Disputed book available at Jackson-George libraries, if you ask

SunHerald.com : Disputed book available at Jackson-George libraries, if you ask

PASCAGOULA --

The Library Board for the Jackson-George Regional Library System voted 3 to 1 Tuesday night to make a best-selling book by comedian Jim Norton available to library patrons again upon request.

The book has been out of circulation since an Ocean Springs patron complained in August.

The Library System formed a review committee, which on Tuesday recommended the book again be made available to the public. It will not go back into general circulation.

Prior to the meeting, Library Board Chairman David Ables said the review committee tries to decide if a book is in keeping with the community's taste.

He said the libraries use the New York Times Best Seller List as a guide for purchasing books. But once or twice a year a book is challenged and is reviewed.

It is pulled from the shelves while under review.

Then it goes to the Library Board to decide what to do with it.

Before the meeting, Ables, who was on the review committee with the library system's director and several members of the library staff, said the genre of humor Norton used in the collection of essays was not a genre familiar to him.

"The only thing I could come up with is 'shock value,'

" Ables said. He compared it with something like the shock appeal of a horror movie.

David Ogborn, the lone vote against the board's decision, had stronger words for the book, "Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch."

"That kind of garbage there, I don't think belongs in the library, " Ogborn said. "You can call it censorship or anything you want to but there's a difference in right and wrong and that's wrong."

The Library Board also voted to issue a news release.

"We certainly would like the press to portray us accurately," Ables said, "for the community to have an understanding about how we go about this process rather than being called book banners and censor mongers."

Library Director Michael Hamlett told the board that the Norton book had not been reviewed by publications that the library system subscribes to and that of the 9,207 public libraries in the U.S. only 278 own the book.

"That says something right there," Hamlett said. "In the past it has been our policy to automatically buy things off the New York Times Best Seller List. We have reviewed that and we have changed that procedure and will no longer automatically buy things until we have a closer look at them."

When discussing why, since August, Hamlett hasn't returned called from the media concerning the issue, Hamlett said, "I didn't want to chance being misquoted and chose not to respond."