WILL UNWOUND #460: “Surreptitious Censorship”
June 8, 2011Here’s an issue that I’ve often wondered about but never written about. It involves intellectual freedom. Intellectual freedom is often presented as a black and white issue. You are either a supporter of intellectual freedom or you are a censor. There seems to be no middle ground.
I have always felt that painting intellectual freedom in black and white invites surreptitious censorship. The temptation is great to pass up selecting a controversial book for fear that it might be challenged and ultimately removed from the collection. If you don’t acquire the book, that’s called “selection.” But if you do take a risk and acquire that book and it is challenged and removed that is called “censorship.”
It’s hard to imagine that a librarian could be tagged with a worse name than “censor.” This is a quick way to suffer professional ostracism. Libraries that have removed books under public pressure are often held up for ridicule and criticism as public case studies of censorship. Library commentators have a feast day roasting the offending parties.
So the path of least resistance is to simply not select the book in the first place for a whole series of ostensible and phony reasons. This was precisely the case with a book by Madonna entitled Sex that came out in the early 90s. Even the profession’s biggest intellectual freedom advocates punted on this book for all kinds of fascinating reasons even though it was a very hot seller: the metal covers, the spiral bindings, the fact that none of the normal reviewing sources chose to review it (also an interesting i.f. dilemma!), and the fact that Madonna was a new and untested author.
This was a very public case of this selection vs. censorship hypocrisy I am trying to articulate here, but I wonder if this type of thing happens more often than we would like to imagine.
Why are librarians so afraid of having a book challenged? Patrons or groups of patrons who challenge library books are simply exercising their First Amendment right to the “petition their government.” What’s wrong with that? Intellectual freedom issues should be hashed out in the public arena, not behind the closed doors of some librarian’s office.
What’s your take on this issue? Am I all wrong here? Would love to hear from as many of you who have the time.
There….I’ve gotten something off my chest that has been bothering me for a long time.
Let me get this straight – you think we should buy things that we know our community will challenge – so we can get made fun of by ALA and the anti-censorship mavens? Have our name dragged through the mud by our library board and city council and local paper for being IDIOTS????
Not only no Will, but Hell no! Intellectual freedom doesn’t mean any minor automatically gets to surf the porn on the library web pages either.
What are you thinking?
I’m surprised to hear that a challenge would draw ridicule and censure on your library. In my (admittedly large and liberal) community, I imagine some library administrator just glances at each challenge, files it away, and the book stays right where it was.
Rose…a lot of challengers want to take the process all the way through the system.
Okay, John, if you put it that way…….
Working in an academic library, nobody ever challenges my purchases. I do sometimes wonder if the decisions I make about purchases are colored by my personal likes and dislikes and whether I’m acting as a censor for items that I personally don’t feel any interest in, while my students might be interested in them, but I can’t buy everything.
Ah! Selection!
Rose, thanks for an idea for a future post! Merci.
As long as you have clear, Board understood and approved, consistent policies, you shouldn’t fear challenges. (Not that it’s ever fun to be called names be either extreme) I certainly hope that no director ever glances at a challenge and files it away. The challenger is (supposedly) a constituent and deserves a thoughtful response. In my library, a challenged item is read, viewed or listened to by the director, collection development manager, appropriate selector and a couple of appropriate others, depending on the item. Reviews are checked, the content is held up to our Collection Development Policy for scrutiny. Then a letter is sent to the challenger from the director that quotes the reviews, points out where it fits into our CD Policy, points to heavy usage (if warranted) to show its appeal to others in our community. The Board members receive copies of the letter. If we are following our policies, a challenge may get unpleasant but we can respond with clear consciences.
Sometimes, though, I think finances can dictate selection decisions. Selectors should know their communities and readers interests. Since there isn’t enough money or space for EVERYTHING, there must be judgment calls. The library where I worked when Madonna’s book came out struggled with this. While we expected some interest, it was expensive and poorly made. We bought just enough copies to meet reserve demand, and let it go at that.
Your collection should hold balance in points of view, but you can’t possibly get every title on every topic…just be prepared to defend your decisions.
Frequently when I read your blog and the comments, I thank the gods on Mt Olympus that I was the library director for a US military library: I was considered the expert. I had 2 serious challenges during my tenure and I succeeded in opinion on both. I tried very hard to cover all sides and didn’t think the more popular opinion should necessarily prevail. I should say that I didn’t have a board to satisify, which I am sure is much more difficult, just a Colonel and a General.
