Library Chatter

 For those who didn't know...in Alabama....there's a battle brewing over state libraries....with ban-some-books being discussed.

There's a draft state bill....that would move control of libraries....from library 'folks'....over to local politicians.  Just the way it's worded....it sounds like a school board situation....but just for library actions.

I have a different prospective over this.

If you'd asked around 1977 (when I left the farm)....fewer than 20-percent of folks in the county knew precisely where the county library was located.   A year or two later...some funding came up and a regional library started up (outside of the county 'seat').  

If you asked about the regional library, I'd imagine today that 80-percent of local folks know where it exists, but fewer than a quarter of them have ever used it. As for the country seat library...fewer than 10-percent regularly use it.

As for this control chatter?  There's some opinion that maybe the pro-library people might be pro-p0rn in some odd way, whether true or not.  This being some situation where they have a bundle of Playboy/Penthouse magazines around?  Well....no.  This is more of the case where some books would have fantasy stories relating to Doctor Bud having relations (physical) with Doctor Marvin, and possibly involving Nurse Wendy in some capacity.  Yeah, like those cheap $4 sex novels you'd see.

So the general idea is that protective folks want the library to stay 'pure'....with good wholesome Jack London, Charles Dickens, or Edgar Allen Poe stuff.  The library 'bosses' seem to believe that they know better, and sex stuff is desperately wanted by these poor rural folks.   

I used to go over to the Air Force library system a good bit, and there's be a card in each book....to  indicate the last sixty-odd times it'd been checked out.  Somewhere around the summer of 1983, I'd gone and checked out a Edgar Allen Poe book....it'd been checked out three times since acquired in 1972.  I'm not saying there's a lack of business....just that the bulk of whatever the library has in inventory....is probably only read a dozen times over a twenty-year period.  Maybe with p0rn....there's more business or check-outs?  

It's just funny how this came up suddenly to be a hot topic, and fierce librarian folks fighting for lusty written material.