Librarians "furious" about missing their SI swimsuit issues

So says the headline in the U.S. News and World Report story about Sports Illustrated's decision not to send the risque swimsuit issue to subscribing academic, public, and school libraries. Not that we are all clamoring to see Beyonce in her skivvies, but gosh, we'd like to get the magazines we paid for and make the decision about whether or not to put them out ourselves. Leslie Burger, President of the American Library Association, had this to say about the situation:

The policy decision by the publishers of Sports Illustrated to selectively deny this year's "swimsuit issue" to some of its paid subscribers is outrageous -- patronizing and paternalistic in the extreme. To read (or not to read) a published issue of the magazine is a decision that belongs solely to subscribers, and in the case of institutional subscribers such as libraries, to the individual patrons of that library.

Limiting access to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in response to alleged, anonymous, and amorphous expressions of concern is an infringement on the First Amendment rights of library users and an unwarranted attempt to censor the materials available in our nation's libraries.

You go, Leslie.