Amazon has it easy

I have been following a certain story about censorship at its most dividing. Here is a good article on it. If you are not going to read it, you need to know that Amazon was selling a "how to" guide for pedophiles and people didn't like that. Being the librarian-in-progress that I am, I am forcing myself to really figure out how I would deal with such an outcry at my own library.

Amazon has the liberty of being a business and thus able to decide what it does and does not sell. I am not surprised they pulled it. Pedophilia is something that most people, regardless of political or religious background, consider the lowest form of sexual depravity. Amazon has a reputation to uphold and realizes how bad this could be for their PR. We have seen the power of Twitter and internet calls for action and its not pretty.

But what if this wasn't a private business but a public library? How much do I let my own hatred of child abuse interfere with my duty to uphold the code of ethics I have read a million times in my classes? I don't think I could buy this book simply because its controversial like I plan to do with most books that get coverage as being "worthy" of banning. (I plan to have so many copies of Uncle Bobby's Wedding and direct everyone to this blog post if they give me crap about it.) If a patron specifically requests The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure then yes, I would probably obtain a copy for them. I think having the option of the library owning an ebook version would help reduce my fears of someone suffering child abuse seeing the book and having mental problems because of it. I'm okay with offending people who are simply ignorant but not with offending people who have been through a traumatic experience. If its not within browsing range, I'd feel on more solid ground with my own morals and thus able to argue down irate patrons more easily.

The over used example of "would you lend out a book on how to make a bomb" wasn't a real problem for me. I was already pretty passionate about censorship issues before taking librarian classes and was a little surprised at how my classmates could find issues with the freedom of information. Now I get it. This was difficult but I'm still beholden to my patrons as a whole and will base all my decisions on the well being of the entire community, not just on my feelings.