Maybe it’s because I learned about sex from books (albeit books provided by my parents.) Perhaps it’s because I dislike the idea of telling anyone they “can’t read” anything. For whatever reason I have a huge block against libraries censoring their titles. I realise that libraries have limited budgets and can’t buy every book, and I certainly think if the choice is between a book that one patron wants to read and a book that seventy-five patrons want to read that the library has to–most of the time–go with the more demanded text.
I’m starting, though, to have a problem, and that problem centers around the current trends of erotica and ebooks. Not that ebooks are a trend in and of themselves, but the ways in which people are united with ebooks is still gelling. Eighteen months from now as e-book distribution firms up I think issues such as this one will be less and less of a deal. Yet as it stands right now, the ways of uniting ebook with consumer are up for grabs.
Not a lot of folks realise you can get ebooks through the local library with the help of Overdrive.com. But you can. And, thanks to the current acquisitions manager at the Nashville Public Library you can get an awful lot of erotic fiction. Which brings me to both my point and my source of internal conflict.
I want all books to be available through the library. I want them available to all patrons. But I don’t know that I think they need to be seen by all patrons. I mentor a lot of young writers, all of whom I encourage to make frequent use of the library system. Frankly, though, I no longer feel comfortable telling them to browse the library for ebooks to download to the snazzy new Kindle Fires they got for Christmas from Grandma.
Last night while browsing the ebook fiction section on my ipad I got several pieces of risque cover art that moved well beyond the shirtless clench that has been so popular and well into fully nude adults fully entwined in an obviously sexual position. Their bodies were arranged in such a manner as to not actually show breasts or genitalia, but that arrangement also left nothing to the imagination as far as what they were doing with their afternoon.
Lest you think I’m getting all in high druthers because Of The Children, allow me to correct you. I’m not worried about the kids as much as I am the people who sign into the library to find a book during their break at work or the people who may have a porn addiction they grapple with. And of course I’m also a bit on the lookout for the folks who just plain don’t want to have to see sexually explicit artwork when they aren’t expecting it. Again, my problem is NOT with the sexually-explicit artwork. What you do with your time is your affair and your lookout. Not my circus, not my monkey*. My problem is with the timing and location of that artwork.
So I’m wondering aloud. How much should the Library be concerned about being a Safe For Work viewing destination? Frankly, I think that the library should be as accessible to as many patrons as possible. By creating a site that would be hostile to workplaces and thus locked out for employees who would like to browse on their break times I think the library is cheating its patrons. Then again, is an “Explicit Cover” black bar over such things really the direction we want to take a library? I honestly cannot make up my mind.
(I’m now looking for the cover in question, since a picture is worth a thousand words. Of course, when I didn’t want to see it…there it was. Now that I’m actively hunting it, it’s as elusive as a decent cup of coffee in jail.)
*this is the most wonderful catchphrase ever, thanks to @txmere! I plan on using it for the rest of my life.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
You know, I sort of wonder why they’ll do all this with ebooks, when I’ve looked up very basic sex books (non-fiction) that I can’t even get, but all of a sudden, you get all the harlequin, ebook, 50 shades of shit drivel you could possibly want.
Then again, our library needs a better buyer.
I could talk for two days straight about just how much I have against the current e-book acquisitions manager for the NPL. I am repeatedly suggesting books of value and import and interest. So much so that I keep getting locked out of the “suggest a title” option. (Apparently you can only “suggest a title” so many times.) When questioned about the reasoning behind the choices–so much schlock and loose change–they go on and on about how they’re just buying what customers will read. Of course, I would read a lot more of the other types of things, but they don’t buy it. So how do they know that other people won’t read other things? It’s just…Oh, it’s at the top of my peeve sheet right now.
I’m whining about print books. It’s clearly an issue with the library in general. They’re stupid. That’s all there is to it. Remember, they turned down Janine’s book and she was offering it for free.
It’s not strictly an erotica issue, I don’t think. They are buying SF movie-and-TV-series spinoff books instead of serious stand-alone SF that’s actually about something. They have a bunch of hot-right-now mystery writers’ works, but not a wide range of good new mysteries. They have a limited selection of literary fiction, and all sorts of by-the-numbers tripe. Now, this has always been true; as you noted, Coble, they do have to respond to demand. But it seems to me that in the Nashville Public Library collection the proportion of popular ephemera to books in any genre that people might want to read again, and more people might want to read for the first time 5 years from now, is a good deal higher for e-books than for physical books. I don’t know whether they get a deal for buying in bulk (so to speak) from certain publishers, or are deliberately putting schlock into the e-book collection so as not to have so many leftover copies of physical books later on, or whether the audience for certain kinds of reading has really shrunk that much.
But, anyway, I think the cover issue is just an artefact of a more general change in what they’re buying.
