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Meaty-Breasted Zilch Available on Request in MississippiThe board of Jackson-George Regional Library System, headquartered in Pascagoula, Mississippi, chose to return comedian Jim Norton’s Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch to the collection at its September 25 meeting, but the book will not return to the shelves; instead, it will only be available upon patron request. Director Michael Hamlett removed the book in August pending its review after a patron complained about its raunchy content. David Ogborn, the lone dissenter in the board’s 3–1 vote to reinstate Happy Endings, said “That kind of garbage there, I don’t think it belongs in the library. You can call it censorship or anything you want to but there’s a difference in right and wrong and that’s wrong,” the Gulfport Sun-Herald reported September 26. Three board members were absent for the vote. Hamlett told trustees that the book was acquired because it had appeared on the New York Times Best Seller List, rather than on the basis of reviews. “We have changed that procedure and will no longer automatically buy things until we have a closer look at them,” he assured the board, noting that fewer than 300 libraries in the U.S. owned the book. “That says something right there,” Hamlett said. Library board Chairman David Ables said that the library faces about one or two challenges per year. The system drew national attention for a patron’s 2004 challenge of comedian Jon Stewart’s America (The Book). Trustees also voted to issue a news release regarding the challenge, which, library spokesman Rex Bridges told American Libraries, the board plans to publish as part of its end-of-year report in lieu of speaking to the press at this time. Posted September 28, 2007. |
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