Lolita Challenge Entangles Florida Prosecutor

http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2006abc/january2006ab/lolita.cfm

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Posted January 27, 2006.

Lolita Challenge Entangles Florida Prosecutor

A challenge to the unrestricted status of the internationally acclaimed Vladimir Nabokov novel Lolita in the Marion County (Fla.) Public Library System has prompted the county commission to ask Marion County Attorney Gordon Johnston whether the book meets the state definition of “unsuitable for minors.” Commissioners made the request January 19 after voting 3–2 to back MCPLS Director Julie Sieg’s decision that the novel, whose theme is sexual obsession focusing on an adolescent girl, is appropriately shelved in the open-access adult section.

The appeal to Johnston is a test of the library’s six-month-old reconsideration policy, which mandates the establishment of an adults-only area for materials judged to be harmful to minors. Complainant Terry Blaes, a one-time member of the library’s advisory board, which was disbanded last spring by the county commission, lamented in the January 20 Ocala Star-Banner that commissioners “dodged the issue of whether a book that they might consider unsuitable for minors ought to be removed from the adult section of the library” by deferring to Johnston’s legal expertise. The reconsideration policy only authorizes the commission to determine whether a library item was acquired and shelved appropriately, not whether it is harmful to minors.

“The policy is flawed as it is written,” Johnston told the Star-Banner, adding that if Blaes and Eddie MacCausland, another former advisory board member who challenged Lolita, “wanted something done, what they should do is request that the board change the policy.”

Posted January 27, 2006.