Appreciation post: The 45 minutes I spent finding a banned book in my own library

I tried to grab a copy of Maus from my local library in Austin last Tuesday and the system said it was 'temporarily unavailable'. Turns out they pulled it from the kids section after some complaints, and it took me 45 minutes of asking three different staffers to finally get someone to find the single copy they hid in the adult nonfiction section. Has anyone else had to jump through hoops like this for a book that's actually legal?

2 comments

2 Comments

roberts.jordan7d ago

Jump right in and say that Maus isn't technically banned anywhere in the US, it just got moved. The county decided to relocate it within the library, which is different from a full removal. That's still annoying and makes you do extra work to find it, but calling it banned gives people the wrong idea about what's actually happening. Most of these fights are about where books sit on the shelf, not about making them completely unavailable. The real problem is these small policy changes add up to make certain stories harder to access for the people who need them most.

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matthewh286d ago

I moved to a new town last year and found out they kept Holocaust books in a locked case behind the front desk. Actually had to ask for Maus specifically by name and wait for a librarian to unlock it. The whole thing took maybe two minutes but it felt weird and embarrassing. Idk, maybe it's just me but that kind of thing creates a barrier that can stop someone from even trying. It worked out for me because I was determined, but I think about all the kids who might not bother.