Kentucky Library – Protection or censorship?
I know that NewsLanc has posted some articles regarding our local libraries and I ran across this interesting tale through a friend.
It appears that due to placement of graphic novels beside Young Adult fiction, one particular graphic novel has created a firestorm after an employee of the Jessamine County Library took it upon herself to censor a graphic novel.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier is described as putting the graphic in graphic novel with the amount of violence and sex within its pages. It was requested in 2008 to be added to the library’s collection of the other LXG novels when it was released in November 2008. When Sharon Cook, an employee at the library, discovered the graphic novel where it was shelved beside the Young Adult section, she challenged the book being in the library at all. The novel was pulled from the shelves while the challenge was researched. Upon its denial, LXG4 was put back on the shelves.
Though Cook believes adults have every right to access the graphic novel and should not be told what to read, she began to check the graphic novel out with her own library card and began to continuously renew the check out period so it would not fall into the wrong hands. This kept the novel “readable” but unread because no one had access to it. This changed on September 21, 2009, when a patron put a hold on the graphic novel, denying Cook the ability to renew it.
Cook, by using her employee priviledges, looked up the private information on the person that put the hold. When she discovered it was an 11 year-old and discussing it with fellow friends at the library on September 22, Cook and another employee, Beth Boisvert, made the decision to drop the hold on the book so that Cook could continue to renew the book indefinitely.
By September 23, both women were fired. While the Board has not publicly discussed why, the local paper cites the Employee Manual’s reasons to terminate employment which include “theft or misuse of the Jessamine library’s property, [and] breach of confidentiality information.”
This story has been slowly hitting the web and is starting to spread like wildfire since it happened, very defined sides being taken. Cook and Boisvert have said their main concern is the sexual content within the graphic novel and that having the novel on hand in the library violates Kentucky’s law, which prohibits the distribution of pornographic material to a child. However, the graphic novel, while depicting explicit sexual images, meets no standard of obscenity by the law.
The question now has moved to whether or not Cook and Boisvert had the right to censor this graphic novel from the public due to their own personal views, therefore violating the American Library Association’s Code of Ethics that the Jessamine County Library had adopted. In the Code of Ethics, it clearly states that: “We distinguish between our personal convictions and professional duties and do not allow our personal beliefs to interfere with fair representations of the aims of our institutions or the provision of access to their information resources.”
In my estimate, this “book censorship issue” is presented in such a manner that belies the true underlying issue: the superiority of parental guidance over all others. Apparently the placement of the book would allow someone to stumble onto the book without warning. While the story doesn’t mention it, what was the position of the parents of the 11 year old with regard to this book? I have no problem with the book being available but with the caveat that its access is controlled and regulated by the adults in charge of the place!
I remember my own experience as a teenager TRYING to borrow the book Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler – it was never available either. Libraries should be monitoring books that are constantly checked out and get additional copies if they are virtually never available. (you can get it online these days for nothing!)
PS For those that do not know me, I should hasten to add my interest in Mein Kampf was getting insight into the madman’s mind!
As a parent, the actions of these librarians infuriates me.
If the graphic novel has a rating, then so be it. However, if there is no rating involved, and if I allow my child to read such things, it is not for some strangers to decide whether or not I am correct in my views.
The village concept, which I believe I have seen quoted in such circumstances, is not a valid one. It does not take a village to raise a child, it takes involved parents.
I am pleased that these women have been fired after violating their professional organization’s code of ethics. Bravo to those who made that decision.
Why should the checkpoints for parents be in the system? These checkpoints are in place in my own home, within my own family.
Some of us do not need a system to assist us in parenting our children.
I believe that adults and especially those entrusted with OTHER’S children should always remember, that parents have the final say.
Are you saying that we shouldn’t TRUST the library staff? That, as a parent, I must be there to as – your words – as a checkpoint because the library staff can’t be trusted with my children?
My wife and I routinely review what my children are BRINGING home from the library – I don’t expect the library to have the same standards as I do! However, I don’t expect the library to give my children unfettered access to everything that they would an adult.
My daughter is sixteen.
I think we are saying the same thing, but from different angles. Should the material be rated? Perhaps. Not being familiar with this particular graphic novel, I can’t make any comments on its content.
I believe that we as parents should be the ones to monitor what our children are involved in. I do not want people with what appear to be, in this case especially, vastly different mores from what I hold, to make determinations for my child based on their personal viewpoints.
Regardless of the intentions of the library workers involved, it was not their place to make that call. If they have such an issue with that kind of material being located so close to the Young Adult fiction, then petition to move that section elsewhere. Granted, that won’t stop children from seeking the material out, but perhaps it will seem less offensive if the material wasn’t so close at hand. An out of sight, out of mind sort of thing.
The library subscribes to an ethical standard. Government employees who behave unethically should not only be fired, they should be criminally prosecuted, if for no other reason, for taking wages while working against their employer.
“Get Out, or Get in Line. You have got to do one or the other — now make your choice. If you work for a man, in heaven’s name work for him…. If you must vilify, condemn and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and then when you are outside, damn to your heart’s content. But I pray you, as long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn it. Not that you will injure the institution — not that — but when you disparage a concern of which you are a part, you disparage yourself.” — Elbert Hubbard
Kudos to the Anon. Poster who quoted Elbert Hubbard. Government employees work for us, the people. And librarians are hired to run libraries, not to keep material out of patrons’ hands. It is little short of astonishing that anyone in such a position would believe they should act the role of censor– let alone act upon such a notion. If true, then these should have been sacked, but the same would be true for any librarians anywhere in this nation.
This is not China, nor Iran, nor England or other such countries where the state takes its nanny-role to extremes. Can an 11-year-old check out any book from the Fiction Section, or the Mystery Section? How about from what I call the bodice-ripper section? If so, then there is no justification for sequestering a graphic novel such as LXG.
It appears that due to placement of graphic novels beside Young Adult fiction, one particular graphic novel has created a firestorm after an employee of the Jessamine County Library took it upon herself to censor a graphic novel.
Just to clarify, the book was placed on hold, not checked out in the library by the girl. Where it is shelved in the library had no bearing on the chain of events.
Just to clarify, the book was placed on hold, not checked out in the library by the girl. Where it is shelved in the library had no bearing on the chain of events.
Actually that’s partially incorrect. Yes, the book being placed on hold by the girl is what caused Cook and Boisvert to get fired, but the maelstrom started because Cook found the graphic novel shelved in its correct section directly beside the Young Adult section. This is when she began to check out the graphic novel herself to keep it in circulation without actually being seen. When she went to renew it is when she discovered the hold and used her employee credentials to look up the private information on the girl before making the decision, with Boisvert, to release the hold and continue to renew it indefinitely.
When you step into a government institution, you have to be prepared for a complete separation from “religion” or more appropriately, God. We can not expect anything moral from libraries or government schools. There can be hope but nothing more.