Last Tuesday, Comedy Central's faux serious Stephen Colbert took off from charges of socialism in Congressional bailout plans to warn, “There's an even more pervasive Communist threat, right there in our town square: libraries.” The piece was titled “The Red Lending Menace.”

His crew went to the ever-wholesome Rutherford Public Library, NJ, and filmed Jane Fisher, the director, and Arlene Sahraie (pictured), library services director for the Bergen County Cooperative Library System (BCCLS), explaining, with sincerity, that “July was our busiest month on record” and “We didn't make any money. Our goal is not to make a profit.” (This article from the South Bergenite explains that the Colbert crew was inspired by reports that the economic downturn is driving increased public library use.)

His solution: defeat this "Red Lending Menace" by taking out books, not returning them, and then paying for them. Of course, Colbert being Colbert, he also recommended viewers read Sexodus, by “Leon Urine”—a reference (which I’m not sure all would get) to Exodus, by Leon Uris.

Fisher, a 2004 LJ Mover & Shaker, told me that she was glad to see libraries get coverage in such a popular, nontraditional media source. She acknowledged that the appearance was a little risky--libraries aren't free, of course; they're funded by local communities--and that she knew that Colbert might make fun of libraries. However, she said, producers reassured her that enough Colbert fans are library users that they knew they couldn't go too far. Local library users, she said, were happy to see Rutherford on the tube, and she even was asked for her autograph.