My ALA email newsletter arrived today with this story:
Sports Illustrated decides libraries don’t need swimsuit issue
Librarians on Publib and other discussion lists discovered in the first week of March that none of them had received the February 14 “swimsuit issue” of Sports Illustrated. Inquiries to publisher Time Warner eventually resulted in a statement from spokesman Rick McCabe that the company had withheld shipment of that issue to some 21,000 libraries and schools because for years the magazine had received complaints it was too risqué. In a March 9 statement, ALA President Leslie Burger called Time Warner’s decision “patronizing and paternalistic in the extreme.”
Yeah, the story is that this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, the one with Beyonce Knowles on the cover, wasn’t sent to libraries.
Clicking through, I found this quote:
“In the past, we have gotten lots of feedback from parents, teachers, and librarians about the content possibly not being appropriate for librarians.” (emphasis added.)
I was saddened to discover, after finding the original LA Times story, that nobody at Sports Illustrated said such a wonderfully foolish thing. Darn.