Should libraries have this kind of stuff?

[Elizabeth I]

I work for a public library. Today while I was putting together some information to take to a meeting, I ran across a folder that our reference staff put together about "alternative medicine resources." I offered the opinion that as a library we shouldn't be promoting that kind of stuff, and one of the reference librarians said, "Why not? It's one of our resources." (Which it is.)

However, that's exactly my point. Does a public library have an obligation to provide only authoritative, accurate information? Given that most people trust the library to have authoritative, accurate information, should we even make "alternative medicine" resources available?

I realize that libraries also carry materials about elves, Ents, witches, and Sherlock Holmes, but those are clearly marked "fiction." (Although I once knew someone who insisted that Sherlock Holmes was a historical figure.) But should we let people think information is accurate when the odds are that it isn't?

 

[fuelair]

I work for a public library. Today while I was putting together some information to take to a meeting, I ran across a folder that our reference staff put together about "alternative medicine resources." I offered the opinion that as a library we shouldn't be promoting that kind of stuff, and one of the reference librarians said, "Why not? It's one of our resources." (Which it is.)

However, that's exactly my point. Does a public library have an obligation to provide only authoritative, accurate information? Given that most people trust the library to have authoritative, accurate information, should we even make "alternative medicine" resources available?

I realize that libraries also carry materials about elves, Ents, witches, and Sherlock Holmes, but those are clearly marked "fiction." (Although I once knew someone who insisted that Sherlock Holmes was a historical figure.) But should let people think information is accurate when the odds are that it isn't?

Library Lady will likely pop in to write on this, but,as I also have my MLS I'll stab it first. Libraries are data storage and retrieval sources. That is, they gather material and arrange it in ways that, hopefully, improve it's accessability to the consumer of media. Libraries generally have policies that preclude what you are speaking of (the technical term is labeling and we are taught in LS courses that that is a Bad Thing) because that is not the library's function - and if it is, there need to be a lot more non-librarians there for advising what materials should and what should not be provided for our customers. And, cataloging should be accurate within the possibilities of the system being used (A book about the Loch Ness Monster goes into the same classification whether it supports the monster, is neutral about the monster, or believes the monster is a complete fraud, etc.). A good librarian/media specialist will follow that policy and offer other information (direct customer to , shall we say, better choices of material on the subject - after all, the collection is supposed to be balanced but there is no reason not to offer assistance when asked.) You might ask your Selection & Acquisition department about this!!

 

[Mojo]

I work for a public library. Today while I was putting together some information to take to a meeting, I ran across a folder that our reference staff put together about "alternative medicine resources." I offered the opinion that as a library we shouldn't be promoting that kind of stuff, and one of the reference librarians said, "Why not? It's one of our resources." (Which it is.)

However, that's exactly my point. Does a public library have an obligation to provide only authoritative, accurate information? Given that most people trust the library to have authoritative, accurate information, should we even make "alternative medicine" resources available?

What sort of sources are included? Does it include critical sources, or just pro-alternative medicine stuff?

 

[bjornart]

Have them available, yes. Promote them, no. (I'd argue for my opinion, but it's self evident and/or I'm lazy.)

 

[LibraryLady]

Oddly enough, I and a couple of other librarians where I work were just having this discussion. Actually, we were joking that we could have a display titled, "Don't Believe Anything in These Books!" with Kevin Trudeau, Deepak Chopra, Sylvia Browne, etc. Then we all got back to reality. The truth is that we are conduits of information and cannot try to influence the patrons to believe one thing or another. That is a Bad Thing indeed. Also known as censorship.

If someone approaches me and asks for books about S.B., and about half her books are in my department, I look them up and hand them over. If someone approaches me and asks a general question about life after death, I show them books with varied opinions. If I'm asked if I can recommend something, I point out the ones I've read and felt were well reviewed, well written and held solid arguments.

I can't impose my beliefs and knowledge on others, as tempting as it might be. I can read a hell of a lot and do decent readers' advisory.

For what it's worth.

 

[biomorph]

hi Elizabeth,

The problem is that a library, much like a book shop, provides the labels for the catagories it itself uses. And the user expects the library to be accurate in this matter, so they can trust it enough to conduct an easier search.

So the library does have a duty to do this properly and without bias.

Possibly a section labeled "medical - old wives tales and unproven practices" or similar needs inserting in the medical section.
Along with leach's and other practices now known to be unworkable.

I wouldn't file it under fiction, as the original intent of the book is to portray fact, and was not written as fiction. You can put it in the "considered untrue" section of the factual section of the medical though.

I don't think i could live with it as an Alternative Medical section, because that implies that the library considers it to be an alternative. It isn't if it is unproven. The library being a public facility has to be seen to be unbiased.

Considering such material to be labeled "alternative" does display a bias, if the practice is not an alternative because it can't be proven currently to work under medical conditions and actually do something.

