than filing a complaint with the Tioga branch library where she found it, she now says she would rather pay for the book and burn it. She admits she didn’t look at the book when her granddaughter checked it out. She thinks the library should monitor such books.

That’s not the funny part. Here’s the punchline, Reported Today The Rapides Parish Library system has another copy of a book that a Simms woman has threatened to burn. How’s that old saying go, the best laid plans of mice and men, something something something? Main Branch reference specialist Clint Guillory said that besides the copy which was obtained at the Tioga branch, another copy is available at the Glenmora branch.”

August 11, 2004 by Uncategorized 4

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4 Responses

  1. Cyberpunk Librarian says:
    August 11, 2004 at 10:00 pm

    Why let her get away with it?

    Why let her get away with this? Okay so she’s going to pay for the book before or after she burns it or whatever? How does that make the destruction of public property okay? How about you try the same thing with a city bus? Set fire to it, burn it, destroy it. But it’ll be okay, because you promise to pay for the damage. Yeah right. That’ll fly in front of a judge. You’d get off, you promised to pay for it. You won’t do any time.

    Like I said, yeah right

    The thing is that a library book costs far more than its cover price indicates. Sure that’s the cost of buying it at a store. Now then I can’t ever seem to stress this enough: Libraries are NOT bookstores.

    First there’s the cost of the book, plus the shipping costs, plus the insurance if the shipment was insured, add the staff time for acquisitions to unpack and preprocess it, plus the staff time for tech services to catalog it, then there’s courier time to send it to which ever branch(es) it needs to go to, then there’s circ staff time to check it in and then shelve it. I’m not going to even try and add up all that money but I think a conservative estimate of the overall cost of a library book to be at least twice the cover price, perhaps as much as three times.

    Now if you burn the book, and intentionally force it out of the collection you now have to figure in the time and staff payments to get that book out of the system. If they replace the book, see the above steps. Lather, rinse, repeat. So the cost of any one item to a library is far greater than the loss felt by a bookstore.

    Oh yeah, did I mention that the books isn’t hers, it belongs to someone else, and thus if she takes it and burns it, then she’d be guilty of theft, destruction of public property, and why not throw in unlawful burning too?

    Reply
  2. Turner says:
    August 12, 2004 at 2:37 am

    Re:Why let her get away with it?
    GWD…your being rational. She is being emotional. Somehow she feels an irrational entitlement to burn books. Probably a supreme being guiding her actions.

    I like the idea of adding up all the expenses you outline and handing her that bill for the book and then charge her for the destruction of public property.

    I’d let her off for unlawfull burning. Save that for when they start to torch the “witches”.

    Reply
  3. Cyberpunk Librarian says:
    August 12, 2004 at 9:27 am

    Re:Why let her get away with it?

    Heh heh heh. Did I ever mention I’m pagan? Specifically a solitary urban wiccan? 🙂

    Reply
  4. VALIS says:
    August 12, 2004 at 10:42 am

    not our responsibility
    ‘ “Supervising what children check out of the library is not necessarily the responsibility of the librarian,” Cook said. He added that parental discretion should be exercised on which books a child checks out of a library. ‘

    Good point, but it’s not at ALL the responsibility of the librarian. It’s the responsibility of the reader or their parents to judge what they find acceptable and want to read.

    We need to keep shouting this out. We are not the guardians of your children. This is not a childcare facility, and we will not hide books away because some of you don’t like them.

    Reply

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