Arkansas Library Curbs Basic Instinct

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2006abc/december2006/rogersinstinct.cfm

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Posted December 1, 2006.

Arkansas Library Curbs Basic Instinct

The board of the Rogers (Ark.) Public Library decided November 22 to retain in the collection the director’s cut of Basic Instinct but to place an adult-content warning label on the video case. The decision came six weeks after complainant Nieves Egelkraut had testified at a trustees meeting that she had found the movie pornographic after randomly borrowing it and had worried that teens would come across it in the same manner.

As trustees considered the addition of the warning label, reference librarian Robert Finch remarked, “I really don’t have an opinion on this. My job is to find the films that have significant cultural impact,” according to the November 23 Springdale Morning News.

The board also modified the permission forms that parents and guardians sign for minors so that adults can indicate whether or not they will allow their children to borrow films containing violence, nudity, or sexual or derogatory language.

“I’m sure there are other movies out there that are equally graphic,” Marsy Humphrey of the library Friends told the News, but Egelkraut “just hasn’t picked them up yet.”

Posted December 1, 2006.