Prompt Response Week 14

If I was part of Collection Development, I would not make special sections for any part of the collection. Reason one is if you single out one area, then people may wonder why this or that section is not separated as well. The second reason is that having all the books together promotes discovery of titles or topics they may not have ever considered before. The final reason is because as librarians, we should not treat certain topics as lesser to another topic. We promote the community reading whatever they want.

At my library we have online lists of titles that belong to a certain topic or genre, which we will reference to or print out for patrons who want these specific books. The list is more of a place to get started instead of a list that is thorough and has all the books in our collection that relate to that specific topic.

Regarding the two articles, I won’t lie; I was a bit angered reading through them. The people who wrote the petitions are trying to make themselves look like good people who don’t discriminate, but they are trying to literally label and segregate books because they don’t agree with the topic. There were some lines from the articles that really made me cringe: 

“The petition, which received more than 340 signatures, also asked the library to seek public input before acquiring new materials on LGBTQ topics” (Associated Press).

They want to single out this one topic in order to ban future copies. It’s sickening. The public library houses materials that discuss several backgrounds, faiths, ethnicities, etc. We cannot treat one single topic so negatively. 

"I think that's what most of the people of this town who have multiple kids say, we want to be able to take them to the library, and have them go through stuff, and have them know, 'oh hidden in here is an agenda that is popular, but we as conservative Christians say no, we're not going along with that'," adds Korver.” (Lenzini).

Or, we could keep the books by authors and you just tell your child to not read that author. I have had parents tell me a certain book has bad content in it. If they don’t want their children reading stuff, then they should just be more aware of what they (the children) check out. Don’t single out and make people who want to read that feel like outsiders. They are also making actual LGBTQ people look like outsiders. Would they like it if religious materials were segregated and people in the city were made aware before more copies were ordered? I just don't like it when people force their beliefs on others, and to me this is what all these people are trying to do.

As librarians we should not censor books or treat certain topics as outsiders. People should read what they want. If parents want to control what their kids read, then that is their choice. But we cannot and will not do that.

Works Cited

Associated Press. “Orange City Library to Change How Materials Are Grouped after Complaints on LGBTQ Content.” Des Moines Register, The Des Moines Register, 21 Mar. 2018, www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/03/21/library-change-lgbtq-content-grouping-change-orange-city-iowa/445970002/.


Lenzini, Jennifer. “Orange City, IA Public Library to Test Trial-Run of Separately Labeling Books with LGBTQ Themes.” HOME - KTIV News 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and Sports, 20 Mar. 2018, www.ktiv.com/story/37771686/2018/03/Tuesday/orange-city-ia-public-library-to-separately-label-books-with-lgbtq-themes.