Victorville: op-ed reactions

I’m bumping these links up from the comments for those who are following the Victorville manga case. These are three articles that ran on the op-ed page of the Victorville Daily Press on April 23.

Dangerous step on Fahrenheit 451 road, by Suzanne Oliver, a retired librarian and former branch manager of the Victorville library:

Here is how I see the stone rolling and gathering moss. The action will be to remove all offensive materials from library shelves. Remember that this is subjective—everyone in the community can demand that his recommendations be recognized because precedent has been set.

Protecting the children should come first, by Bill Postmus, the chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, who ordered the book removed from the library:

The word censorship does not apply in this case. Censorship would be preventing this book from being published and read, which the county obviously does not have the ability to do. The County is not preventing adults from viewing what they want to view.

However, I do not believe the county has an obligation to provide this type of material for them at taxpayer expense. And considering the Library currently has no measures in place to prevent children from checking out these materials, I had an obligation to have the book in question removed.

Silencing the library, by Steve Williams. This bears the header “Our Opinion” so it presumably reflects the paper’s stance:

Aren’t the libraries there to serve the literary interests of the general public. And if that’s so, does Mr. Postmus have an obligation to “respect the values” of all his constituents? Or just those with whom he agrees?

All three are worth reading in their entirety.

Did you enjoy this article? Consider supporting us.

Comments

  1. The moment you make something illegal or ban it, that’s the moment it becomes cool. This book is probably selling like hot cakes now.