Regarding Libraries being able to *not* carry books of their choosing . . .
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit -- Filed May 23, 2025
Here is an amusing except from the Court's Opinion:
“We note with amusement (and some dismay) the unusually over-caffeinated arguments made in this case. Judging from the rhetoric in the briefs, one would think Llano County had planned to stage a book burning in front of the library. Plaintiffs and amici warn of ‘book bans,” “pyres of burned books,” “totalitarian regimes,’ and the ‘Index librorum prohibitorum.’ One amicus intones: ‘Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people.’ Take a deep breath, everyone. No one is banning (or burning) books. If a disappointed patron can’t find a book in the library, he can order it online, buy it from a bookstore, or borrow it from a friend.
All Llano County has done here is what libraries have been doing for two centuries: decide which books they want in their collections. That is what it means to be a library—to make judgments about which books are worth reading and which are not, which ideas belong on the shelves and which do not.
If you doubt that, next time you visit the library ask the librarian to direct you to the Holocaust Denial Section.”