All quotation marks retained as data.
All end-of-line hyphens have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
All smart quotes have been converted into straight quotes.
[This text is machine generated and may contain errors.]
North Carolina Libraries
Summer 1995
Sex and the Library
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| Since 1973
SIRS Researcher, SIRS Government Reporter and SIRS Discoverer are trademarks of SIRS, Inc.
Mandarin is a trademark of Melchior Management Systems. Novell is a trademark of Novell, Inc.
Volume 77, Number 2
ISSN 0029-2740
ROLINA
51
56
59
65
68
74
50
78
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80
od,
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Libraries
Summer 1999
SEX AND THE LIBRARY
Guest Editor, Pauletta Brown Bracy
Confirmed by the Research: There IS Sex in the Library!, Pauletta Brown Bracy
alt.sex: Detour Off the Information Highway, Frances Bryant Bradburn
Sex in Public (Libraries): An Historic Sampler of What Every Librarian
Should Know, James V. Carmichael, Jr.
Mission Position: Censorship in the Corporate Library, Justin Scroggs
and Teresa Leonard |
Hard Cases: Some Issues Concerning the First Amendment's Protection of Free
Speech and Free Press, Susan Steinfirst
Subtle Censors: Collection Development in Academic Libraries, Mae Rodney
POP AP URS RSS iaacoepiayeema asco mE A
From the President
About the Authors
Point: Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty, Bill Roberts
Counter Point: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Harry Tuchmayer
Wired to the World, Ralph Lee Scott
About the Authors
North Carolina Books
Lagniappe: Out of the Closet, But Not on the Shelves: North Carolina Gay and
Lesbian Newspapers, Thomas Kevin B. Cherry, Plummer Alston Jones, Jr.,
and Rodney E. Lippard
88 NCLA Minutes
Advertisers: Baker & Taylor, 64;
Broadfoot's, 81; Checkpoint, 73; : .
Current Editions, 55; Cover: Cover photo by Rose Simon, Salem College, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Mumford Books, 71; Phibig, 63;
NCL thanks her co-workers, Susan Taylor and Terrence Collins, for serving as models.
Quality Books, 67; North Carolina Libraries is electronically produced. Art direction and design by Pat Weathersbee of TeamMedia,
SIRS, front cover; UNC Press, back cover.
Fee SS a a
Greenville, NC.
From the President
Gwen Jackson, President
30 " Summer 1999
During the 1993-95 biennium, a recurring theme of this column has been oCelebrate
Libraries and Celebrate Life.� With this issue, we are celebrating another occasion.
North Carolina Libraries has been awarded the 1995 H. W. Wilson Award!
The H.W. Wilson Library Periodical Award is opresented to a periodical published
by a local, state, or regional library, library group, or library association in the United
States or Canada which has made an outstanding contribution to librarianship. All
issues for the calendar year prior to the presentation of the award will be judged on the
basis of sustained excellence in both content and format, with consideration being given
to both purpose and budget. The award is presented only in those years when a periodi-
cal merits such recognition.�
The citation of the announcement of this award made by Arthur Curley, ALA
President, and Elizabeth Martinez, ALA Executive director, states: oNorth Carolina
Libraries, the official publication of the North Carolina Library Association, meets and
exceeds the criteria outlined by the H.W. Wilson Library Periodical Award; sustained
excellence in content and format, with consideration to both purpose and budget.
oUsing thematic quarterly issues that present a balanced treatment of the chosen
theme, North Carolina Libraries strives to publish individual articles that are of
interest to the stateTs libraries and to library services in North Carolina. Each issue
contains a variety of articles. Continuing columns create a journal identity for the
reader. Book reviews and reports of the business and meetings of the associationTs
membership are of interest to all librarians throughout the state.
oUnder the leadership of a volunteer editor, North Carolina Libraries consistently
meets the needs of its readers with attractive covers, high quality graphics and typeset-
ting, and appealing articles. All of these elements contribute to an outstanding publica-
tion. The editor and the North Carolina Library Association should be justly proud of
this excellent journal.�
Please join me in congratulating Frances Bradburn, Editor and the
North Carolina Libraries Editorial Staff "
Rose Simon, John Welch, Dorothy Davis Hodder, Al Jones, Michael Cotter,
Harry Tuchmayer, Artemis Kares, Barbara Miller Marson,
Michael Van Fossen, Joline Ezzell, Rhonda Holbrook, Diane Kessler,
Jeffrey Cannell, Suzanne Wise, Frank Molinek, Jean Williams, Megan Mulder,
Joan Sherif, Ralph Scott, and Anne Wilgus.
