To be irritated by the rules around adult/ child library books?

[hophap]

In our library any book not expressly a children’s book cannot be borrowed by a child.

However any art book with actual artists/ pictures in is adult. Local history books are adult. Music books. Maps. Basically anything not bought for cartoon/ curriculum support and whoever is buying certainly aims at the younger end of the child readers.

Is it really unbelievable an under 18 wants to read some of the adult books? Totally fine if I need to give permission/ they charge adult fines (though as most the books are generally around the same price...).

My daughter has been barred from getting a book on an artist she’s studying, I then went to say I’d give permission. Nope. The book is not dissimilar to what you’d find in most school libraries. Being out with a card or sufficient ID I could t get it either.

What is the logic behind adult/ children books being divided and able: older children being confined to kids books? Schools don’t worry if a book is appropriate by not a kids book. The library rules actually mean that yr 6 can’t get books out the library they read at school (able group- classics). By GCSE many books in the kids study area are totally babyish. I understand maybe some books require adult guidance, but surely this is solved with parental permission. I remember as a child having a green stamp on my ticket to show that my parents allowed me to borrow any book.

Sounds daft BUT see if you can read the thread on books people here read as children! Lots of rape, incest and child grooming. I read a few dodgy books as a child too, which really upset me so I sort of agree with this rule. They do need to declassify art books though, that's mad.

My library has loads of e-books available online if you sign up and they disappear off your device after 3 weeks automatically so no fines. You could sign up on her behalf as you and let her read on your account t?

Yup utterly bonkers.

The other side of the stupid coin is that I'm currently using DD's ticket to take out adult books, because there are fines on mine I didn't incur which they won't remove (because I've had fines removed before - again which I didn't incur and they system is you can only have one lot taken off).

So a child can borrow adult books on an child ticket. Just not read them

Sounds daft BUT see if you can read the thread on books people here read as children!

So what? It's not the job of a library to police what children read, any more than it the job of a bookshop to ask you "are you buying that book for yourself or a child" or, indeed, to ask a child whether they're buying the book for their parents or themselves.

There is legislation about the sales of films and video games which we can debate the merit and purpose of. There is no such legislation about books, and, when the time comes for a bit of "uh uh the Americans, they're so odd" finger-pointing across the Atlantic, the antics of religious nutters banning books for religious/snowflake/etc reasons are usually seen as being very amusing. But British libraries aren't like that. They don't stock pornography, usually, and after that, the classic British assumption has been that if you're old enough to read the words, you're old enough to read the content. Sometimes that goes wrong. It's not the responsibility of a library to appoint itself as the content police.

Coming text: "you don't want to borrow that car book, luv, it's meant for your husband". "Jamaican food? But you're white!" And so on.

I don't think they have that sort of rule at our library, I'm pretty sure I took out an art book for DS on his ticket when he was wee (when I had some sort of notion about exposing him to Van Gogh to benefit his brain) and I might have been asked if it was for him or me. I think they may have had issues in the past with adults taking out books for themselves on kids tickets to avoid getting a fine when they're inevitably overdue, so they ask to avoid that happening.

I was reading "adult" books at a young age too, but I was a regular at my library growing up/knew the librarians so they knew that the books were genuinely for me and not my mum trying to get out of paying

My library has a lot of 'straight porn' - Fifty Shade spinoffs. Unsuitable for children.

They don't stock pornography, usually, and after that, the classic British assumption has been that if you're old enough to read the words, you're old enough to read the content.

Interestingly a friend was recently telling me at her local library children can get out anything except adult graphic novels. I guess that is a case where graphic content could be easily accessed by children who aren't old enough to read the words.

I realise I have confusingly used "graphic" in two contexts there but hopefully it's understandable!

I’m a librarian and have worked in public libraries. Different authorities will have different rules. It sounds very restrictive to say children can’t have any adult non-fiction, I haven’t encountered this. This could be a reaction to complaints when a child got hold of something inappropriate - unfortunately I have known managers make policy changes on the back of just one complaint. It could be a member of staff misinterpreting a policy, which could indicate staff training needs. For example there should be no restrictions on what children can read for the Summer Reading Challenge.
And yes graphic novels can be very graphic!

american(usa) libraries are a wonderful thing.the religious nutters are shunned and laughed at.occassionally someone wants to rewrite historically correct ones.
example,Tom sawyer because it has historically appropriate racial slurs. that never flys either.
the libraries have a strong freedom of choice ethic.reading lists of card holders are not available to law enforcement.none of thier business.computers are wiped daily.History is checked by bots looking for obvious child porn etc.in our tiny town librarians cruise the computer labs watching for perverts.but other than that,unless a book is designated for a specific age,usuallly 14 + no one blinks an eye.if there really is a concern they contact the parent and ask if it is okay for said child to have access to a book,video or computer.
i would have been a very bored child if my parents or library kept me from art books,ballet,tolkien,salinger, and on and on.
it is up to the parents to watch and decide if a book is inappropriate for thier child.
so my question is.if a child wants to read the christian bible(for whatever reason) are they stopped because of all the rape,incest,wars,and other violence???

