Denver libraries put in a bind - Articles - CAIR - Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform

Officials of the city's system, which this month pulled 6,000 racy Spanish-language picture books from its shelves, are worried that a full review of its 2.5 million books, CDs and videos may follow.

Fotonovelas... are comic-book-like paperbacks for adults centered on a story in several installments. Subjects include Hombres y Heroes, La Policiaca, Frontera Violenta and Joyas de Literatura. A new issue in the series is released several times a year. The Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform said the entire fotonovela category should be reviewed by Denver library officials, claiming that nudity and violence should not be part of a public library's catalog. About 6,000 issues of fotonovelas were removed from the libraries.

Racy, adult-oriented Spanish-language novellas stripped from shelves of Denver's public libraries are hardly the only picture books with strong sexual content available to children in the city's 22 branches.

A Denver Post review of English-language illustrated novels and comics taken from a handful of libraries citywide shows books containing nudity, sexual acts and violence against women.

Under library policy, the books - most of which were found in juvenile reading sections - are available to everyone.

So DPL officials worry that a new inquiry into 6,000 fotonovelas this month could lead to a full review of the system's 2.5 million books, compact discs and videotapes, depending on the criteria developed to weed out the undesirable novellas - some of which depict sexual acts, nudity and violence....

Many of the same books are available in libraries across the metro area. A survey shows those libraries, like Denver's, didn't have a policy restricting access to adult material....

"We didn't bring up the other stuff in the library because we didn't get that far," said Mike McGarry, a CAIR spokesman. "That wasn't our issue. We're immigration-reduction people, and we're interested in the reduction of that."...

Denver librarians this week defended the use of the novellas, saying they are popular light- reading materials for men and women, with their tough-guy police novels and romantic story lines....

In Jefferson County, one of the state's largest library systems, officials removed the novellas because of difficulty keeping the books in good condition and limited interest.

In Arapahoe County, novellas are found in only two libraries and deal with saints, cowboys and literature.

The Pikes Peak Library District in Colorado Springs never subscribed to the novellas but considered doing so a few years ago....

Denver's inquiry became public last week and came amid unrelated complaints from Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who charged that the library system was shifting toward Spanish-language material at the expense of English-language items.

The conservative congressman... directed a letter to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, arguing that the city doesn't need "further cultural balkanization."...

"With the few dollars that they have to spend, they would choose to spend it on that garbage, rather than spending it on something uplifting and, by the way, in English," Tancredo said. "They choose to use materials of such little redeeming social value, like a trashy comic book."...