I'd have a placebo section in there to somewhere, probably for homeopathy. Also Ideomotor Effect for the dowsing books.

Critical matter of such a subject also ought to reside in the same section.
However I can see some bias in the labels I've made up myself. so somehow to just be neutral is the aim.
regards

 

[Miss Whiplash]

Thank you Library Lady! My thoughts exactly - this is censorship. The role of a library is provide a collection of literary and artistic materials to the public, not to promote some material and withhold others. Though we conclude alternative medicine is woo, we can't censor these books or put stickers on the covers to alert readers. If we did, we would be just as guilty of bias as the Christian right-wingnuts who attempt to censor evolutionary theory in biology books.

 

[Denver]

I'd agree that a library should be a provider of resources, rather than a promoter. But the issue really comes down to how the library decides to label or categorize something, as that could be seen as promoting and becoming non-neutral.

I'd want things to be labeled for the easiest way to find them. I would expect homeopathy, acupuncture, etc, to be found under alternate medicine. And I think a library that labels them as such is not promoting them as a valid substitute for medicine, but rather just following already established and accepted norms for classification. Accepted norms for classification I don't think means the same as accepted norms for medical science.

 

[bokonon]

If someone approaches me and asks for books about S.B., and about half her books are in my department, I look them up and hand them over. [...]

I can't impose my beliefs and knowledge on others, as tempting as it might be. I can read a hell of a lot and do decent readers' advisory.

I recently checked some John Edward and Sylvia Browne out of the local library, for research into possible parodies I'm considering. I sure wasn't interested in buying copies, and I was glad they were there.

I'd say that in addition to being unable to impose your beliefs on others, you don't necessarily know why someone has an interest in a particular book. The library in question has 5 or 10 books on evolution for every one book by Sylvia, John, or Nostradamus. I don't think they're doing a disservice to the public.

 

[Brown]

I agree with what's been said. The library should have the books. The library's concern is classification. A book that is fringe or outright hokum should not be classified as science. Call it "spiritual," call it "alternative views," call it "paranormal," but DON'T call it "science" or "medicine."

A few years ago, I had this crazy idea that I would see whether my local library had a copy of "Dianetics." Basically, I wanted to see what the fuss was about, and whether there might be anything to it.

"Dianetics" is total horse crap. If you like reading double-talk and pretentious stream-of-consciousness pronouncements passed off as something representative of genuine psychology, then maybe the book is for you, Mr. Cruise. But if you don't care much for horse crap, and if you have the small measure of sense to recognize it for what it is, then the book is not worth serious study.

Well, the library did have a copy of "Dianetics." In fact, the library had a dozen copies on the shelves. Maybe people bought the book, then decided to donate it to the library. Maybe cultists simply flooded the library with donations. I don't know, but my guess is the former. Many people, when they buy a book and find out that it is crammed full of intellectual excrement, can't bring themselves to throw the book away. Throwing a book away is too much like book burning, which they see as a moral crime regargless of the book. So instead of discarding or destroying the book, they donate it.

All of which is fine... but what I don't understand is why the library had so many copies. One--or at most two--would suffice. If that meant that ten extra copies would get tossed into the trash, then so be it.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Thanks everybody. You've said everything I also think, but, boy, I go back and forth.

Like the whole "Internet filtering" thing. My library doesn't filter Internet access, and (for those of you who don't know) most libraries no longer limit children's access to the adult section of the library (as a former kid who had to check out a lot of stuff I wanted to read on my mother's card, I appreciate that.) The reason given, among others, is that libraries can't limit access to materials.

BUT, as a function of collection development policies, libraries routinely limit access to materials. No library can afford to buy, nor do they have the room to house, everything in the world. That means the collection development librarians exercise discretion as to what to buy. They use lots of resources to research their decisions, but they do make decisions. Some items are purchased and some are not. For example - and this is an argument often used by filtering proponents - very few libraries subscribe to Hustler. Yet many, if not most, libraries allow patrons to access stuff online that's way more hard-core.

This is not a matter of my personal feelings about porn or obscenity (though I have some pretty strong ones about child porn and the objectification of women.) It's more about what I see as a contradiction in the way librarians talk about this. We "don't limit," but we do limit when we make selections of what to buy. I have asked lots of librarians about this and never gotten what I considered a satisfactory answer.

(Can I just say that, on rereading this, it looks like one of those sandbag threads that pop up all the time on the Conspiracy subforum, where people are at first "just asking questions," then it turns out they actually have an agenda, usually a pretty weird one? I didn't really mean this to turn out this way - one question just kind of led to another, and in a way I think they are related.)

 

[jimbob]

At university, I used to be in charge of the college library, I filed Whitley Streiber's "Communion" under humour...

 

[calebprime]

Thanks everybody. You've said everything I also think, but, boy, I go back and forth.