This group of volunteers spends many hours preparing every issue of our journal "
from the glimmer of an idea to the finished product we hold in our hands. Thank you
for sharing your time and talents! The North Carolina Library Association is most
fortunate to have the national recognition that our journal has brought.
Through the efforts of editorial staffs, the history of the Association and changes in
our profession have been preserved. I have recently spent time looking through the past
twenty-four years of the journal " since I became a member in 1971. The articles,
features, and Association minutes provided a trip down memory lane, reminding me of
the ohot topics� of the past decades and reminiscences of friends and occasions. Have
you taken such a trip?
Whether your otrip� be one of reminiscences or actually getting away from the
usual routines of work, travel safely and with Godspeed. Above all, celebrate life
and libraries!
North Carolina Libraries
Confirmed by the Research:
There |S Sex in the Library!
ensorship thrives in the
boundless realm of public
opinion. Unconfined by pa-
rameters, it pervades any aspect
of American life. Dichotomies
of what is right or wrong, good
or bad, virtuous or decadent pose
little problem for those who stead-
fastly hold to their positions in defend-
ing intellectual freedom or practicing
censorship. Ultimately, both groups of
citizens consider themselves acting in
the best interest of the common good "
to either protect constitutional rights by
ensuring access to information in varied
format or to preserve the morality of the
nation by eliminating and suppressing
expressions of thought.
Research has documented the tre-
mendous impact of this ongoing battle,
and this article provides an overview of
censorship in the state of North Caro-
lina. At best, the research is minimal.
Though many would attest that censor-
ship does happen, for it is an all too
familiar news report, the dearth of re-
search on the topic suggests that it often
is not documented. Existing findings
and conclusions, however, serve to re-
mind us of two important phenomena:
(1) that intellectual freedom and censor-
ship continue to be critical issues for
other professions, and (2) that the inci-
dence of censorship is on the rise and it
is becoming increasingly successful.
Revelations and Realities:
A Study of the Literature
Two studies outside librarianship focused
on journalism in high schools, and also
the arts. Kathleen Douglass Phillips ex-
North Carolina Libraries
by Pauletta Brown Bracy
amined freedom of press in North Caro-
lina high schools. In a survey of state-
wide journalism teachers/newspaper
advisors and case studies at three high
schools, she confirmed that North Caro-
lina high school journalists experience
prior review, prior restraint, and censor-
ship as basic tenets of their journalism
education.!
A crisis in the arts labeled oculture
wat� led People For the American Way,
a 300,000 member watchdog group that
gauges censorship activity and regularly
publishes findings of surveys, to begin
monitoring challenges to artistic expres-
sion. Artistic Freedom Under Attack, Vol.
3 contains analyses of 104 nationwide
cases that occurred in 1994 and were
documented through a survey, arts pub-
lications, and press coverage.� The preva-
lence in thirty-three states reflected an
alarming successful censorship rate of
seventy-eight percent. Sexuality or per-
ceived sexual content in
art headed the list as the
basis for objection.? Of
the three North Carolina
case studies, two occurred
in Durham and involved
of photography and per-
formance; the third inci-
dent, in Hudson, in-
volved theater.
The nature of our
profession in handling all
kinds of information
mandates the special at-
tention that we pay to
censorship. We have
embraced allies in the
classrooms of both pub-
lic and private educational institutions
that have found themselves victimized
by the work of the censors. In an article
prepared for Tar Heel Libraries last year,
Gene Lanier, Chairman of the North
Carolina Library Association Intellectual
Freedom Committee, confirmed that
challenges to library and classroom ma-
terials continue to rise in the state.* Re-
porting a total of fifty-two titles, he cited
seven different locations of attacks. The
greatest number of twenty-nine occurred
in Charlotte. Chapel Hill followed with
about half as many as the top-ranked
Charlotte; and Asheboro, Canton,
Durham, Goldsboro, and Elizabethtown
had three or fewer complaints.