Faye…very interesting perspective. Lucky you but look at all the fun you missed.
Mimi, excellent answer. Hope you are representative of the profession.
Will, I’m guessing that you never had to deal with a full-blown challenge in your library. Most public librarians run into complaints about materials on a more or less regular basis, but those are different from the full-blown public challenge, where one or more complaining parties go on the attack, wanting both publicity and blood.
When it happens, it isn’t pretty. No matter how professionally the director, staff, and board handle it, there is a lot of bombast, with threats, tension, and the potential of ruining a career with one ill-chosen word. The media are actively involved. Occasionally, the complaining parties will be poorly prepared or do something silly, which tends to bring things to a close. Other times, there is the equivalent of a trial, with the offending item either being found guilty or innocent. And sometimes, the director gets fired as kind of a scapegoat.
You are on target when you say that intellectual freedom tends to be treated as a black and white issue. That tends to polarize things and raises the stakes all around. In the long run, that kind of confrontational atmosphere is not healthy.
One of the most problematic aspects of it is with the news media. On the one hand, the media realize the First Amendment is essential both to what they do and to the freedoms Americans prize. But they make their living by stirring up controversy. And, at the same time, they are far more guilty than libraries of practicing censorship, especially the TV news people. Like librarians, they call it selective news coverage. But they routinely choose to ignore or play down important issues and focus instead on the visually exciting, the trivial, and the emotional.
Wayne, I agree with you completely. I’ve experienced a book challenge that could easily have become full-blown, with groups of angry parents involved and of course the ever-present media coverage. I’ve also read about the aftermath of book challenges– and wish I could cite the examples– where the book stayed on the shelf, but perhaps due to the bad publicity and media coverage, the librarian left — or was terminated.
A textbook challenge in an area school district resulted in police protection assigned to the school district offices. This was a challenge regarding elementary language arts texts from a major publishing company, not where you’d expect to have huge problems. Parents were extremely upset, and turned out in large numbers to voice their concerns.
This does not mean my selections erred on the conservative side, but it did mean that I took every challenge seriously. I regularly read books on the most challenged lists to know exactly what the issue may be, if there is a challenge to those titles I had in my collection.
Jeanne, I think your doing your due diligence on every book is legitimately what selection should be about. Great comment.
Wayne, I also agree with you. “You are on target when you say that intellectual freedom tends to be treated as a black and white issue.” Absolutely. You and Will Manley are absolutely correct.
And it is the American Library Association that makes it black and white. It sets the stage for everyone else. No kidding now, in celebration of “Banned Books Week,” the ALA put out a video that labeled every single person who brought a challenge as a censor. 100%. That’s black and white. See my post on this: “The Parent Trap: ALA Uses Banned Books Week to Ridicule Patrons Complying with ALA Materials Reconsideration Policies.”
Some people criticize me for criticizing the ALA, of which I was a former member. (Can’t afford to re-up.) But it is the ALA that leads with its chin. For example, why does the ALA promote the use of material reconsideration policies if it then turns around and labels 100% of the people using the ALA-recommended policies as censors?
I am so happy Will and his many fans are speaking out on this issue.
Myself, I think censorship is a serious issue and the ALA should address it in a serious manner. The ALA only does itself and the issue harm when it acts the way it does.
I only wish the many fans of Will’s who are speaking out as they are can do something about restoring common sense to the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Judith Krug is gone now. You can all drop your fear of the OIF and its effect on your careers and start demanding it treat censorship as a serious issue, not as a means for, as Will Manley puts it, anything goes.
Safe…you are really on to something. I wish we would drop the term censors for patrons and use the term challengers or petitioners.
Wayne…excellent point. The media stirs the pot over and over again. The biggest challenge I had to deal with was as a school board member over “Huck Finn.” A mother very sincerely made the case that the numerous uses of the “n” word caused her son to be the recipient of endless ridicule. It was a very tough case. It was a heart vs. head case and I voted with my head. But you are right…the newspaper had a field day.
Remember the furor over the German sex education book published in the U.S. as Show Me (1975) (http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1445710). It looks like the majority of the current holding libraries are academics.
For public libraries, pragmatism frequently trumps. Defending a challenged work is one thing; intentionally adding something to a collection that one knows will stir up a hornets’ nest is something else entirely.
Although it might be intellectually honest to point out that the most intense “personal contact” scenes in many popular works of fiction are not all that different than pages from “the joy of sex,” it is probably not something to post on your library’s blog.
