Writer's Block: Book review

[seawasp]

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None. There are of course limits to what such a library can hold -- both budgetary and space-wise -- so there will of course be some element of "banning" in a de-facto sense because the librarians will have to choose what books they BUY for the library.

However, if we assume that I have an infinite library so all published books fit in there, I ban none of them. I may separate some out into an area where they are clearly marked as "your parents may not want you to read these", but maybe not; after all, that would just invite them to borrow the books MORE.

A librarian's job is to provide access to information, not to decide what information the library provides. There may be SPECIFIC CASES -- as in, relative not to the book's content, but to the individual accessing said book -- in which you may want to either not hand the book over, or at least notify responsible people of the possibility of a problem -- but the book itself should not be, in effect, penalized for the fact that in the wrong hands it can cause trouble.

INFORMATIONAL EDIT: I will note that back in... 1992, I was in an "Ethics in Information Science" class, and this precise question was asked. To my astonishment, I was either the only one, or one of only two, people in a class of about 30 would-be librarians and information professionals, who answered "no censorship" in the absolute and complete sense. All others were willing to do SOME level of censorship, ranging from "I wouldn't buy such books for the library" to "I'd file them so they're hard for anyone to locate" to "I'd have those books removed from the library as soon as possible".

Comments

[rosencrantz23.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Ryk, a thousand thank yous for this ray of sanity in a sea of frothing moralistic nonsense. Librarians are not the childrens' guardians. We are not authorized nor allowed to make value judgements on the books we provide to our patrons. The only people who can make those decisions to limit access are the patrons themselves, or their legal guardian if they are under the age of majority. I'll be ranting on this topic when I get home from work, actually.

[xyzzysqrl]

I'm sort of amazed they even asked this question. Would anyone say anything BESIDES "None"?

*reads other answers*

...I hate everything.

[seawasp]

I'm unsurprised. See my added "Informational Edit" above.

[illian.livejournal.com]

How odd. Most librarians I've known have been MORE likely to wedge a book into the budget or on to the shelves if people were making noises about banning it.

Although that was probably less to do with ethical considerations as to sheer contrariness.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

All others were willing to do SOME level of censorship, ranging from "I wouldn't buy such books for the library" to "I'd file them so they're hard for anyone to locate" to "I'd have those books removed from the library as soon as possible".

I can easily imagine "I wouldn't buy" in the sense of "I'd be unlikely to include these books in a necessarily finite budget." However, postulating your unbounded-in-space-or-dollars library, I don't see it.

But it's the "file them so they're hard to locate" one that puzzles me the most. For one thing, it seems absolutely contrary to the ethos of library science, which is all about making information easy to find. For another, why have the book at all if it's going to be hidden?

Mind you, I can imagine a subversive school librarian letting the rumor get out that there is a single copy of Smutty McSmuttington's Big Smutty Book of Smut (2nd Edition, Revised and Expanded) misfiled somewhere in the library, and the only way to find it is to search through all the other books... but I doubt that's what they had in mind.

Perhaps a more interesting question would be, "What books, if a kid read, would cause you to strongly recommend reading another book as a different perspective, and what would the other book be?" E.g., "anything by Ayn Rand" ==> "anything by Thich Nhat Hanh."

[aardy.livejournal.com]

Except insofar as a project like Google Books or Project Gutenberg or the like is concerned, postulating infinite storage space & infinite acquisition budget, while handy for discussions that never leave the realm of theory, is a non-answer to the real world problems related to allocation of finite resources and the remit to serve the specific needs of a specific community.

I can sort of understand the "file them so they're hard to locate" response, because I've done it on occasion. But in my case, unlike the Writer's Block question, I'm dealing specifically with children's material, and the "hard to locate" material was stuff that, for varying reasons, we wanted to own but the children's librarians also wanted to reduce the risk of a random young kid from our community simply browsing the shelves looking for a good book to read coming across book centered around an event or situation that really should be confronted via parental mediation. (Though I'm pretty sure Seawasp will disagree with that viewpoint.)

Thus, we have an entire section of "picture books for parents". I have little to no problem with that rationale and result, as those books are typically actually written with the intent that the parents will present the book to the kids anyway.

I've also, in response to specific requests from the children's librarians, "buried" a few reprints of pre-WW2 fiction that are chock-full of negative racial stereotypes & ethnic slurs (including a Nancy Drew reprint book). The children's librarians thought the library really should own them, but didn't want them interfiled with the rest of the fiction collection (and in particular, the rest of the Nancy Drew series); so they went in the Dewey Decimal number for fiction, alongside the history books about children's books (and, in particular, books about the early days of the Stratemeyer Syndicate)--so in essence they're shelved based on their meta-contextual appeal (that is, most easily findable by people studying the history of literature) rather than on possible current popular appeal (that is, most easily findable by people looking for some entertainment). I'm not a big fan of that approach, but given a choice between owned & buried in this way and not owned at all, I'm willing to compromise a bit in order to see these books included in the library's collection.

[seawasp]

I don't disagree with the viewpoint that you should be able to segregate the material so that stuff that might cause upset in a random browser is easily recognized. AS LONG AS it's not actually hard to FIND, just perhaps hard for the children (who are, as is expected in our society, treated differently than adults) to get to it.

Ultimately, however, I think the responsibility is the parents'; don't want your kid reading something? Pay attention to what he or she is reading, then!

The segregation of the old reprints I don't agree with. Perhaps a label noting that this IS something written in a different time and not to be surprised at finding elements that demonstrate that within.But not taking fiction and filing it somewhere that, honestly speaking, I as a patron would never think to look.

[aardy.livejournal.com]

Well, the question then becomes "Findable, how?"

Findable through physical browsing of the shelves?

Findable through virtual searching or browsing of the online catalog?

It's relatively easy to hide books from either sort of search, but most folks looking to "hide" books only bother with the former--either by intentionally mis-shelving a book, or (in the case I described) intentionally mis-classifying it.

The latter is, I believe, less frequently done (intentionally, at least; it happens accidentally all the time), and is the less defensible approach in my opinion. After all, anything that's easily findable in the library catalog and is shelved exactly where the catalog says it is is still "easily findable", no matter how mis-classified it is; it just means walking a few steps further than you should have had to in order to actually put your hands on it. But if it's hidden from the catalog, it might as well not exist as far as staff and most library users are concerned, at which point it might as well have been banned.

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

To my mind a librarian wanting to ban books is like... Oh, a pharmacist who doesn't want to have to actually dispense medication, an ice skater who doesn't want to have to wear skates, or a pilot who would like to be allowed to drink on the job. It's a person who makes me want to say, "Clearly you have made a poor career decision. Please resign, review your desires and education, and try again." Sometimes with the addition of a clue-by-four. (And occasionally with repeated application of said clue-by-four in the hopes of either prompting the growth and activation of brain cells or at least reducing stress levels)

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

I just saw this link today: Blog about books librarians hate.