Employing mail survey and inter-
view methodologies, People For the
American Way in North Carolina® sought
to determine the scope of censorious
activity among North Carolina English
and Social Studies teachers. Two hun-
In a disturbing thirty-two percent
success rate, censors removed or
restricted the challenged materials.
Geographically, teachers in fifty-
one of the seventy-four counties
[in North Carolina] reported cases;
the greatest activity occurred in
Wake and Guilford counties.
Summer 19995 " 71
dred and fifty-three teachers represent-
ing seventy-four counties responded to
the survey conducted during the 1988-
1989 school year. Selected follow-up in-
terviews were conducted with thirty-six
teachers from twenty-seven counties.
Data led the researchers to conclude
in the report, School Censorship in North
Carolina: Conflict in the Classroom, that
censorship is a serious threat to North
Carolina schools because more than
twenty-five percent of the teachers sur-
veyed indicated that they had faced chal-
lenges, and an additional ten percent
who had not faced challenges knew of
colleagues who had faced them.® Topics
of realistic and contemporary perspec-
tive including sex, religion, politics, and
death were those most challenged. Ina
disturbing thirty-two percent success
rate, censors removed or restricted the
challenged materials. Geographically,
teachers in fifty-one of the seventy-four
counties [in North Carolina] reported
cases; the greatest activity occurred in
Wake and Guilford counties. A final
conclusion consistent with most at-
tempts to measure the scope of the prob-
lem is the practice of self-censorship or
voluntary censorship. In this research,
a number of teachers admitted that per-
ceived pressure from school adminis-
trators and the community make them
self-censor their teaching.T
Published in November 1990,
People For the American Way in
North CarolinaTs Censorship and Sex-
Education: A Survey of North Carolina
Health Educators substantiated cen-
sorship and/or self-censorship as
major concerns among 111 North
Carolina health educators and health
coordinators.® Birth control was re-
ported as the most challenged sub-
ject matter among the health educa-
tors. Fifty percent of the respondent
health coordinators reported that
they had been challenged by a par-
ent or told by a school official that a
particular subject matter was inap-
propriate for the classroom. Results
also revealed that although challenges
sometimes result in censorship of exist-
ing curricula, more often the result is
self-censorship of potential subjects by
the educators themselves.?
Considering another aspect of the
problems in the classroom, Mary Ann
Weathers concentrated on the role of
organizations that challenge curriculum
materials and instructional strategies. Her
doctoral dissertation, oAn Investigation
of the Impact of Special Interest Groups
on Curriculum and Instruction in North
Carolina 1983-1988,� focused on K-12
52 " Summer 1999
North Carolina public schools during
1983-1988.!9 Documenting the in-
creased numbers of challenges, the tar-
gets of the challenges, and the predict-
able sources of the challenges, Weathers
also described the impact of the main
groups initiating the challenges " the
Eagle Forum, the Conservative Evangeli-
cal Right, and the Ku Klux Klan. A final
analysis considered the threat that perti-
nent beliefs of those groups pose to pub-
lic education.
Since its founding in 1983, People
For the American Way has conducted
national annual surveys of censorship.
Typically, data are collected through mail
surveys and individual interviews with
parents, librarians, teachers, and school
administrators. The reports contain sum-
maries of the findings, identification of
trends, and case studies of statewide in-
cidents. Statistics confirming the preva-
lence of censorship reflect only those
cases reported and investigated. People
For the American Way stresses that its
reports offer only a brief synopsis of the
problem because the clear majority of
censorial activity is unreported.
Last yearTs report, Attacks on the Free-
domto Learn, 1992-1993, ascertained that
attacks continue to rise and challenges
were successful in 41 percent of the
cases.!1 Nearly half of all reported chal-
lenges were to library books and the
... although challenges
sometimes result in
censorship of existing
curricula, more often the
result is self-censorship of
potential subjects by the
educators themselves.
most frequent rationale was for religious
reasons. The second most cited com-
plaint was sexual content. In the state-
by-state analysis, North Carolina ranked
16th, tied with three other states.
