Periodical Praise

Nudie-phobes should stop badgering librarians

opinion by Jim Sullivan, contributor

When it comes to my lifetime’s favorite hangout, the public library, all I hear about these days is that librarians ought to put some form of screening contraption in the library’s computers to block kids from seeing things they shouldn’t, like naked men and women.

Well, I object (not to the nude folks, but to the screening devices)! I’m here to say that no one in my hometown public library, which I visited as a kid, stopped me with anything electronic, mechanical, or physical from perusing whatever I wanted to in the collection. That included its vast archive, going back to the early 1920s, of National Geographic, with its easily recognizable yellow-bordered cover. All were shelved openly, if remotely, in the back of the library.

Certainly, the librarian, who was in her mid-eighties but with all her mental faculties as sharp as ever, must have known full well what I was looking at so quietly for hours back there in the dimly lit, narrow aisle.

I was getting an eyeful, but at the same time, I was getting an education in more ways than one. The pasts of Africa, Asia, Australia, and the South Sea Islands were being revealed to me. I didn’t learn till years later that there was a reputable word for what I was learning—anthropology.

In any case, I poured over those pages filled with big black-and-white photos till I nearly went blind. I learned a lot about people from other lands. And that’s made me a tolerant person. I do, though, have a tendency nowadays to get a wee bit cranky with bigots and censors.

What I am, too, is self-educated. And it’s not only in anthropology, but also in anatomy, geography, cultures of the world, etc. The credit for this all goes to National Geographic, which I still enjoy looking at.

Reading the magazine as a youngster may have accelerated the onset of my puberty, but no harm came to me as a result.

Electronic screening may block out some things that parents don’t want their little kids to see, but in the process, topics will also be covered up that loving moms and dads would want their kids exposed to. I’m not defending hardcore stuff. But the only way to keep kids from viewing or reading this is for a vigilant mother, father, or other responsible adult to be there to prevent it from happening in the first place.

One of those individuals should always accompany kids to the public library, where ideas in print, in pictures, and on the internet—possibly ideas contrary to those taught in the family home—are rampant. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, for the public library is the area’s home for different ideas.

Yes, I can safely and proudly proclaim that National Geographic made a man out of me, and an informed one at that. So, censors, stop badgering librarians! They’re doing their jobs splendidly.•