[naebother]

> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with.

Private libraries can do whatever they like. Public ones should be required to carry even the most offensive book.

[Pfhreak]

You realize that libraries are not infinite in space or capacity, right? Every book in a library necessarily pushes out some other book that could have been in there but didn't make the cut.

Given that, libraries shouldn't be required to carry every book, they should optimize their collections for what their local users want to read. If it turns out that old out of print childrens' books aren't popular, then why should they carry them?

[toomuchtodo]

I am happy to pay to acquire any of these banned books for the Internet Archive to scan, store, and serve them in perpetuity.

Libraries come and go, and should be treated as temporary collections (fair enough re space constraints). To attempt to erase history (“cancel it”?) is to ignore its teachings.

[hda2]

And what if the Internet Archive falls victim to this disease and decide to self-censor? What next?

The precedent of books being illegal has already been set in many countries. Now all that is missing is the political will to have them banned (and at the rate things are deteriorating, I expect this will come sooner rather than later).

[toomuchtodo]

I’d also upload to Library Genesis, who previously were the storage backend for SciHub. To your point, distributed storage provides durability against censorship.

[almost_usual]

P2P decentralized protocol will work.

[brailsafe]

and you can. From what I've seen, particularly at University libraries, they'll do sales of super old worn out books, or long since outdated academic material.

Edit: In retrospect, this comment reads like I'm dismissing the parent or grandparents' concern, but really I'm just saying that you can definitely buy old stock that's been taken off shelves.

[throwawayboise]

Libraries have always been squarely against book banning however. Dr. Seuss is an immensely popular and historic children's author. No reason his books should not be in any library children's section.

[Pfhreak]

No one is saying, "Stop all Seuss books from entering libraries". The publisher stopped printing a small subset of books. Oh the places you go will still have plenty of shelf space and be given to every graduating senior for quite a while I'm sure.

[foolinaround]

Does the publisher have additional rights on books that have already gone out the door?

they can surely stop publishing additional copies, but existing copies should not be burned.

[throwawayboise]

No the publisher can't do anything but likely the books in circulation will quickly be stolen. Most libraries don't even charge fines for non-returned materials anymore.

[foolinaround]

> for what their local users want to read

were their local readers asked if these books were offensive? Or was this pushed over them?

[lettergram]

No more than a rounding error thought some of these books were offensive. Even if it was a decent size of the population, just don’t read the books to your kids.

[naebother]

Obviously, you can't carry every book ever forever. I just meant that the general public should have timely access to books deemed too controversial by the elites, so that the plebs may make up their own mind.

[_qwfv]

The elites, in this case, being the people who own the rights and publish the books? Are you suggesting that libraries should increase the space they devote work going out of print? Books stop being published all the time.

And beyond that, I don't think you mean what you generally say here, that libraries should have books that are considered controversial by elites. I can think of plenty of books that are controversial to leftist elites and plenty of books that are controversial to right wing elites.

[naebother]

Yes, publishers being part of the elite but also the academic and media class. And I don't really care if they're left-wing or right-wing, whatever that means. I just want the general public to have access to books they're curious about, and especially so if they're deemed controversial. Yes, books go out of print all the time, but public libraries still mange to circulate them around to where they're requested.

[AshWolfy]

Im going to picket my library until it lends me a copy on mein kampf /s