Much remained the same the fol-
lowing year except for the startling
revelation of North CarolinaTs ranking.
In the most current report, Attacks on
the Freedom to Learn, 1993-1994, the
state [North Carolina] ranked fourth
nationally and experienced twice as
many challenges as the previous year. A
total of twenty-one incidents was con-
firmed.!2 Similarly on the national
scene, censorship continued to rise, to
the highest in the twelve year history of
the report, with a success rate compa-
rable to that of the previous year. The
most frequent complaint lodged against
materials, at a level of 31 percent, was
that the treatment of sexuality was found
to be offensive.!%
Seeking public opinion regarding
censorship, Ray L. Carpenter conducted
a survey in Spring 1987 to determine the
views of 497 North Carolinian adults
about whether the local public libraries
should remove books critical of church
and religion from shelves.!4 Seventy
percent of those surveyed concurred that
the library should not remove the books.
To further explore attitudes and ex-
amine differences between those who
defend intellectual freedom and those
who support censorship, respondents
expressed opinions on civil liberty is-
sues, sex, drugs, and alcohol. Regarding
matters of sex, data revealed that library
defenders are better informed than the
censors about the state obscenity law,
are more permissive about adult use of
pornography, and are stronger support-
ers of freedom of speech and press where
pornography is concerned.!5
Both those who support intellectual
freedom and those who support censor-
ship strongly supported public school
education about sex and AIDS, but con-
siderably disagreed about the distribu-
tion of contraceptive information and
products. Depicting sexual activity not
identified in the context of oeducation�
was viewed as obscene by large numbers
in both groups, especially depictions of
homosexual activity. About 25 percent
of all respondents had seen an X-rated
movie and approximately 30 percent
had read a pornographic magazine.'¢
The emergent profile of those who
defend intellectual freedom is of oa
middle class, well educated, and gener-
ally tolerant majority�.!7
Update of the Thorson Study
In 1986, Barbara A. Thorson reviewed
volumes of the American Library Asso-
ciation Office of Intellectual FreedomTs
Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom to
present a brief overview of censorship
from 1981 to 1986 in North Carolina.!8
Based on reported incidents in the News-
letter, she provided statistical data on
annual frequency, locations, complain-
ants, reasons, affected institutions, and
outcomes. In an effort to render a more
current perspective, issues of the News-
letter dated January 1985 through March
1995 were studied, replicating ThorsonTs
North Carolina Libraries
categories of data.
The total number of cases reported
during the time frame was forty-eight.
The years of greatest activity were 1987
and 1994. (See Table I) A factor in the
1987 statistics could be the enactment of
the stateTs pornography law which went
into effect October 1, 1985. Under this
version of the statue, oitems are obscene
if they violate local community stan-
dards as determined by a jury, and dis-
seminating obscenity is punishable by
up to three years in prison.�!? Following
subsequent lawsuits by eighty video deal-
ers, the North Carolina Supreme Court
ruled in July 1987 that the law was con-
stitutional. It also was noted in the news
report that the law was considered to be
one of the toughest in the country.�°
The least activity of one reported case
was in 1989. For libraries, the most active
years were 1987 and 1993; no incidents
specifically involving libraries occurred
in 1989 and 1995 to date. Compara-
tively, about half as many library cases as
cases in other settings or situations were
reported.
In Table I, oOther Setting or Situa-
tion� was established as a category to
identify the variety of censorious activi-
ties including the classroom, where re-
quired reading that was deemed objec-
tionable was often substituted with al-
ternative titles. Videos used in instruc-
tional activities were also targeted. Stu-
dent press was under attack in four inci-
dents including newspapers as well as a
literary magazine. Research previously
described in this article illustrates the
nature of this growing phenomenon.
