When I was given the task of ordering audiobooks for the library, I was told by the reference department manager that I had to be fair and had to give equal shelf space to all sides of the political spectrum. I was actually insulted that my manager thought she needed to warn me about such a thing, that she thought I would attempt to censor (by omission) certain books or authors because they weren't "right-wing" or because they didn't fall in line with my own beliefs. My selections have always been based on what audiobooks will circulate and what interests our patrons. I may not have liked having to order Obama's Dreams of My Father but, by golly, I did it anyway because that's my job.
But tonight I found out that our library only owns an audiobook copy of Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption. We do not own a hard cover edition, despite it being on the NYT Best Seller's list for the third week in a row.
I'll give you one guess as to why.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
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22 comments:
Someone is playing politics there for sure.
The double-standard is the one they play by.
Isn't that predictable;they have to remind us to be fair,because they know that they wouldn't be fair themselves, given the same opportunity.
Reminds me of a race car owner that I competed against,telling the officials this about me:I KNOW that they're cheating,cause I'm cheating and they're beating me.
(first time commenting, long time reader)
You know, we had to order Culture of Corruption because the number of phone call requests we got was huge. Why didn't that one get "promoted" enough to be bought ahead of time? As much as librarians want to be fair and even, I think there's not enough anticipation of books that aren't within the political domain of "the majority" (that being, of course, what the librarian considers the majority.......need I explain more?)
I hope you have a couple copies of Levin's book, Liberty and Tyranny.
And of course, "Hell! I was THERE!" by Elmer Keith.
"Hell! I was THERE!" by Elmer Keith."
Wish that was still in print. Heard it wasn't.
If you are lucky someone may donate it. I have given a lot of books to my library. I cant stand to throw a book away and I need to clear out stuff.
Double standard at work...
I served for 10 years on the seven member Board of Trustees of the Pikes Peak Library District (Colorado Springs)--a fighter pilot is the most unlikely trustee for a library you'll ever meet. Out collection policy was to automatically order all releases from most major publishing houses. Best sellers got multiple copies (we had two mains and 11 branches). We also had around $120K in the collection budget to respond to patron requests--any patron requested any book and we got it for them.
(We got in trouble on that when Madonnna's photo book "Sex" came out--we got set up by Focus on the Family. They had a couple of callers ask for it, we ordered 3 and then we got slammed in the local media BEFORE the book was released or even available for reviewers! Turned out the only way we could find out what the issue was is Dr. Dobson had a pre-publication loose-leaf copy.--It became one of only three books in ten years that we removed, and the only one we removed before we acquired!)
I would so call her on that BS!
jw
It's funny...I wanted to make excuses, like "How do you know it's deliberate?" And then I thought, "There's a considerable subset of the population who will read anything by Malkin. She's been a best seller before. So how do you NOT buy her, unless it's deliberate political prejudice? ANY rational acquisitions policy in a public library would include her. (Note: the Case library only has "In defence of internment"...but I think most of Malkin is a little lightweight for an academic library.)
The exception would be if the library made an ironclad rule to never buy books by political pundits. I'd be willing to trade Malkin for never seeing Michael Moore or Al Franken. This is actually what some of the "successes" in the Glenn Beck advertiser boycott have done...which means that while they are "boycotting" Beck, they are also "boycotting" Olbermann.
Just to clarify (and I didn't want to put this in the body of the post because, well...probably because I'm chicken.)
When called on it, the woman who orders the books said "Oh, that woman (meaning Malkin) is an idiot."
So there you go.
Hey there! I've lurked for years, but it's time to comment.
I am on the order committee at my library, and run into this all the time. I consider it part of my job to try to keep the uh, political stuff? (for lack of a better word *cr_p*) balanced. Someone has to.
There are a lot of books out there that are written by idiots. That doesn't mean you don't order them....Al Franken comes to mind....
I think she was projecting. On both counts.
I thought maybe it was not ordered because it was sold out!! I have heard Michele speak. Idiot? Not hardly!! Makes so much sense I am betting she made the "ditz who orders books feel dumb as a rock!"
"...one guess as to why."
Well, for the same reason Dagny couldn't run the Gulch. Or the wookie couldn't run the Falcon.
And, I dunno what any of that means, so
Hey barkeep! Another IPA over here...
Could there.. be.. any political bias??
Nah, probably not.
Um, does that library have a problem with hot conservative chicks with exquisite taste in footwear?
The Left is so predictable.
i'm not there any longer but the high school librarian at a school i worked at was so liberal that she wouldn't allow the armed services to even place an information pamphlet(s) tiny stand to be in HER library, why the administration went along i don't know....
Um, does that library have a problem with hot conservative chicks with exquisite taste in footwear?
If so they can send them to Delaware, or clone Breda and send her here. There's a distinct dearth of hot, non-liberal librarians around here.
When I picked up my copy of CofC at Barnes & Noble a couple of days ago (yes, I could order it on line, but I like buying in-store just to see liberals cry!), after first working my way through the displays and checking the "current events" section, I found ONE copy on the lower shelf of a table of new-release paperbacks next to the cafe. I hope that meant they'd been selling like hotcakes, but I suspect skulduggery on the part of the employees. (Tho' to give 'em credit, the same store is where I found my autographed copy of Beck's Inconvenient Book.)
I'm lucky to live in a relatively conservative area, so our library system (7 counties, 11 jurisdictions) isn't afraid to get books like that. We have 9 copies between 9 branches of CC, with 3 of them in "processing" status. We've got far more copies of L&T, and most of them are either checked out or in transit, with nearly 150 requests.
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