![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlectomyLet's say a straightlaced 12-year-old girl and her straightlaced mother come into the library. Let's say she requests a bunch of harmless young adult books, and then a title and author that turn out to be a Triple Crown (sex, drugs, and organized crime) book.
You can't deny anyone the right to have the book. That would be wrong. It's very touchy to imply that the patron doesn't know what she wants, or shouldn't want what she says she wants. It's touchy even to come back with a mild-mannered, "This might be kind of mature for you." And yet! I think that mother is going to eat my head for breakfast when she sees the book I have requested for her daughter!
The possible solution occurs to me far too late: if I'd been able to find another Triple Crown book, I could have said this was the general kind of book in question, and was that right?
The library is 85 degrees, we're understaffed, and the kids are acting up because they're out of school. I wish I was done here...
You can't deny anyone the right to have the book. That would be wrong. It's very touchy to imply that the patron doesn't know what she wants, or shouldn't want what she says she wants. It's touchy even to come back with a mild-mannered, "This might be kind of mature for you." And yet! I think that mother is going to eat my head for breakfast when she sees the book I have requested for her daughter!
The possible solution occurs to me far too late: if I'd been able to find another Triple Crown book, I could have said this was the general kind of book in question, and was that right?
The library is 85 degrees, we're understaffed, and the kids are acting up because they're out of school. I wish I was done here...