Art exhibits constitute another cat-
egory, within oOther Setting or Situa-
tion� and included challenges made in
a non-public secondary school, an arts
center, and a university. oLibrary Ex-
hibit� was treated separately only to
distinguish it momentarily from the oLi-
brary� category that centers on materi-
als such as books, magazines, and au-
dio-visuals, and to alert librarians about
the potential for challenge in this gener-
ally uncontested area as well. (Other-
wise, it is a case of library censorship.)
The two cited cases occurred in
Durham2! and Hillsborough� and both
involved displays assem-bled for obser-
vance of gay and lesbian pride during
the month of June.
Drama produced for school and in-
terpretations facilitated in classroom ac-
tivities were criticized for sexual content
and religious reasons. Two incidents
involved local newspapers and editorial
censorship of syndicated cartoons.
Acategory called oMass Movement�
North Carolina Libraries
TABLE I.
Number of Reported Cases by Year
Other Setting/
Library Situation _Total
Year
1985*
1986
1987
1988
1989
"_
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
Nesp
TOTAL 17
Orpm-RNNH OK AK
w
AON WAWHANAN
* The Thorson study covering January and March
reported two incidents. No additional ones were
reported for the remainder of the year.
** January and March only.
was created as a descriptor within oOther
Setting or Situation� for
collective efforts to cen-
sor. In one instance, gro-
cery stores in Taylorsville
were asked to remove
five magazines that a
group considered offen-
sive oin content, anti-
family, and objection-
able to the general moral
public.� A boycott of
one store was announced
after it failed to comply.
In the other circum-
stance, the Catawba
County district attorney
sent letters to record
stores directing them to
remove and stop sales of
arecord considered to be
obscene. This action fol-
lowed his review of the
recording, prompted by a
request from a Hickory
minister.24 A similar kind
of movement was a pur-
gative fire that occurred
in Hendersonville. Led
by a minister in an anti-
rock crusade, 125 to 150
people ritually burned
album covers.�5
Clothing was the
center of controversy in
an incident in which
Durham junior high
school students were sus-
pended for displaying the
Confederate flag. Law-
suits filed by parents on
behalf of the students
TABLE Il.
Asheboro
Asheville
Burlington
Canton
Carthage
Chapel Hill
Charlotte
Concord
Durham
Eden
Fayetteville
Goldsboro
Hickory
Kinston
Lexington
New Bern
Newton
Raleigh
Taylorsville
Locations of
Censorship Attempts
Elizabethtown
Forysth County
Gaston County
Hendersonville
Hillsborough
Mount Pleasant
Rockingham County
Rutherfordton
Wake Forest
Watauga County
Wilmington
Winston-Salem
TOTAL
(*Indicates inclusion of a
library environment)
were settled and as a result, students
were allowed to wear the battle flag.�°
Finally, the involvement of a state
agency was noted. The North Carolina
Department of Environment, Health and
Natural Resources destroyed 15,000
Spanish-language anti-AIDS brochures
that graphically depicted how to use a
condom.?T Disagreement over reasons
why the brochures were destroyed fu-
eled the controversy. A spokesperson
for the agency said that the literature
had been printed without proper review
and denied that explicit content was a
factor.
Regarding location, the incidents
occurred in thirty different cities and
counties throughout the state. (See Table
II) The total number of five cases each
was reported in Charlotte and Raleigh;
Durham followed with four. The great-
est frequency of one incident occurred
in twenty locations.
In comparing this data to ThorsonTs,
parents remained the
most active complain-
ants. (See Table III) Num-
bers reflect multiple ob-
jectors in some cases. Sec-
ond ranked organized ef-
forts included such
groups as Concerned
Charlotteans, Alexander
County Citizens for De-
cency, Right to Life,
Bladen County Coalition
of Christians, and Or-
ange County Coalition
Against Pornography.
Students acted in con-
cert with parents or indi-
vidually to constitute the
third ranked category of
initiator of complaint.
In an atypical case
of inclusion as opposed
to exclusion, ata church
meeting in Raleigh, the
Reverend Jerry Falwell
charged that the State
Department of Public In-
struction would not al-
low copies of Abortion
and the Conscience of the
Nation by Ronald
Reagan to be donated
to schools because of
the DepartmentTs pro-
abortion leadership.?7° A
Gaston County Right to
Life chapter was unsuc-
cessful in its attempts to
donate the books to the
county school libraries.