I once had to get a book out for my dh then bf because he was 17 and I was 18 and they wouldn't let a 'child' have the book.

Luckily I was in my teens when my library brought this stupid system in. I was able to get a teenager card which allowed me to borrow adult books with parental approval. If I'd have been stuck reading children's books I would have quit reading altogether.

In the absence of a better system though, how else would you ensure that a child does not borrow inappropriate books? It's not like with DVDs which have the age certificate. Who decides whether this "art" book is fine, but that one isn't? My library's "art" collection contains plenty of material that wouldn't be out of place on a newsagent's top shelf.

When I was growing up you could get books from the adult library at 14. I didn't feel particularly deprived, even though an avid reader in a pre-TV age. We had 'classics' at home and at Grandma's, and I did a lot of re-reading.

Very strange.

Children don't pay library fines on children's books but do on adults books in my library. Do children pay fines at your library maybe they think adults will take the piss with it?

We have a self service system in place that won't allow Adult books to be issued on a child card, but staff are able to override it if we can see that the book isn't inappropriate - so no porn! - and if we weren't sure about some adult fiction then we would ask the parents. If they are ok with it, then we let it go out.

I have drawn parents attention to some books before... 10 year olds taking out horror books for example... but my usual line would be 'these books are classified for adults. I don't know what is in it so I would reccomend you take a look and decide if it's right for your child'

I "broke" our library's card system one summer, by taking books out on the morning and returning them read in the afternoon, they couldn't work out how to move the cards from the "taking out" desk to the "returning" desk . I got round the "not being allowed too adult books" by sitting in the library and reading them there. I was a weird child though tbf .

It's the same at my library. Very annoying but the reason is that children don't get any charges for being overdue so I guess they don't want me taking advantage of that and getting my books out on my ds's card.

My ds is only 2 though so it hasn't bothered me yet! He's not quite reading the classics yet!

I started reading adult crime fiction at age 8. I'd read all the kids/teenager books!

In the library I worked out it was the card setting (child, adult, bookgroup etc) that generated the fine, not the category of the book, so they are probably right in saying that a child can’t be charged fines. But then we used to allow children to have a Young Adult setting from 12 years old which meant they still had no fines but had access to everything YA, adult fiction and non fiction etc. And if a parent was present and gave permission we would upgrade a younger child although we noted the parents permission and liability if they read something unsuitable! So it was on them if they started reading tons of sex books.

We often got parents irate that graphic novels were adult books “but he likes batman!” Yeah but these are for adults and are pretty dark and graphic. And the Manga could be eye opening!

My dad had to join the library when I started my gcses in the mid 90s as I needed tapes of the pieces used in history and appreciation of music. Couldn't take tapes out on a child card.

Probably to stop people doing exactly what I did and tape to tape copying the lot!!

It is really silly. DD tried to take out a Moomin book (one of the picture ones) and it wouldn't let her because it's classified as a graphic novel and all graphic novels are apparently for adults only. I took it out for her, but really - what harm is a book about Moomins going to do an eleven year old?!

Sorry. I asked. They said it is because their computers wouldn’t charge me a fine if it’s late. I asked a few times

Quite apart from the obvious point this is a system not fit for purpose (so get your local authorities public accounts committee onto that via your local counsellor) I suspect it's also - charitably - a load of bollocks.

I could believe that they haven't set it up (or paid to set it up) properly. Or indeed their catalogue isn't up to the job. But this is 2018, and I was having free rein of the local library aged 5 in the1970s.

There's also a painful irony that you actually have an open library that's useless. Sounds like if it closed you wouldn't miss it

In the absence of a better system though, how else would you ensure that a child does not borrow inappropriate books?

"Is this the sort of book your would want your wife or servants to read?"

I wouldn't. Waterstones don't police my children's purchases, either.

There was an amusing row some years ago in which the police decided to get arsey over someone who had copied (with a camera and film, which needed processing and printing! A lost age!) pages from a Robert Mapplethorpe book they'd got out of a university library. To the university's credit, they told the police to fuck off, and Peter Knight is a prince amongst vice-chancellors.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/61604.stm

It's got nothing to do with censorship, and everything to do with crap IT

OP: Sorry. I asked. They said it is because their computers wouldn’t charge me a fine if it’s late. I asked a few times.

(not that makes it any better ...)