Stan, I totally agree with you and wish the rest of the profession was as honest as your comment is. Pragmatism is not a sin.
And I will admit that when a set of BOMC’s “Erotic Classics” turned up in book donations, they did not get added to our collection.
Your post had me reminiscing of the many censorship fights I have been in. In my first inner-city library job I faced complaints because of “Little Black Sambo” and “Babar the Elephant” (You DO remember wrinkled Cornelius, don’t you?) because of their portrayal of Blacks. Was this the consevatives going after these books with a vengance? Of course not, it was the ever freedon-loving liberals.
But I’ve been on the other side, too. I once had a serious (as in, someone who understood what had to be done to REALLY complain) on our “lack” of anti-abortion books. I went through the entire collection and found five anti-abortion books, six pro-abortion books, and two academic books simply looking at the controversy.
Then there was the sex. In the first instance a city alderman complained that my bookstore sold pornography in having The Joy of Sex available. The police confiscated almost 500 copies (Yes, it WAS popular) and arrested the manager of the store and put him on trial. It was a hung jury, but every cop in Macon, Georgia got a copy of the book. This did make me have faith in Macon housewives, though. Only one old codger was a hold-out. 11-1 for acquittal.
But then came along the Better Sex Videos. Wanna know how to “do it”? These videos showed you precisely how. If you were a little hazy on anatomy, you wouldn’t be after watching these. Our enlightened media selector bought them, but much to his chagrin, we did not put them in. Sorry. Mea Culpa and all that. We just could not imagine the grief.
Umm, I took them home. Sorry.
Mick, that type of “field research” is tough but someone has to do it.
I think the scenario you use an example does indeed happen.
Of course, I have to say, I have to chuckle at your example because a book titled Sex by Madonna would get stolen in very short order from my library and I’m sure many other library. And I know that is also the case with many books and materials that feature racy or controversial content – you’d be hard pressed to have the item be challenged because it would be likely to get stolen before it had circulated too many times.
Having said that though, I don’t think you should base what items you purchase for a library on whether or not someone will complain if you buy it or if you know it is likely to get stolen – instead I think ideally collection development in public libraries should be done with that walking fine line ideal of purchasing some items you know patrons will want along with some times you know patrons will be likely to need at some point but that they may not be excited about to begin with.
Linda…that was another main reason that librarians said they did not get Madonna’s book….it would be stolen right away. Thanks for reminding me. I guess this is a post for another day, but when we are speaking of pragmatism is theft potential a valid criterion especially in these tight economic times.
I’ve written about this on my blog*: bring on the challenges! Make people spell out the issues with the book! You can’t say on one hand that you defend intellectual freedom and then take steps to avoid ever being challenged. There is nothing to fear from debate or controversy; in fact, you should welcome them because it means people are paying attention.
If anything, the challenge brings *more* attention to a book. The author will thank you for all the press since people will read it to see what the issue is.
Intellectual freedom means walking the walk, not just talking to the talk. To my peers who practice what Will talks about, I say this: buck up, buttercup. Because when a *real* fight happens, you’re going to get creamed without the experience of the superficial ones.
[*My post: http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/banned-book-bullshit/
Andy, right on. I read your blog post and added it to my list of articles on the topic.
Please consider adding SafeLibraries to your blogroll.
Andy, I clicked on your link…great post…great blog!
I have very mixed feelings about this issue. I want to provide access to ideas and information for all. I also have a finite budget with which to provide access and I can’t buy everything. We have CD policies to guide our purchases. As a public steward I have an obligation to spend tax dollars wisely. Call it timidity or practicality, it’s in my library’s best interest to buy what the majority of people want to read and avoid buying things that will bring my library grief.
People don’t want to believe that there are gray areas in every aspect of life. The world is not black and white no matter how much (and how loudly the) rhetoric gets. We see that in political debates in political circles of all magnitude. It’s not about discussion and compromise; it’s about being right, winning and making the other side look as “stoopid” as possible.
I’d rather defend the right of the person to access information others don’t like, than to defend the content of the information. Unfortunately, this fine distinction is lost during the often emotional and heated debates that surround materials challenges. Even if we “win” the challenge, we’re seen as defending the offensive, not protecting the rights of our patrons to access information. We lose in the court of public opinion.
