Librarian Wank
As we know from Harry Potter, children's books are serious business.

Dougal the Garbage Dump Bear is an award-winning Australian children’s book about the adventures of a teddy bear who gets "drunk" on ginger beer. A librarian submits the book to Awful Library Books because the bear falls asleep on a couch and "no one needs to sleep off a soda!" so it was weeded from the library she works at for fear of offending conservative parents despite having received no complaints, taking the book home for herself for her own collection.



She had done so without knowing the provence and popularity of the book. Posters in the comments swiftly bring this to her attention. At large, the majority of the commenters are civil and there are also defenders in the wank. Some do accuse the submitter of being a “poor librarian” and are not so civil:

This is such a cute book, why is it here? I think you meant to submit it to Awful Library Patrons :)

Wow. I’ve never been moved to write in to disagree with a weed before, but here’s a tip, submitter: when you bring the book home because of its quality, having weeded because of a few hysterical returns, you’re one of the bad guys. Think it through for a moment: if it’s a valuable addition to your home library, then it’s a valuable book for the public, too, isn’t it?
Sorry, but censorship isn’t the same as weeding.
P.S.: There’s nothing offensive about “sleeping off” ginger beer, either.

It doesn’t get truly wanky until the submitter, Raeanna, shows up. Apparantly the book was shown to some of the library regulars before the weeding took place. Raeanna comments to posters MULTIPLE TIMES using the YOU DON’T KNOW ME defense and, in the words of the mouse who reported it:

- Why are you so mean?
- I thought this was meant to be fun!
- I will NEVER SUBMIT HERE AGAIN!

We were trying to be sensitive to the needs of the public. We live in a very small, conservative town. Everyone has their opinions, but our librarians don’t need to be called insensitive or need to be jumped on. Some of you are just being nasty about it. I probably won’t post anything here anymore because I don’t need people getting uptight about things. I thought this was supposed to be fun.

We haven’t banned it or put out a hit on the author! We don’t get rid of books that personally offend us or refuse any sort of liberal material. Don’t knock us until you’ve been in our shoes and have been ripped into shreds by a devout Christian parent who feels we’ve put something ‘inappropriate” out.
We’re not shoving Ann Coulter down people’s throats, for goodness sake. Everyone just cool your jets! Yeesh

If you have such a respect for librarians and the field, then you should consider being decent instead of jumping down other librarian’s throats and making rash conclusions about that person’s decision. It was a few very capable librarians who made the decision, and it’s not your job to tell us we’re horrible at our job. Honestly, I’m sorry we’re not all as perfect as we should be.
We know how our community is, and you don’t. I never said that children would act drunk, and I do have respect for others, including young people. I just have respect for our parents and know that they wouldn’t appreciate it. Don’t accuse me of a thing until you know me!
Honestly, if you don’t like our decision, then don’t even comment. I’m sick of everyone accusing me of this and that, suggesting I’m an awful librarian, and being rude. Thanks for giving me a fair shake everybody! Nothing like librarians jumping on top of each other...fun...

Wow, it’s very very rude of you to say that I and then the other librarians I work with deserve to be removed from the profession. I don’t care what your opinion is, that’s just very rude. You have no clue how I am in my library and with my patrons, and I don’t need some self-righteous librarian telling me I don’t deserve to be one.
I wasn’t aware that you’re perfect at the job. I understand everyone’s opinion, and I’ve been beaten up enough about it. But, what you said about that was just wrong, and it’s wonderful to see you have so much respect for other librarians.
I see that taking away a book that didn’t fit in our library is super wrong, but going on a message board and being beyond rude to a peer is perfectly acceptable in the field. Thanks for your comments.

Eventually Raeanna finally flounces this time forever(after saying she was going to stop commenting a couple times previously), vowing never again to comment on the post.

You know, I’m just done. This whole thing has gotten out of control, and this is a fight no one is going to win. I, for one, really don’t have the time or the desire to be on here fighting with complete strangers all day. I’ve already said more than I need to, and this topic is officially closed in my mind. I hope others will follow suit. Best of luck to all of you.



Thanks to the mouse on wank_report for reporting this.