Aspokesperson from the
Summer 1999 " 72
(and other places, as
well). (See Table IV)
Further defined for
purposes of this
TABLE Ill.
Complainants/Sources of Complaints
TABLE VI.
Objects of Censorship
Complainant/Source
# of
Incidents
(Including Grandparent)
Organization/Organized Effort
Minister
Citizen
Principal/Headmaster
Newspaper Editor
Superintendent
Teacher
District Attorney
State Agency
Unknown
agency explained that
the state had no author-
ity to place books in
school libraries. Simi-
larly, a Charlotte-based
support group for gay
youth complained about
a Mount Pleasant High
School production of A
Chorus Line because a
gay character had been
dropped from the
script.2? Following an
organized protest to have
the character reinstated
anda threatened lawsuit,
the production was can-
celed before it opened.
An examination of
the reasons for objections does indeed
confirm that there is sex in the library
TABLE V.
TABLE IV.
Reasons for Objections
Frequency
of Incidence
Reason
Sexuality
Religion
Language
Racism
Politics
Anti-Family Bias
Death
Literary Merit
Morality
Realism (Violence)
Values
Unknown
S| S| S| SS S| | YNOwWwWaAarn
Institutions Involved in Censorship Attempts
analysis as homo- Books
sexuality, lesbian-
ism, AIDS, birth
control, abortion,
pornography, and
rape, sex as a reason
[for censorship] ex-
ceeded all other rea-
sons combined. Re-
ligious objections
encompassed
satanism, witchcraft,
secular humanism,
and using the LordTs
name in vain. Lan-
guage problems were
mostly because of per-
ceived profanity.
In acase of oPrin-
cipal Discretion� in-
volving high school
press as well as sex
as a reason, parents
and a principal in
Durham complained
about an ad placed
in the newspaper by
a gay youth counsel-
ing group.2° In a
compromise, the ad
was relocated in an
edition of the news-
paper. Continuous
complaints by par-
ents led to total sup-
pression by the prin-
cipal. Literary merit
was the basis of concern in Rutherford
County.?! The school board voted
unanimously not to
remove Cabbage
Patch Kids " The Just
Right Family from el-
ementary school li-
brary shelves. The
citizenTs complaint
Abortion and the Conscience of the
Nation (Reagan)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
Angel Dust Blues (Strasser)
Annie on My Mind (Garden)
Cabbage Patch Kids " The Just
Right Family (Callen)
The Color Purple (Walker)
DaddyTs Roommate (Willhoite)
Eric (Lund)
Flowers for Algernon (Keyes)
' The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Heather Has Two Mommies (Newman)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
(Angelou)
I Want to Keep My Baby (Lee)
The Joy of Lesbian Sex (Comfort)
The Joy of Sex (Comfort)
Just So Stories (Kipling)
Loving Women (Falk)
The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury)
Naomi in the Middle (Klein)
Opus Pistorum (Miller)
Run, Shelley, Run (Samuels)
Magazines
Cosmopolitan
Glamour
Life
Mademoiselle
Playboy
Vogue
Audiovisual Materials
oDice Man Rules�
" Andrew Dice Clay (record)
oDeGrassi Junior High� series (video)
Unnamed Spanish-language video
on sexuality
Comics/Cartoon
oDoonesbury� (Trudeau)
oKudzu� (Malette)
Drama
Bats in the Belfry (Randazzo)
A Chorus Line (Bennett)
Frequency of
Institution Involvement
High School
Middle/Junior High School
Public Library
Elementary School
College/University
Newspaper Company
Arts Center
Community Movement (fire)
Grocery Store
Non-Profit Center
Record Store
State Agency
Table Settings (Lapine)
was that the book
used ungrammati-
cal writing.
Student Press
Falcon Cry (Durham)
Paw Print (Raleigh)
PirateTs Hook (Durham)
TABLE VII.
Disposition of Attempts at Censorship
Frequency
of Outcome
Successful (materials removed)
Unsuccessful (materials retained)
Partially Successful
Unknown
74 " