Below The Beltway

Libraries have been a battleground in the culture wars since the 1980s. It started out with “offensive” books, whether they be about witchcraft, sex, or, heaven forbid, Harry Potter. When the World Wide Web was born, it moved on to the debate over Internet access in libraries and efforts to force libraries to use filtering software. The latest battleground, at least in Loudoun County, Virginia appears to be DVD’s.

The culture wars have returned to Loudoun County’s public library system — or, more precisely, to the tidy rows of DVDs at its seven branches.

There, between episodes of “Sesame Street” and documentaries about Julia Child and the Civil War, patrons can find a collection of more popular titles — after they’re checked in, that is. Most days, the DVD shelves are picked clean, with “Some Like It Hot” starring Marilyn Monroe and the BBC’s “Mystery” series more likely to be available than “Crash” or “The Passion of the Christ.”

The library system’s 440 R-rated movies are especially popular. They are also provoking a public battle between the county’s Board of Supervisors and the library board of trustees. The supervisors recently voted 8 to 1 to ask the trustees to stop spending county dollars on adult-oriented movies with an R rating. This month, the trustees say they plan to respectfully decline the request.

Supervisors appoint the trustees and approve the library system’s annual budget of about $10.5 million. But library boards in Virginia are otherwise independent. By state code, cities and counties may control the amount of money their public libraries have to spend but not how they spend it.

That would seem to answer the question. The only thing that the Board of Supervisors could would be to cut the library budget, but even that wouldn’t ensure that the Trustees wouldn’t spend it on DVD’s:

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for the government to be deciding what materials were appropriate for all of Loudoun County,” said Clyde W. Grotophorst, a member of the library board who voted to reject the supervisors’ request. Grotophorst is also a librarian at George Mason University. He sought a seat on the board to prevent the type of censorship that he saw in the Internet filtering policy in the late 1990s.

Supervisor Lori Waters (R-Broad Run), one of two who pushed to discourage the purchase of R-rated movies, said her purpose was not to censor but to spend limited tax dollars wisely. Waters is the former executive director of the conservative, D.C.-based Eagle Forum.

Of course, this is really much ado about nothing:

He noted that the county prohibits the lending of R-rated DVDs to minors. And he said that of the $1.8 million spent annually on acquisitions — including books, databases, magazines and audio books — only about $30,000 goes toward DVDs. Titles are chosen for their literary, cultural and educational value, he said.

Henderson also said he knows of no complaints from patrons about the R-rated titles in the collection.

That won’t stop the likes of Waters from complaining though.