Category: Libraries

There’s a special kind of summer madness that comes for public librarians across North America. We call it the “summer reading programme.” For most people the summer reading programme is two to four months long, depending on your library. At the longest, some libraries will run the programme from the middle of May to the end of August. That timeframe is an illusion, because the planning and logistical side of the summer reading programme is a year-long process running from August 1st to July 31st. As soon as one summer reading programme ends, planning for the next one begins. In many of the larger libraries, children’s librarians are already in the midst of planning the next event while the current event is underway. The summer reading programme, or SRP as it’s called amongst the bibliorati, is like Black Friday in America. While Black Friday is often the busiest day of…

From the good folks at BOOK RIOT: Gene McGee, the mayor of Ridgeland, Mississippi has declared that he “…only serves the great Lord above” and, as such, is withholding part of the local library’s funding until they remove all the LGBTQIA books from their collection. Is this legal? Of course not. Is this a dangerous display of local government censorship? You bet your ass it is. Granted, this is a mayor who boasts about his “Adopt-a-Cop” programme and prides himself on all he’s done for law enforcement. It seems odd, then, that’d he’d violate the law in such a manner and trample First Amendment rights the way he’s doing. But ya know, he’s part of that party that’s all about small government. The mayor chose not to attend a library meeting about the collection which I’m certain is because he was very engaged with some other business at that time…