Maryland's Harford County Public Library isn't going to stock you-know-what.

From the Baltimore Sun:

Mary Hastler, director of the Harford County Public Library, read James' first two novels before determining that the series doesn't meet her library's selection criteria. She hasn't read the third novel.

"These books are a very different take on traditional romances," she said.

"In my personal opinion, it's almost like a how-to manual in terms of describing bondage and submissive relationships. A lot of the reviews that came out very publicly and quickly identified these books as 'mommy porn.' Since our policy is that we don't buy porn, we made the decision not to purchase the series."

I don't know if the library director is equating erotica and porn—as far as I know, 50 Shades is considered erotica—but her library very definitely stocks erotica.

La la la la la.

Comments

[Amber]

Ha ha ha ha!!!!!!

[Kat]

Liar-liar-pants-on-fire! They also stock Laurell K Hamilton books, also "a very different take on traditional romances". If they don't a big book budget and would rather spend what they have to acquire something else that is better written, just say so!

FWIW, Maryland enables in-state intra-library book loans, so if anybody really wants the book for free, all they have to do is order it from another county and wait for their turn to read it. The waitlist is around 700 people long in my county.

[LG]

I really hate the whole "people called it 'mommy porn,' so we won't add it to our collection because we don't collect porn" excuse. To me, that says the person has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. In every case, I've been able to find things in the library's collection that someone somewhere has called porn. If you're going to say your library has no porn in it, be prepared for people to ask why you have such-and-such book in the collection.