Bomb threat to Brooklyn Drag Storytime event
A Drag Story Time event in Brooklyn was forced to move after the library it was being held in received a bomb threat.
Police have confirmed that the Cortelyou branch of Brooklyn Public Library received the threat via email on Saturday morning and it was called in to police emergency services on 9-11.
The library was evacuated, and police searched for a device or anything suspicious, but no threats were found. The Drag Storytime event was moved to a nearby coffee shop and families were still able to attend.
The children’s events have increasingly been the sites of protest and violent threats to staff in the UK, USA and here in Australia.
In Victoria librarians will now be trained in dealing with death threats, trolling, and the increasing level of intimidation from anti-LGBTIQA+ activists. Paul Duldig, the Chief Executive of the State Library Victoria told The Age that he hopes they’ll never have to cancel a Drag Storytime event again.
There’s been a lot of anger directed towards librarians, who by their nature are absolutely there for the public good,” Duldig said.
“The principles that librarians are trained and live by means they’re very brave. In some ways, this is the awful flip side of libraries being so important to culture. Culture is contested.”
Threats to Drag Storytime events are not the only challenges libraries are facing. Stealing of books that people believe are unsuitable for inclusion in library collections is also a growing challenge.
Pride Centre in Connecticut also receives bomb threat
A Pride Centre in New Haven on Long Island Sound was also the victim of a bomb threat.
Following an email threat several blocks of the neighbourhood where the Pride Centre is located were closed down, which also involved the evacuation of patients from a dialysis facility.
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