The Palm Beach Post reported Friday that the Brevard County, Florida, public library system has pulled all but “a handful” of copies of Fifty Shades of Grey from their shelves (via E! Online). That handful must have been withdrawn since; the library catalog currently shows none of the titles in the trilogy.

Library Director Cathy Schweinsberg says the move was not a result of public pressure, telling the paper,

Nobody asked us to take it off the shelves. But we bought some copies before we realized what it was. We looked at it, because it’s been called ‘mommy porn’ and ‘soft porn.’ We don’t collect porn.

Many librarians tell us that the only public pressure they’ve received about the book has been in the form of long holds lists (in some cases, over 1,000 requests for the print version and an additional 550 for the eBook).

The paper notes, however, “While the naughty novel doesn’t check out with local library officials, a quick look at the Brevard system’s online catalogue reveals a solid stash of some of the most erotic and enduring literature,” such as The Complete Kama Sutra, Fanny Hill, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Fear of Flying, Tropic of Cancer and Lolita.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2012 at 12:08 pm and is filed under Libraries in the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.