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IMO not carrying a book in a library (or deciding to remove one from public availability) is not censorship-it's management. Not allowing a book to be published or sold-now that's censorship. Nobody, that I know of, says that free speech means that the public must have free access to books.
All libraries get rid of books that they believe are no longer popular. I think it's obvious that if a book is as offensive as they seem to believe this one is that it will not be popular among the general public. So I guess it's a question of what the NYPL policy is.
In my experience, when libraries decide books are no longer popular they get rid of them-NYPL obviously didn't. Maybe that's a recognition that popularity is a fad. Or it might be based on their perception of why a book isn't popular. Whatever the reason, no library that I know of is required to carry every book in existence. Some of them may, however, be required (by their own policies) to make every book they carry available to the general public. Obviously the NYPL isn't so required-which I think is a damned shame, but I do not see it as censorship, just management.
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