Get this. A grandmother takes her grandson (she’s his legal guardian) into a Las Vegas library and the boy chooses an anime DVD from the adult section entitled Crying Freeman: The Complete Collection which states “Contains extreme animated violence and adult situations. Parental guidance suggested.” on the back. Also on the back is the image of a man holding a sword to a woman’s throat and there’s a nude woman on the front! (I own a copy of this DVD set. The case makes it clear that this is not a film for children.) Boy, checks out DVD with grandmother standing next to him. They take the video home and grandmother is shocked that the library has allowed the child to check out this video. The Las Vegas SUN of course responds with a balistic editorial and their political cartoonist has this to draw two days later. I’m sorry but the library has no right to question the decision of an adult about what they’ll allow their child to check out. The fact that the adult in question didn’t bother to check is hardly the library’s fault. (The fact that this is happening in Las Vegas of all places is just too ironic for words.)
Published by Michael Sauers
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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