Library backs off refusal to carry Woodward book about Trump’s dysfunctional White House

Bob Woodward’s book about the Trump White House will be on the shelf of a West Virginia library after all.

The Morgan County Public Library in Berkeley Springs reversed a previous decision and will carry Woodward’s “Fear,” the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.

The book is Woodward’s account of a dysfunctional Trump White House.

Library trustees president Connie Perry said the library board did not know the library director had refused to accept a donated copy until the issue was raised in media reports.

“We have corrected that,” she said. “The book has been accepted — in fact, two of them.”

Perry said the library’s initial decision not to carry “Fear” became an issue in the town of about 600 people.

Now, more people want to read it, she said.

“Our policy always has been that we accept books,” she said. “This just got blown out of proportion. It was an employee who ... wasn’t aware of what she should have done. She should have just said, ‘Thank you.’ The board has corrected that.”

President Donald Trump carried West Virginia by a landslide in 2016.

Before the reversal, Morgan County Public Library director Donna Crocker had confirmed earlier Friday that the library did not carry “Fear” but declined to answer questions about her decision.

“I don’t want to get in the middle of that,” Crocker said by phone. “We have other Trump books.”

Resident Rob Campbell thought he could help out his library by donating a copy of “Fear.”

He wrote a letter to the local newspaper, saying, “Recently I called to offer ‘Fear,’ the new Woodward book, but the library declined my offer saying they wouldn’t be putting books like that on the shelves anymore.”

He noted in his letter that he lives about a block from the library and is happy to share his copy with anyone else who wants to read “Fear.” “I decided to be a library of one book,” he wrote.