...

(Can I just say that, on rereading this, it looks like one of those sandbag threads that pop up all the time on the Conspiracy subforum, where people are at first "just asking questions," then it turns out they actually have an agenda, usually a pretty weird one? I didn't really mean this to turn out this way - one question just kind of led to another, and in a way I think they are related.)

Conspiracy theorists don't worry too much about how they sound. So, don't worry.

 

[Elizabeth I]

At university, I used to be in charge of the college library, I filed Whitley Streiber's "Communion" under humour...

Baaaad librarian.

And don't you go picking on Whitley. He's one of our own hometown authors. Fortunately, we have others. Jacques Barzun and Rick Riordan, to name just two. Also Janette Sebring Lowrey.

 

[Rat]

The situation where my girlfriend works is more complicated. She works in the library at a college, so the same rules as a public library aren't applicable. I give her a lift home on Tuesdays, and as I usually arrive early, I browse the shelves as I wait. Of course, the books are geared to the courses offered at the campus. At the campus in question, they have sports students, beautician and hair students, catering, construction, and some others that I can't remember.

The shelves are of course divided by category, but there is complementary therapy amongst the health and beauty sections. Not just of the wishy-washy new age type, but all the homeopathy, crystals, and everything similar that you can think of. The college is of course funded by local authority. My girlfriend finds my objection to be a mix of annoying and quaint (she's not woo in the slightest, but she hates all of you a lot more), so she would never raise an objection.

Should this be in the library of a college, which has none of the duties of a public library? The public library should make all available, but the college library surely has a duty to education? I have no reason to believe that the tutors in whatever courses these books relate to warn their students of the relevant pitfalls.

 

[JJM]

Librarians, like journalists, labor under the misconception that anything that is not blatantly wrong (to them) is an opinion worthy of consideration; and they are just conduits. The world is not flat; nobody who believes otherwise is going to be hurt by walking off the edge. It takes a lot more study to recognize quackery; but that does not mean that quack ideas are more respectable than the flat Earth notion. Quackery is at best harmless (aside from the cost); whereas, quacks working to their standard of care, can be seriously (and, predictably) harmful. Acknowledging that is a fact, not an "opinion" or a "bias."

If librarians are going to provide reliable information, they need to consult people who can separate the wheat from the chaff among the sources available.

What is "reliable" information on so-called alternative medicine (sCAM)? There are two answers to that. First, there are the ideas of adherents. However, every individual practitioner of sCAM is free to adopt whatever ideas s/he wants, so no book can be said to be definitive. Second, there are the facts; which can be (and often are) conclusive. If someone wants to investigate the notions of a topic in general, the first sort of books can be useful. If someone wants to investigate a treatment for an existing condition, the latter are more informative and less likely to lead to tragedy.

It is within the bounds of an interview to determine which type of information a patron wants.

I admit that reliable health information concerning sCAM is hard to find. The Health Robbers (Barrett and Jarvis, eds., Prometheus, 1993) should be in every reference department. Also, www.quackwatch.org is the single, best Online reference.

Reviews of sCAM books, in library lit., are usually poor. For example, a book on herbal medicine by Penelope Ody was recommended for all libraries in The Library Journal; at quackwatch, search for Varro Tyler (the late, esteemed professor of pharmacognosy), he calls the book hazardous. Similarly, an encyclopedia of alternative healing was extolled (in LJ) for "not making exaggerated claims." The entry on acupuncture said it is "a complete system of diagnosis and treatment." That is an exaggerated (read, factually incorrect) claim.

Finally, the same reviewer found Kurt Butler's Consumer's Handbook for "Alternative Medicine" (Prometheus, 1992) "biased." Butler's book is totally factual, and sCAM fares poorly in the face of facts; that is not a bias.

Librarians need to own up to the fact that supporting the notions of quacks (despite claiming agnosticism) hurt people who are ill, and develop another model for providing information.

 

[DrDisco]

I realize that libraries also carry materials about elves, Ents, witches, and Sherlock Holmes, but those are clearly marked "fiction."

And where is the Bible, with plenty of "alternative medicince" recommendations, located?

I agree with you. If I had my way, the entire religion section would be moved to fiction.

 

[JJM]

And where is the Bible, with plenty of "alternative medicince" recommendations, located? {snip}

Perhaps you will be satisfied to know the Library Congress designation for the bible is BS.

 

[LibraryLady]

Maybe you'd like to read a library selection policy. Warning: 1.72 megs.

 

[six7s]

I can't impose my beliefs and knowledge on others

It's true

But, as you point out, you can share them

I can read a hell of a lot and do decent readers' advisory

Like a zillion or so others, I appreciate that librarians (and staff in good bookshops) do just that, and so look to them for advice

For what it's worth.

Lots

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1 Q: Since the advent of database-driven search tools, is it no longer quite as important where a book is stored?