Library refusals - Hard choices

Conspiracy hunters will be disappointed looking through the list of books the good people at Dublin City library have chosen not to have on their shelves, having turned down requests.

After intensive dialectic examination, there doesn’t appear to be a thematic link of any kind between Uinseann MacEoin’s The IRA in the Twilight Years 1923-1948 andOrdeal by Linda Lovelace, the Deep Throat actress who became an anti-pornography campaigner.

The only thing these two volumes have in common is a high price tag: Hardback copies of Mr MacEoin’s IRA history will set you back €60.30, when bought via Amazon, while the asking price for the Lovelace autobiography is €34. Running a public library has much more to do with economics — and available shelf space — than censorship, although the latter has a part to play when responding to a request for a DVD that has an adult-only Film Board classification.

The one surprise about this list is it that, unlike some of the titles turned down, it’s thin — only 130 requests for books and DVDs have been declined in the past five years. Dublin City Library must be doing something right.