I like a moral high ground as much as anyone else, but I need to earn a living and feed my family. I’m not going to deliberately put myself in the middle of a censorship/selection controversy in my community of work. So, that means that I don’t buy things that I know will cause polarization in my community–tax rates are polarizing enough=).
As the library director, I am, and I chose to be here, in the position of walking a fine line ALL the time. This situation is not much different–I’m trying to strike a balance between what people want, what we can afford and the relative quality of what we provide. Whether we’re talking about materials, services or staffing, those are the considerations I make decisions with.
I just thank the gods that the internet is available at my library–people can get at this offensive stuff without involving me!
Diane, thanks for an honest, eloquent response.
Nothing is ever black and white. Many of the respondents above have captured the essence of the selection vs censorship issue. It all has to do with policy, community and budget. My tenure in collection development was filled with challenges. On just about every one, the first thing fellow staff wanted to do was read or see what was so offensive!
I can say that my department never steered clear of the selection of a title due to content. When we did come across something, we had a frank departmental discussion about the merits of the title and yes, some we did not add. But it was not just shying away from the challenge, we did do research to back those few tough decisions to add or not add.
i do not believe those non selection decisions are not as prevalent as you may imagine due to fear of the challenge. The question is what is this title going to add to the collection. The librarian takes their charge very seriously, at least the ones with the proper training do. Experience, training and support got us through it all.
Jan, this is an admirable approach. Thanks.
The one book that I can remember choosing not to select was “Final Exit”. It was a “how to” manual for terminally ill people who wished to commit suicide. In a similar vein, I once colluded with a colleague to make certain that a patron’s very questionable ILL requests for books on pedophilia remained unfilled. I do not consider myself a censor, however I did not believe that these particular informational needs had to be met by the library.
On the face of it, these both seem like possibly legitimate requests. On the second one, I might agree if the requests were for publications of NAMBLA.
Michelle, did the existence of the internet enter into your decision? This type of material is available on the internet.
No, this was pre-internet, back in the early 1990′s when the book was first published. The community was conservative and the library book budget was inadequate. It was not a difficult decision to not purchase the book.
Interesting. I would see Final Exit as a legitimate purchase, useful for someone in extreme illness considering the possibility but also for students doing a debate or paper, or for medical/nursing students trying to gain empathy for their terminally ill patients. It’s my job to provide information, not to impose my values on my community. We’ve had the same discussions with books like the Anarchist’s Cookbook, and also over bombmaking sites on the Internet. Where we draw our lines is both personal and subject to community sentiment.
I see your point and perhaps this discussion is no longer relevant given the information that is now available online. However, for this particular library, in this particular community, I was unwilling to be the person responsible for purchasing this book. How would you justify such a purchase had it not been borrowed by a terminally ill person, but by a distraught or depressed teenager?
First, let me just say that it is impossible for any librarian anywhere to censor. Only the government has the power to censor; that is, to make a book completely unavailable.
Having said that, librarians can certainly make a title unavailable in their own community’s library, but the title would still be obtainable through interlibrary loan.
Perhaps I am lucky but in 18 years I did not have a challenge – and I assure you all that I did in fact purchase objectionable materials; objectionable on political, religious, social, and sexual grounds to someone (if not to me). Our children’s department had a complaint about a book, I forget the title, about lions in Baghdad that ate people. She got a letter from the author stating the ages for which he intended the book, which was exactly the age area in which she had placed it. Lately, we’ve had a couple questions about adult graphic novels that found their way to the YA area – they were relocated. Maybe our blue-collar town is very tolerant; or maybe the people who might protest just don’t come into the library.
Parenthetically, we did get a huge uproar when some of the exhibits in our Museum were relocated. Some idiot who never entered the library insisted that we had discarded all the exhibits.
As far as intellectual freedom, I tend to think an adult has the right to read anything and look at anything on the Internet; but I don’t have to provide it or make it easy. I don’t have much problem with filtering the computers in the children’s department; neither woulf I have a problem with providing a book to answer any question a kid might have, on the assumption if s/he is able to articulate the question the answer won’t be over the kid’s head. Personally I am not the least bit interested in porn and think it is stupid and degrading; the people who get off on it are also, IMHO, stupid beyond belief. Still, if some idiot man (usually) wants to partake, it is ok with me but NOT at the library; there are places that specialize and there he will find others with the same interests.
I seem to be verging on a minor rant so I will close…..
“First, let me just say that it is impossible for any librarian anywhere to censor. Only the government has the power to censor; that is, to make a book completely unavailable.”
