Whodunit in the Library: Someone Keeps Hiding the Anti-Trump Books

New York Times ^ | November 10. 2019 | Mike Baker

[karpov]

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho — From her office next to the public computer terminals, Bette Ammon finds herself peering through a window to watch patrons moving through the Coeur d’Alene library’s nonfiction stacks.

Someone has been hiding books lately — specifically, those that explore politics through a progressive lens, or criticize President Trump. They wind up misfiled in out-of-the-way corners where readers will be sure not to find them.

“I am going to continue hiding these books in the most obscure places I can find to keep this propaganda out of the hands of young minds,” the mystery book relocator wrote in a note left for Ms. Ammon, the library director, in the facility’s comment box. “Your liberal angst gives me great pleasure.”

For decades, Coeur d’Alene has navigated a delicate political landscape in northern Idaho, a conservative corner of the country where some have sought refuge from political and social changes elsewhere.

The incidents over this past year — including a missing book that was discovered only this week — were not the first time books have mysteriously disappeared. Thirty years ago, the library lost so many books on human rights to theft that they had to be placed in a locked cabinet. The latest works to be targeted cover a wide range of topics, from gun control and women’s suffrage to LGBTQ issues and how people of color fare in the criminal justice system. About half the books specifically deal with President Trump.

While none of the books in the latest incidents appear to have been stolen, some have been hidden in ways that made it nearly impossible to find them when patrons wanted to check them out. They have been discovered inexplicably filed in the wrong sections, hidden behind a row of Stuart Woods novels

[Paladin2]

Good skiing in in northern I-da-ho’.

Hope no one is hiding the lift ticket window...

[null and void]

Tell me about it! I had to touch those books!

[null and void]

I’d rather be proud of doing this than proud of doing nothing.

It will give me more satisfaction than you will have when we are sitting in the gulag together.

[x]

This is a New York Times story?

What's next? Has somebody been doodling in the margins or talking too loud or eating in the library?

[rlmorel]

Leftists hate it when their own tactics are used against them.

[dynachrome]

I was no where near Idaho.

And Epstein didn’t kill himself.

[bigbob]

This is funny and a great stunt!

But I think it would be even better if they were relocated strategically, such as prominently displayed in the childrens fiction section, in the section on weather (snowflakes), abnormal psychology, etc.

[MayflowerMadam]

I do that all the time. But not in libraries. In stores — Costco mostly. Last October I moved a bunch of hillary’s book under the cackling life-size witch display.

[Jamestown1630]

LOL!

Seems like ‘non-violent protest’, to me; and certainly superior to ‘antifa’ sorts of antics.

[rockrr]

During his regime I encountered a lavish display of Øbongo books at a local bookstore. I couldn’t help myself - I located copies of Mein Kampf and a book on Joseph Stalin and “redecorated”.

I wonder how long it took them to notice? ;’}

[yesthatjallen]

Here's a stunt liberals pulled. Switching book covers and then posting their work:

[Mr. N. Wolfe]

Well, at least the books aren’t being stolen or destroyed, like the leftists do to our yard signs.

[LouieFisk]

Well, I’m just thinking it’s not too likely that someone will come in looking to buy Marx’s Das Kapital and instead purchase a MAGA cap because he didn’t see Marx on the shelf.

I can understand it may make a person fell he’s really making a difference and sticking it to someone, but in reality it’s just a silly waste of time.

[Rastus]

No, librarian wanting to get her liberal brethren worked up. Just watch, soon the left will be pouring money and books into this library. Do a handwriting analysis on the note.

[Jamestown1630]

I guess we shouldn’t have dressed up like Injuns and dumped that tea into Boston Harbor, either...

[Jumpmaster]

I’ve been moving Hillary’s blurbs to True Crime section for years.

[goodnesswins]

How do you bury a STACK of Hillary books?...I don’t think that many sell

[Raycpa]

Someone has to ignore books in wrong place when putting away books and helping find new ones.

[LouieFisk]

Yes, because moving a book is a daring feat - but it’s more like hitting the beach at Normandy than the Tea Party. Or, better, landing on the moon.

[LegendHasIt]

The last time I even went into a public library, I went in to donate a couple of brand new copies of the just released Buzz Patterson book “Dereliction of Duty”, the story of his time in the Clinton White House....

Oh how the head librarian’s eyes lit up when she saw Bill Clinton’s smiling visage on the cover. She embraced them, and took them to the back counter to examine and catalogue ...

Then when she read the jacket and realized that they were critical of her sweet angel Bill, she jumped back, called me over, and while shoving the books in my direction with a yardstick (literally), she said: “We don’t want books like this in our libraries.”

And this was in a very conservative town.

I had donated hundreds of dollars of books there previously (mostly fiction)... But their huge loss is the collection of rare and valuable regional books of historical interest that I WAS going to donate to that library’s special collections.