One of the blogs that I read on a regular basis is Yarn Harlot. Imagine my surprise when I see this: Children’s knitting group turfed from library under new craft ban. in her blog. My librarian and knitting worlds are colliding!

This article has been passed around the library blogosphere, of course, even being nominated for discussion on Uncontrolled Vocabulary. While it is interesting that the library has opted to keep their gaming events and not knitting, Yarn Harlot makes a good point in today’s post:

“PS. There are several really good comments yesterday on the library issue, as well as more information here, and here. Keep in mind, as you debate – that we were not presented with all of the facts (and as suggested by the director – see the comment from Maureen August 19 at 8:25am- perhaps the ones we got were not even wholly accurate.

In addition, remember that this is a very, very, very tiny library – open only part- time hours in a very small community. Unlike a city library, or even a town library, there aren’t whole days to fit in programs, nor are there multiple activity rooms – or even multiple librarians. Think singular. There aren’t as many choices as there would be in a larger space, and that matters. Finally, the library has said that the video games (which would be an occasional evening, not a bi-weekly programme, like the knitting) would be part of a larger themed literacy evening with other components, not just a whack of teenagers sitting around wailing on guitar hero. This article was written by a member of the knitting group (which it turns out, is not just a group of little girls) and has – as you might expect, contains a bias towards their situation designed to make you sympathetic to the cause. ) Nowhere, in any of the articles has it said that knitting or arts and crafts is being replaced by weekly video games. Nowhere.”

Before we go off and condemn this library, we do need to keep in mind that they are making the choices that they think best for their library (or at least I hope they are). The knitters can still meet at the library, I’m sure, but the library can no longer support their meeting times/organization.