Summary
A man checked out 100 books from Beachwood Library in Beachwood, Ohio, covering Jewish history, African-American history, and LGBTQ topics, and later posted social media videos showing the books with captions referencing “cleansing” libraries before burning them.
Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative alerted the library about the posts.
The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.
Police say the matter is civil unless he fails to pay. He is now banned from returning to the library.
Throw the book at him!
This has been happening for a while… but I still remember the not too long ago when many conservatives were talking about how all libs were book burning Nazis. Never saw a lib burn a book, but they are, and doing it far more often and with far greater volume.
Should justice be served, the irony is that this man will end up paying for 100 brand new books on civil rights and LGBT topics.
Oh wait… Ohio? Nevermind, not holding my breath…
Ohio let’s you check out 100 books at a time?
The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.
Police informed CCPL that, because a contract was entered when the books were borrowed, failure to return or pay for the books would become a civil matter turned over to the city prosecutor.
Should the man return to the Beachwood Library, he will be banned from the property.
Shoutout to libraries. Absolute diamonds in the rough. Burn books? Whatever, people don’t return books all the time. When they’re overdue, here’s the bill, next!
We don’t live in the age of books anymore. Shit like this is ignorant and fascist but also just symbolic. Libraries are cornerstones of a free society, but the physical paper itself isn’t nearly as important anymore. It’s hilariously replaceable.
I want the list of books. “Banned” and “burned” books go hard as hell. Maybe even files for the m@tes to get 'em all at once. The modern age can undo all this idiot’s work with a single link.
The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.
honestly that’s hilarious as fuck 😂
I worked at an elementary school (public) in a very red state.
I had been overhauling the library computers (I was IT) all day and had been chatting with the librarian. Cool chick, probably 10 years older than me, so late 30s. I was dating my wife at the time, so I wasn’t looking to date, but got invited out for drinks with other librarians from the district.
After a few rounds, the topic turned to censorship, book bans, etc.
Every single one of them, from the churchy prim and proper lady, to the more alternative types, we against banning books and discussed how to get the kids access and and encourage them to read them, without losing their jobs.
I had to shutdown their plan to distribute cheap flash drives with banned material on them a la guerilla distribution - ie, leave it where kids would find them.
And that is why next week Mr. Case’s cyber security BS thing was about how we don’t plug random shit we find in to computers.
They got the spirit! Libraries and librarians are some of the most fundamental “good” in society. They’re basically the canary in the coal mine - when they start to go, we all know there’s nothing but toxic gas in the room, and need to do something about it.
It is a shame that there’s very few ways of going “rogue” with access to digital information that doesn’t involve tremendous security risks to the uninitiated.
“We want to secretly give kids the ability to get whatever information they want!”
“Great… let’s start with ‘don’t ever accept packets of digital information from unidentifiable sources’”
