Hernando County cancels BookPage

By John Labriola - Inspired by Citrus County's example, Hernando County has decided not to renew its subscription to the left-wing book review magazine BookPage.

The decision was made last week by Hernando County Library Director Cynthia Loftis-Culp, who reviewed the magazine after residents urged the County Commission to end the subscription.

"I have determined that the funds currently allocated to this publication could be more effectively utilized to enhance our eBook collection, which continues to see strong demand from our community," Loftis-Culp wrote.

Hernando County was spending $1,305 annually for about 150 copies a month of BookPage, which were available at its four libraries. The magazine consistently recommends titles with LGBT, CRT, pro-abortion, anti-Trump, and witchcraft themes while demeaning conservative viewpoints.

Residents attending the April 14 Hernando County Commission meeting told commissioners BookPage promotes far-left and woke ideologies while excluding conservative bestselling authors, and they cited Citrus County's decision last year to cancel its subscription to the magazine.

Carol Eckenroth of Broooksville said books promoted by the magazine consist of "wokeism, Marxism, hate towards a sitting president, lesbians' ups and downs, slandering traditional churches as murderous, promoting abortion on demand, gentrification, pansexualism, novels for children focusing on lesbians' kinky sex and homosexuality, DEI, lesbian couples' sexual awakenings, children's books with a wide variety of  body types, genders, races and sexual orientations, children's books written by transgenders, casual hookup books," and "transgenders' sex and naked rituals."

Citrus County commissioners agreed in September to cancel BookPage, for which it was paying $3,300 annually for 500 copies a month. The decision was based on the fact that several book review publications including BookPage are available for free online and only 38 percent of public libraries in the United States subscribe to the printed version of BookPage.

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