Librarian Hospitalized After âBook Burningâ Incident Destroys Library
Â Norma Garrison has been in charge ofÂ The Muskingum CountyÂ Public Library in Zanesville, OhioÂ since 1974.Â  âEducation and culture are the most important gifts we can give our young people â within limits,â said Garrison from her hospital bed. The 62-year-old librarian is recovering from severe 3rd degree burns suffered as the result of a fire authorities say she herself set in the library, trying to burn books she found unsuitable for public viewing.âIâve done this for years and nobody ever noticed âtil now,â explainedÂ Garrison.Â  âUsed to be just a few I had to get rid of back when, but now with that Kenyan in office, telling us what to do and the way heâs turnedÂ the country radical â I canât keep up.âWhen asked who she was specifically referring to by âthat Kenyan,â Garrison replied, âDonât get cute. Â You know exactly who Iâm talking about and Iâm not afraid to say it â the President. Â And did you see where nowÂ his wife is forcingÂ us to feed our children what she feeds her own? Â I donât have children, but who does she think she is? Â Maybe itâs justÂ fineÂ for her kids to read that filthÂ Fifty Shades of Grey, but itâs not okay for regular American kids who grow up around here. Â Someone has to speak for them.âFire Chief Robert Sutherland commented, âThe entire back end of the building is gone.Â  The alarms were disconnected so that explains why there was so much damage.Â  Weâre lucky no one wasÂ killed. Â The nursing home is right next door. Â I donât know what Miss Garrison was thinking.âReaction from town residents is mixed.Â  âThere wereÂ rumorsÂ that Norma did this type of thing,â said local florist Sarah Donaldson.Â  âWe just joked about it âcause Norma isÂ just so quiet and reserved.âResident Paul Fowler remarked, âSometimes you would go in and look for a certain book and it wouldnât be there. Â NormaÂ would say she never heard of it, or that it wasÂ checked out and never brought back, or it got lost. Â Mind you, Iâm not defending what she did, but I understand.Â  She got real withdrawn after McCain lost. She changed. You could see it in her. Â She really liked that Sarah Palin and always had plenty of her books on display.ââWhen I go back to work I guess Iâll have a lot of cleaning up to do,â remarked Garrison, seemingly unaware of the severity and consequences of her actions.GarrisonÂ wasÂ charged with malicious damage to public property, and was removedÂ from her position last week. Â She will be taken into custody after her release from Zanesvilleâs Genesis-BethesdaÂ Hospital within the next few days.Insurance investigators estimate damage to the library structure to be in the tens of thousands of dollars, not including the value of over 1,800 volumes of literature destroyed in the fire.