This also goes toward what I was saying to Mandi. I know that some of the titles they have to be getting for bargain rates through Overdrive. Many of the “Her Delicious Duke” type books that they feature prominently are giveaways on the Kindle. So I imagine they can stock their virtual shelves cheaply by loading up on that loose change. (This would be my new nickname for the free- and .99 ebooks that are just everywhere and also essentially useless.)
Same thing with classics. They’re great at stocking the free versions of classic titles, omitting the better translations and foot-noted versions that actually cost something, but which would be a vastly better resource for library patrons in that they come with additional educational information above and beyond the body text.
I suppose I have even less patience with the cover issue given that I already have deep personal conflicts with the current e-book acquisitions manager. I keep trying to make my peace with the idea of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few or the one, I really am. But at the same time, I also see the library as not primarily a circulation house for popular materials but also as an archive of important materials. Sure, maybe only 10 people want the annotated version of Anna Karenina while 200 people want 50 Shades Of The Viscount’s Mistress. But I think since the whole reason I can rationalise libraries as a public expenditure in the first place is as an enlightening and educational equaliser for the populace–one that offsets class differences by bringing educational materials to the less priviledged–I’m having a real problem with this new attitude.
I feel like the cheap erotica is not meeting most of the mandates of the Library. It’s not that I want it censored because it’s “dirty books” or anything. I just would much rather see an annotated copy of _Love In The Time Of Cholera_ available for the curious mind.
Now I’m just babbling. But it’s a babble born of frustration and irritation.
We were driving home the other day down a road that has several nude bars. Of course, the signs are all neon and say “nude girls” in big letters. I never understood why there couldn’t be some kind of covert phrasing that allows people who want that sort of thing to find it without it being announced so boldly for my *young daughter* to have to read and understand as we drive by. Do men have a right to go to those places? Yes. Should I *have* to explain what they are to my young daughter because they are smack in the middle of the main highway of one of the biggest towns in our area????
My point is, the people who are looking for nude bars or erotica *will* find it. There was a day when porn was sold in a brown paper bag and the industry wasn’t exactly hurting financially. Do they really, really have to advertise? Why can’t the library “lock” those titles in an “18 and over” section. Pretty much anyone 18 or over knows what that phrase means, so they can go there if they’d like, but aren’t forced to see such images if it’s not their thing.
Yes. And Yes. And yes. I guess my main irritation is that I know full-well that a cover such as the one I mention in the piece is designed to grab attention. It’s supposed to make the book stand out in a sea of slurry. So it’s purposely in-your-face anyway.
To me that makes it more offensive. Because I feel like I’m being made to look at it when I really do not want to see it. I’d be very happy with an 18- and over specified erotic section. The back room of the video store, as it were.
The way it stands now, half of these books are classified not only as erotica but also urban fantasy, so if I’m looking for David Gemmell and Ursula K. LeGuin-type stuff, I’ve got six dozen of these rotters to stumble over along the way.
I don’t like locking books away. I also dislike slippery slope arguments, and that’s really all I’ve got in this context, but I still dislike it. I’d like to see this society be as absolutist about the First Amendment as some folks are about the Second.
But it makes me so happy to think of you searching for Ursula K. LeGuin books, even if only as an example, that I thought I’d comment anyway.
Should I *have* to explain what they are to my young daughter
I’m not trying to be rude, even though it’s unfortunately going to sound that way, but, isn’t explaining the world a fairly large part of parenting?
I understand it can be a fuzzy issue because I certainly don’t support outright obscenity being put on display for those who haven’t expressed consent to see it, but I can’t imagine we could ever sterilize the world enough to make every parent happy so I think a lot of the responsibility of “protecting the children” needs to fall on the parent.
I’m not at all shirking my responsibility for explaining things to my daughter–nor accusing you of accusing me of doing so, btw. I realize there are a lot of things I won’t like in the world, and I do work to protect my kids from them. I also think living in a bubble is the wrong way to do things too.
My point is more about it being so “in your face.” As if naked women alone aren’t enough to draw the crowd–it has to be advertised in BIG NEON LETTERS on a main road in a supposedly family-friendly area. There is another, more industrial section of town with lots of those kinds of bars. I can avoid that road altogether. But the other road–it’s right where Target and Best Buy and such are all lined up.
Fortunately, it’s not an area I visit often, but when over there I *can’t* avoid that road. That is my issue. The “we must put our perversion SMACK IN THE MIDDLE” attitude.
It’s not like the death of a pet or the serious illness of a friend. It’s not a disturbing news story. Those are things I don’t like yet know I must explain to my kids. This, however, is drunk guys paying girls to dance naked. No, I should not have to explain that to my young daughter because that business could be elsewhere and do just as well financially–which is their goal. Instead, they insist on being obnoxiously visible.
And my other suggestion was that if they MUST be THERE, then call it a “gentleman’s club” like they used to do years ago. Not “NUDE GIRLS” on a GIANT sign and/or a big neon silhouette of girl with massive hooters. That’s all I ask–for them to not be obnoxious about it.