The Wanganui Chronicle of New Zealand reported a couple of days ago that one Julie Gordon, described as a “mother of five and secondary school teacher,” checked out an allegedly dirty manga from a local library. (Dirk quickly figured out that the book in question is Chobits.) Ms. Gordon’s hobby seems to be checking books out of the library and bringing them to the local censorship office for classification; she has taken four books down there so far, and the office rated three of them 13+ and one 16+.
Ms. Gordon wants the library to stop carrying 16+ graphic novels and to put in place a procedure for members of the public to censor any books they wish to. In a followup article, a local administrator says that’s not the library’s job and gives Ms. Gordon the brush-off. It’s not that simple, though. Apparently, once a book is officially classified, the library has to restrict access to it.
Books with a classification were not publicly accessible in the library and anyone wanting a book carrying an age classification would have to ask staff for it.
And those borrowers would also be asked to show some form of identification.
So that puts Chobits off limits to, let’s face it, most people. There’s a big difference between putting a book on a shelf for a teenager to find and then check out (accompanied by a big stack of other books) and forcing that teenager to 1. find out that the book exists and 2. ask a grownup to fetch it. You might as well just burn the books. Ms. Gordon’s petition asks the library to submit any book questioned by a member of the public to the censorship office for classification, which in practice means that any questionable book can be locked away from the prying eyes of the littl’uns—and, incidentally, almost everyone else.
Since almost all manga has at least a 13+ rating, and anyone can bring a book to the censorship office, it’s possible that people like Ms. Gordon can basically sweep all the manga off the open shelves in New Zealand libraries.
Incidentally, the censorship office website allows you to download spreadsheets of censored books and their ratings. And there, sure enough are volumes 1 and 2 of Chobits, rated R13, which means, as far as I can tell, that they can’t be lent to children under 13. Ghost in the Shell is unrestricted, though.
And why on earth is The Limericks of Aleister Crowley rated “Indecent in the hands of persons other than Tony Hutchins”? Is that a real rating, or are they just checking to see if anyone is paying attention?
Thanks to David Welsh for leading me to the followup story.