Lynne I.! Brava! The ALA is going to come after you for saying that truth the OIF works hard to hide!
Lynne…I want to probe a bit deeper into your definition of censorship, which I think is a very good point of departure for this discussion. There used to be a saying “banned in Boston” that added a lot of allure to a title. Not sure where this phrase came from but my guess is that the City Council in Boston took the proactive measure to ban the selling of certain books (kinsey Report; Ulysses; Lady Chatterley, etc.) within the City. Is this what you are talking about as opposed to a city council voting to remove a book for a public library collection under its jurisdiction?
I always thought this had more to do with the Catholic Church “banning” certain things in the archdiocese of Boston, but I may be wrong. Boston seems to have had a reputation for being conservative, often described as “bluenosed”. It was also my impression that films that were banned were judged according to Catholic defiitions.
Actually, I would think only the Federal government could censor, since action by any lesser level of governm,ent would still leave materials available elsewhere. Kind of like some counties being “dry” while alcohol was available in surrounding counties. Certainly cities or counties or states could make it difficult to obtain certain titles but only if something is not allowed to be printed in or imported into the country and thus is totally unavailable would I consided it to be censored or banned.
Lynne, even the Catholic Church in Boston does not have the power to keep booksellers from selling books. The Church used to have a “legion of decency” list of movies you were forbidden to see. Years later with vhs tapes I rented the most notorious of the forbidden movies, “Knife in the Water” and was surprised at how mild it seemed by “modern” standards. Here is a link to Wiki explaining the origin of the phrase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_in_Boston
Back in the early 90s there were great debates about having public Internet in libraries. One of the favorite arguments put forth by librarians at the time was that libraries needed to have and control public access to the Internet so that they could make sure that people got their information from “good” sites – i.e. librarian approved. There were discussions of how libraries could limit access to selected sites the way that they limited selection of reference books to those vetted and approved by “experts” – i.e. peer reviewed and published by the correct presses. It wasn’t about intellectual freedom, it was about selection, and making sure that we protected our public and users from the crap that was out there. Then Congress decided to force Internet filtering and Bam! it was suddenly an intellectual freedom issue, and now libraries were supposed to let anyone access anything, including providing porn to children and pedophiles as protected first amendment speech. Of course it’s hypocrisy. The ALA as an organization is the embodiment of hypocrisy. And yes, I am a card-carrying member. So I, too, am a hypocrite, because I know that I will never change the organization, and that they don’t work for me, my library, or the community we serve. But they are the only game in town. Better the devil you know than no devil at all. I have always considered it hypocritical to market ourselves to families and entice children in with storytimes, etc.; then tell parents that we don’t recognize parental authority and that we will provide x-rated movies to their kids in the name of intellectual freedom. Personally, I do not think ALA and OIF know what this term means.
As to selection – it is necessary because unlike the Library of Congress, most libraries do not have the time, the money, the staff, or the space to acquire every item ever published. So, we have to pick and choose. Of course personal taste enters into it. We went to library school and took classes in how to do collection development, and we have convinced the people that hired us that we know more than the average bear about how to pick books for the library. But what it comes down to is, we pick the ones that we think will be a good fit, and our personal tastes have everything to do with it. Even if we are deliberately picking something that we personally dislike, we still consider our own reaction to it before we decide. That’s called being human. Unless and until we automate the acquisitions process and let computers pick the books, we are always going to have human emotional content in our selection process. Heck, even when the computers do start doing selection for us, we will probably end up with the emotional responses of the guy who programmed the computer.
Deb! Outstanding!!!
Deb, I agree with Safe. This is an outstanding comment.
Patrons censor our material frequently by checking out an item (usually involving witchcraft but other topics as well) & then “losing” it. Or sometimes they just walk out with them. How many times should we replace said item?
No doubt there’s been some selective collection development but like others have said, we supply our patrons’ demands–at least up to a point (i.e., space, money, & interest). Then we’ll borrow it from another library. But why fan the flames just for the sake of stirring up trouble? (at one time in my youth I would have been all for it but now, it seems more than a little futile).
Librarians must choose their battles. Times are tough and budgets are dwindling so why would we purposely wave a red flag in front of the very people we ask to support us? If we do our job properly, our collection will always offend someone on any given day but rarely do we get legitimate challenges (thank goodness). We’re so busy fighting to stay afloat we don’t have time to question another library’s decision to purchase–or not–a particular title.
