A man applied for a card from the Beachwood Library and, over two visits, withdrew 100 books. He later posted two videos, one in which he burned all of the books.

Summary

A man checked out 100 books from Beachwood Library in Beachwood, Ohio, covering Jewish history, African-American history, and LGBTQ topics, and later posted social media videos showing the books with captions referencing “cleansing” libraries before burning them.

Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative alerted the library about the posts.

The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.

Police say the matter is civil unless he fails to pay. He is now banned from returning to the library.

  • Case@lemmynsfw.com
    0·
    1 day ago

    I worked at an elementary school (public) in a very red state.

    I had been overhauling the library computers (I was IT) all day and had been chatting with the librarian. Cool chick, probably 10 years older than me, so late 30s. I was dating my wife at the time, so I wasn’t looking to date, but got invited out for drinks with other librarians from the district.

    After a few rounds, the topic turned to censorship, book bans, etc.

    Every single one of them, from the churchy prim and proper lady, to the more alternative types, we against banning books and discussed how to get the kids access and and encourage them to read them, without losing their jobs.

    I had to shutdown their plan to distribute cheap flash drives with banned material on them a la guerilla distribution - ie, leave it where kids would find them.

    And that is why next week Mr. Case’s cyber security BS thing was about how we don’t plug random shit we find in to computers.