include video tapes of the British Broadcasting Corporation's  Fawlty Towers  series,

and also print and  books on tape  versions of science fiction, romance, and mystery

novels.  Many public libraries include sexually explicit materials in their print collection,

such as 

The Joy of Sex

 and 

The Joy of Gay Sex

.  Very few public libraries, however,

collect more graphic sexually explicit materials, such as XXX rated videos, or 

Hustler

magazine.

4

The mission of public librarians is to provide their patrons with a wide array of

information, and they surely do so.  Reference librarians across America answer more

than 7 million questions weekly.  If a patron has a specialized need for information not

available in the public library, the professional librarian will use a reference interview to

find out what information is needed to help the user, including the purpose for which an

item will be used.  Reference librarians are trained to assist patrons without judging the

patron's purpose in seeking information, or the content of the information that the patron

is seeking. 

Many public libraries routinely provide patrons with access to materials not in

their collections through the use of bibliographic access tools and interlibrary loan

programs.  Public libraries typically will assist patrons in obtaining access to all materials

4

  The OCLC database, a cooperative cataloging service established to facilitate

interlibrary loan requests, includes 40 million catalog records from approximately 48,000

libraries of all types worldwide.  Slightly more than 400 of the libraries in the OCLC

database are listed as carrying 

Playboy

 in their collections, while only eight subscribe to

Hustler

.  

36