From what I’ve heard of other situations, titles that get challenged are ones that seem totally innocuous to the majority of readers so despite anyone’s “plan” to avoid challenges, it doesn’t work. If I ever have to defend a purchase of a book then I’ll know I’ve done my job correctly. At least that’s what I’ll tell myself.
CarolAnn…thanks. This is a wonderfully honest and insightful comment.
At our academic library we purchase a copy of all the best sellers on the NY Times & Publishers Weekly lists. A previous director stopped two books from going into the collection, Madonna’s “Sex”, which we did not purchase, and Salmon Rusdie’s “Satanic Verses”, which we bought but she refused to allow on the shelves. I believe her rationale was that it would upset our international students.
My policy is if it hits the lists we purchase it (even Dr. Seuss, after all many of our students are parents). Satanic Verses is now on our shelves, but can’t get a copy of Madonna’s book.
pma…Madonna’s book had a limited printing and is now quite a collector’s item. Not sure that improves the quality of the book though!
There’s a very important and useful book that addresses most of the issues being discussed in this string of comments: James LaRue, The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges (Westport, Libraries Unlimited, 2007). Jamie is the long-time director of the Douglas County Libraries, located in an affluent suburban territory south of Denver. He frames the growth of challenges in very interesting generational terms, and he gives striking real-world examples from his own experience. He and his library deal successfully with a great many challenges because they treat every complaint with full respect and attention and assume that every complainer is acting from legitimate motives as a parent and/or citizen. That doesn’t mean, by the way, that they are ever comfortable or complacent.
I agree with the several commentators who have said that our professional associations have seriously missed the ball on the selection/censorship issue. Rather than engaging in name-calling and moral outrage, we ought to be trying to learn and communicate in ways that convey realistic and practical political and moral positions. Even in the smallest communities, there is a great deal of diversity of interest and opinion among the population. Libraries ought to be positioning themselves as practitioners of militant neutrality,respecting and attempting to serve a range of points of view.
Rick, thanks for bringing up Jamie’s book. He is a very sharp commentator on all things library. Also, I totally agree with your comment about our professional organizations. It’s time to get real.
I also meant to thank you before for bringing up Jamie LaRue. I heard him speak at a conference a few years ago and was very impressed; his approach seems to be humane, sensitive, and respectful of all, and at the same time very principled. He’s the first person I think of now when the issue of challenges comes up, but I was blanking on his name until you mentioned him.
Will, I remember when you spoke at our library conference on censorship. Madonna’s book was one of your featured titles. You told a great story about getting through airport security with that book. This was years before 9/11. Anyway, your words have stayed with me. At the time, there was no way I could afford to spend $50.00 on Madonna’s book for our library collection, but I would have considered it if the public had made requests for it.
Carla…thanks for giving me an idea for my next post!
Back in 2001 when I was finishing library school, video was still distributed in DVD format. Like all library schools we learned about censorship and the ALA position. We were cautioned about self censorship. Since video streaming was still in its infancy, porn was distributed via DVD’s. At that time porn represented about 20% or more of all DVD rentals. Since we as librarians did not self censor and we distributed materials based on the needs and wants of our community, I found it hypocritical that no public libraries I knew had a DVD porn collection.
Shortly after graduating, I was working at a library with a growing foreign film collection. A french film, Beau Pere, was purchased, which I had seen at a film festival. It was a controversial film about a step father and his 14 year old step daughter. She ultimately seduces him. Although the film is well reviewed and the subject if handled sensitively, it could be argued to be pornographic in subject if not in treatment.
Many books that appeal primarily to female readers, contain vividly described sexual scenes. I attended a panel discussion this weekend, in Chicago at the Lit Fest. Laurel K. Hamilton discussed her books and the sex scenes. She did mention that the horror romance genre was almost all female and that the men who do right horror or mystery do not put sex in their books. If it is present, it is at the end of a chapter and the next chapter picks up the next day.
Libraries do self censor and we do not collect porn DVD’s which are visual and appeal primarily to males. We do collect porn which is relationship based or literary based and appeal to women. Are we censoring based on gender preferences rather than content?
Doug…a most fascinating topic. I never ever thought about that angle but I truly think you are on to something. Visual vs. textual are definitely handled much differently.
One public library where I worked provided outreach service to the county jail. Jackie Collins was one of the most sought after authors by the male prison population.
