I have found that I don’t open up so much during a full class discussion, but do so in smaller groups. Except for my Storytelling class, I’m pretty quiet and reserved normally. We didn’t do smaller groups in my 502 class the other day, so I found myself formulating a blog entry instead. The topic was censorship.
One thing I find interesting is how the stereotype (?) of the librarian has changed in the last few decades. People generally have this idea of a librarian being an uptight spinster who shushes you, knows at least something about everything, and perhaps isn’t that interesting or fun. And of course there’s the “sexy librarian” image of the hidden beauty taking off her classes, letting down her hair, unbuttoning her blouse just a tad, and getting hot’n'heavy in the stacks. Whatevs. But more and more there’s this idea of a librarian being a more militant being – a person dedicated to information awareness, tackling censorship, and encouraging the masses to look beyond the popular media. This is an image I’m taking to. And keeping my hipster/Clark Kent glasses on in the process.
One issue we frequently came back to in our class discussion was the idea of “Give the people what they want” versus using your budget to create a more diverse collection. There are many, many issues involved with this, and as a bookseller focused on *selling* books, I get it. You can try to get folks to read Albert Camus, and Ayn Rand, and William Burroughs, but you’re mainly going to sell James Patterson, Nora Roberts, and Nicholas Sparks. In a retail model, it makes sense to have the latter trinity in stock and up front. It pained us lowly booksellers to do it, but that’s how it works.
But in a library? I recall once going to the Charleston Public Library and seeing a shelf of just Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code. At least 15 copies all together, and all of them well-used. Clearly this branch saw the need to have 15 copies of this bestseller, and clearly it circulated well. I think this is something important to consider. A library, especially within certain communities, can’t just focus on bringing in materials that encompass a wide variety of viewpoints and genres (though there is something to be said for that, and should be indulged when possible). A library must also consider circulation numbers, something they report to their board and the community at large as a quantitative way of showing that the library has use, it is necessary. There was recently a lot of activism with libraries in the UK when many were threatened with closure, and one library went as far as to ask their patrons to check out EVERY SINGLE TITLE in the library. They had EMPTY shelves. Very drastic, but it proved a good point – the library is very necessary to a community, and should not be discarded lightly.
Going back to my bookselling experience – I worked at a location on the South Side of Chicago, just a few blocks from the Obamas. This neighborhood is obviously very liberal. Basically you put Obama’s face on anything, and people will buy it. (When Michael Jackson died, same thing.) But because we were part of a chain, there were certain expectations we had to uphold, like stocking a large quantity of Sarah Palin’s book Going Rogue. At that time we had a sales goal we had to meet with the Palin book, a goal I don’t believe was met. That book was largely ignored, while we continued to sell out of Dreams of My Father and Richard Wolfe’s Renegade. Fast forward a bit, and George Bush’s Decision Points has come out. Again, I expected this book to perform similarly to Palin’s, but was surprised. Decision Points became one of bestsellers at our location for a while. Turns out, people wanted to get Bush’s perspective on what could be viewed as a mess of a presidency. Ideally, this is what a library wants to have happen – sure we’re in an area that’s full of Democrats and is very passionate about a certain viewpoint, but what can we learn from the other side? Fascinating.
Anyway, in this class discussion it got very… grad school. When you’re in academia, you can think idealistically. The activism spirit of the 1960′s is still alive and well. But then you get thrown in the real world. In the real world, you have increasingly limited budgets. You have boards of directors. You have loud and bigoted patrons. I got the feeling some of my classmates forgot about this, or perhaps haven’t faced this head-on. Not that I have, really, either. I don’t recall the PTA at any of my schools getting in a tizzy over a book. I never had fights with my parents over what I was reading. I don’t think my folks barred me from reading what I wanted. That “little town in Footloose” was the complete opposite of my personal experiences. But places with that mindset are still around. The Harry Potter community for years made fun of this one mom in South Georgia who thinks that Harry Potter is satanic and is very vocal about it.
You can cry all you want about how a library must expand their Native American studies section, their African History section, and their Gay/Lesbian Fiction section. These voices must be heard! But if no one is checking them out, if they aren’t being circulated? A couple of years down the line, after James Patterson and Nicholas Sparks have written another 50 books each, you’re going to need more shelf space for those books. And you’re going to have to weed a lot out the aforementioned sections because guess what? No one’s reading them. Shame, but that’s how it works. You can call foul, and say it’s censorship, but that’s a reality libraries have to deal with. No one may be protesting the fact that you have Christopher Isherwood readily available, but your patrons just prefer reading Stephen King.
It seems a cop-out to say “give the people what they want,” but it’s a reality. It doesn’t mean you can’t educate your patrons about what else it out there. It doesn’t mean you can’t put up a display of LGBT teen fiction. It doesn’t mean you can’t do inter-library loan to get that book on Hitler and the occult. And it doesn’t mean you can’t buy one less copy of the new Jodi Piccoult so you can instead buy a Dave Eggers recommended up-and-comer and make it your staff pick of the month. Work within your means, and you can still make things happen.
