NY Times: “They Checked Out Pride Books in Protest. It Backfired”

From The New York Times:

Adrianne Peterson, the manager of the Rancho Peñasquitos branch of the San Diego Public Library, was actually a little embarrassed by the modest size of her Pride Month display in June. Between staff vacations and organizing workshops for graduating high school students, it had fallen through the cracks and fell short of what she had hoped to offer.

Yet the kiosk across from the checkout counter, marked by a Progress Pride rainbow flag, was enough to thrust the suburban library onto the front lines of the nation’s culture wars.

Ms. Peterson, who has run the library branch since 2012 and highlighted books for Pride Month for the better part of a decade, was taken aback when she read an email last month from two neighborhood residents. They informed her that they had checked out nearly all of the books in the Pride display and would not return them unless the library permanently removed what they considered “inappropriate content.”

“It was just kind of like, ‘Whoa, curveball,’” Ms. Peterson said. “I began to wonder, ‘Oh, have I been misunderstanding our community?’”

Stacks of Amazon boxes containing new copies of the books the protesters checked out started to arrive at the library after The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the protest. Roughly 180 people, mostly San Diegans, gave more than $15,000 to the library system, which after a city match will provide over $30,000 toward more L.G.B.T.Q.-themed materials and programming, including an expansion of the system’s already popular drag queen story hours.

In an ever divided nation, Americans are waging battles in big ways and small, right down to turning their library cards into protest weapons.

Learn More, Read the Complete Article (about 1050 words)

See Also: Rancho Peñasquitos Library Revives Pride Display After Protesters Removed Most of the Books (via San Diego Union-Tribune, July 12, 2023)

Filed under: Libraries, News, Public Libraries