Re: [LM_NET] TAR: Censorship /Selection Policy Question

[Robert Eiffert <beiffert@COMCAST.NET>]

There has been some discussion (recent magazine / journal articles,
some library blogs) about why titles such as _Unfit for command: swift
boat veterans speak out against John Kerry_, _The Reptilian Agenda_,
_State Origin: The Evidence of the Laboratory Birth of AIDS_ or books
about Intelligent Design or Bessler's Wheel, or Pogue's carburetor don't
get reviewed by regular review sources.

If your selection policy cites a specific list of required review
sources, it would be very easy to have a built-in bias. What range of
POV do our collections cover in history, can we really provide for all
the interests of our fiction readers?

--
Robert Eiffert, Librarian
Pacific MS
Vancouver, WA
pac.egreen.wednet.edu/library
beiffert.net furl.net/members/reiffert bloglines.com/blog/reiffert

Alan Karbel wrote:
> Hello LM_NETTERS,
>
> I'm a full time school librarian and currently working
> on finishing my permanent LMS certification at the
> University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. One of my
> assignments has to do with an unusual aspect of
> censorship. The premise is that the library has just
> successfully handled a challenge and the book remains
> in the collection. Now the people who were challenging
> the item come back and challenge the selection policy
> and the selection tools used. They argue that things
> like Booklist, School Library Journal, etc. are biased
> and they want other sources for reviews, such as
> www.pabbis.org, used as well.
>
> It's a very interesting question, but after hours of
> searching journal databases, the Internet and
> everything else I can think of, I've come up with very
> little information regarding bias in review sources or
> “conservative” websites (or any other tools) that look
> at book selection in a more positive light than PABBIS
> does.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas or information about this
> issue?

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