Full Text
TO: PARMLY BILLINGS LIBRARY BOARD FROM: BILL COCHRAN, LIBRARY DIRECTOR JIM PETERS, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR RE: STATEMENT OF CONCERN REGARDING ANGER MEETING DATE: SEPTEMBER 11, 2008 Attached is a copy of a “Statement of Concern About Library Resources” submitted by Nicole Leikam-Morton. STATEMENT REQUEST Ms. Leikam-Morton checked out the book Anger and read “all of it.” She feels that this is “an excellent philosophical approach to anger” but that the book is “written using verbage (sic) that teens, developmentally, could not comprehend.” The book is an “excellent resource for the intellectual type” with a background in “philosophical theory” but the “youth age group cannot interpret this material without guidance.” She suggests that the book be moved from the teen collection and “put into the adult reading area.” BACKGROUND Anger is one of a series of well-reviewed books on the seven deadly sins. Our copy would have been purchased and added to the collection in February 2007. Since that time it has circulated once. Reviews of the book praised its contents but did not indicate that it would be either appropriate or inappropriate for teens. Staff is not sure why this book would have been added to the Teen collection since the individual doing selection for this area at that time is no longer at the Library. There is one other library in Montana that has this book and it is located in the adult collection at that library. STAFF RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the be book moved to the adult collection. The library has other titles by this author, all located in the adult section. Since the book has only circulated once in the last 1 ½ years it might find a wider audience if it were moved into the main adult collection with other books on similar subjects.