[Libs-Or] May 2018 Tuesday Topic: When good authors (or any authors) do bad things

[Ross Betzer]

*Welcome to Tuesday Topics, a monthly series covering topics with
intellectual freedom implications for libraries of all types. Each message
is prepared by a member of OLA's Intellectual Freedom Committee or a guest
writer. Questions can be directed to the author of the topic or to the IFC
committee <http://www.olaweb.org/contact-ifc>.*


*May 2018 Tuesday Topic: When good authors (or any authors) do bad things*


Celebrity and authorship are a long-standing combination. For probably as
long as there have been printed books, famous people have used their fame
to sell them. Likewise, authors have long become celebrities based on their
writing, and turned that fame into lecture tours, book readings, and
increased book sales (with larger and larger placement of author name and
photo on book jackets). It is easy and instinctual to equate books with
writers. But they are not the same thing: a book is a finite intellectual
expression, whereas a writer is a human being with multitudinous flaws and
virtues.

The books/writers distinction is worth thinking about right now when many
authors are being exposed as perpetrators of sexual misbehavior,
harassment, and/or outright assault (Junot Diaz, Bill Cosby, Jay Asher,
Sherman Alexie, and Garrison Keillor are some recent examples). Librarians
and consumers are wondering what to do with the knowledge that books they
love (books that they have on their bookshelves, that they’ve recommended
to others, that have shaped who they are) were written by a creep.
Individually, we, the reader and consumer, should each decide on a response
that feels right. In the libraries where we work, however, it is not all
about us.

A recent post on the StackedBooks.org blog discusses ways that librarians
should or should not respond when they learn about authors having done bad
things (“What to do with books by authors accused of assault, racism, or
other inappropriate or illegal behaviors
<http://stackedbooks.org/2018/02/what-to-do-with-books-by-authors-accused-of-assault-racism-or-other-inappropriate-or-illegal-behaviors.html>”).
Another blog post, on the American Association of School Librarians’
Knowledge Quest website, takes a more aggressive response in reassessing
works by problematic authors (“The Problem with Problematic YA Authors
<https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/the-problem-with-problematic-ya-authors/>”).
I do not agree with all the approaches advanced in these posts; in
particular, I think that the author of the second article goes too far in
singling out books by accused authors for review. But both authors deserve
credit for thinking deeply about decisions rather than making knee-jerk
reactions. And both of the posts emphasize the importance of having a
clear collection
development policy and sticking to it, especially whenever you have a
challenge to an item in the library’s collection, including challenges from
library staff. If you need tips on collection development policies, visit
the Oregon Intellectual Freedom Clearinghouse webpage about preparing for
challenges <http://www.oregon.gov/osl/LD/Pages/projects/OIFC/Prepare.aspx>.
In order for collection decisions to be fair and evenly enforced, they need
to be driven by a well-thought-out policy.


Hopefully your collection policy aspires to a collection that supports
“access to content on all subjects that meet, as closely as possible, the
needs, interests, and abilities of all persons in the community the library
serves” (as stated in the American Library Association’s “Diversity in
collection development, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
<http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/diversitycollection>”).
Just because a writer is a despicable person, it does not mean that people
should not be able to read the author's books if that’s what they want to
do. The library where we work is not our own library; it belongs to the
community and the library users, and it is up to them to choose what they
want to read or not read.

===

*Ross Betzer*
Chair - Oregon Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee
Librarian, Local Resources & Cataloging - Multnomah County Library
ifc.chair at olaweb.org
503.988.5123
My preferred pronouns are he/him/his
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/libs-or/attachments/20180529/49984700/attachment.html>