The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s website has a couple of articles concerning a library in Seattle that is having an issue with a Yaoi Manga and a parent. The parent sent her child in that loves manga to check out some books. This child was unsupervised with the parent staying in the car. Even though the library had policies concerning parents are responsible for what their children check out and even have a policy that will allow a parent to place restrictions on a child’s card, this parent didn’t deem it necessary.
When the parent looked through the manga, later at home, she was surprised that it had two men making love. She returned the book to the library and wrote a letter to the library that it needed to revise it’s check out policies when dealing with children. Here is what is on hand:
Parents and guardians are responsible for their children’s behavior, safety and welfare while their children are in the library or on library grounds, which includes their children’s access to library materials and electronic resources.
KCLS strongly recommends that a parent, guardian or other responsible party be present to supervise children ages 12 and younger. KCLS staff is available to assist parents, guardians and their children in the use of the library; however, KCLS staff cannot act “in loco parentis” (in place of a parent) for children in the library.
and
KCLS encourages parents/guardians to talk to their children and teens about the kinds of materials they think are suitable for borrowing or accessing. If a parent/guardian wishes to limit the number of items their child or teen can check out and/or the level of filtering…assigned to their cards, they should contact a staff member to have the child or teen’s library card appropriately blocked.
This goes to show you that even with a good policy in place a library can still come under fire. Besides having a parental control over filtering what a child can check out, libraries can also try to educate parents on what graphic novels and manga. Let them know that their are adult titles in the collection and that they are shelved appropriately and then a parent has more knowledge on to make a decision on using a blocking policy.
Here are the links back to CBLDF for the related articles so you can read them in full:
http://cbldf.org/2012/10/library-director-responds-to-seattle-manga-challenge/
http://cbldf.org/2012/10/cbldf-expresses-support-for-seattle-librarys-response-to-manga-challenge/