OTTAWA, CANADA — Library patrons expect to find books on nearly every topic inside the repositories of collected knowledge, making it easy to gain knowledge about people, places, and things both exotic and mundane. Baking, health care, travel, engineering, history, philosophy, religion; information about these things and more can be found at the local library. According to a collection of moralists, however, there’s one subject that nobody needs to know anything about, especially not people who use the public library. That subject is sex.“We have a very broad collection,” explained chief librarian Barbara Clubb to the Ottawa Citizen.

Alas for the Ottawa Public Library where Clubb works, some of the books in that collection are upsetting some of the locals – but such a thing is “part of operating a public library and has been for centuries,” according to Clubb.

Specifically rattling the cages of some of the area’s more sex-negative citizens are copies of The Anal Sex Position Guide, The Going Down Guide, and The Sex Instruction Manual.

Although Clubb received an email from a shocked couple who insist that “This is pornography, pure and simple, veiled as ‘instruction’” and harmful to children, the librarian counters that the books are “very popular” with adult patrons.

While the outraged couple contend that spending tax money on sexuality books is a misuse of funds, collection development services manager Diane Pepall disagrees strongly, pointing out that the books are part of the library’s developing health section.

“They fit right into our mandate to provide information,” Pepall observed. “We want to cover all aspects of health issues in the collection.”

Clubb believes that the books in question have a place within the library’s inventory because they are well written, their authors are well respected and award-winning experts in their fields, and the subject matter is of interest and use to the local community.

Within days of Tristan Taormino’s Anal Sex Position Guide appearing on the library’s shelves there were 14 requests for the title.

Although emails such as that complaining about the new books do arrive in the library’s inboxes, both Clubb and Pepall say they don’t receive too many opposing sex education books. Mostly complaints relate to books believed to contain racist descriptions or inaccurate information.