Doug, you may have a point here. On the other hand, visual porn is much more explicit and potentially harmful than written descriptions of sexual activity, which requires the ability to visualize mentally. Maybe I am splitting hairs but it seems to me that reading about a murder has less psychological effect than watching a snuff film, or even a graphically violent movie. Since visual violence, sexual or otherwise, results in more male acting out than reading a similar description does on femles, it makes sense to me to restrict the visual more than the written even at the risk of gender discrimination.
Lynne, I think you are correct. If the Madonna book had no pictures, no one would have cared about it.
My goodness, do I remember that book! I remember unpacking it, looking at it and saying ” this will last one circ”. It would have walked right out of here with the first person who checked it out. And how that old fashioned alarm system would have beeped for hours! But you know what? I wasn’t sure how to handle it at the time. We talked it over and decided to wait to see how many patrons requested it and then add it to the collection. Not one request ever came to us. Not one. But I clearly remember we had 245 holds waiting for the next Danielle Steel novel that was due out the next week. I went with Know your patrons, know your community. Spend your hard found money on what you know will fulfill your patrons wants and needs. Great post.
Beth, folks in those days were too embarrassed to request Madonna. Today things have probably changed a bit.
People in my city were certainly not too shy to ask for the Madonna book. But with the cost, the format, and the (high) likelihood of its disappearance, we got very few copies, and those we got were made reference and kept, like other high-loss items, behind the reference desk, with a library card or other ID required for use. Some might say that was censorship since some people might be too embarrassed to ask for it – the decision was made that it was better for those people not to see it than for ALL our patrons/users/customers not to see it because it had disappeared.
By the way, we also kept the expensive Yusuf Ali edition of the Koran behind the desk in those days before inexpensive versions were available for the same reason – so that we had a good chance of having it if someone did want to read it. Nothing like religious people for stealing – it was hard to keep any scripture (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Mormon, whatever) on the circulating shelves – if the believers didn’t steal it for their own use, they’d take the scriptures of another group to keep anyone from reading about a “false” religion. I always wondered if they got to the part about “Thou shalt not steal;.”
I have not yet been put into this position, thankfully, but I can’t imagine it will never happen (currently I work for a for-profit college library, not a public library, so…we have our own set of issues).
One thing that came to my mind was that there are oodles of titles in any public library that DO have something in them that someone is not going to like, or that could be grounds for challenge for some patrons, and there’s no way for the staff doing the selecting to know what’s in every book. For instance, when I was 14 or 15 I happened upon a novelization of the film The Wicker Man in my public library and read it straightaway, not having seen the movie. Having now seen the film, I’d say that the book was more explicit in a lot of ways and certainly was not something my mother would’ve wanted me reading. But it’s not like that’s a high-profile book. It’s not a book by Glenn Beck or another contested writer, it’s not The Hunger Games, it’s not Sex by Madonna. There are far more sneaky “offenders” than high-profile, oft-challenged titles in most public libraries, I think.
I have no idea what my point is, or if I even have one. I guess I just think there’s no point in trying to avoid controversy by not buying a book that’s already controversial, when there are plenty of titles that could be controversial already in the library. Here ends this meandering exercise in naivete.
Diana, you do bring up a wonderful bit of irony. Many more offending but much more obscure titles skate free.
I remember our discussion for not buying Madonna’s book… one, it was Madonna, clinging to fame by performing any act that might gain attention, that might shockus , but ultimately, just boring us. Secondly, it was spiral-bound. Librarians hate books designed to come apart. With things that fall out, come loose, tear easily. So I remember those two reasons for not buying it. …months after publication, the local B&N was filled with French editions at $15, and that’s when I bought my personal copy. but how I chipped my tooth on the metal cover, I’ll never tell.
effing…here’s what I picture. You were using the book as a kind of barbell. You were lying on your back doing a series of lifts. It slipped out of your hand and chipped your tooth.
Or … You bought your personal copy. You read the first five pages, or was that the captions under the first five pictures. Sudden horror overtook you. You thought, “I just wasted fifteen dollars on this?!” and, without thinking, slapped yourself. Unfortunately, you were holding the book at the time.
Of course there is that well-worn quote…”A good library contains something to offend everyone”. I good rule to live by I have found! Even in a school library, although I do find myself having to make “content” decisions, particularly regarding senior fiction. I don’t think of myself as a censor, merely a discerning collection developer …aware of the cirriculum and the student audience. If they want really raunch or violent stuff they can get it from a public library LOL!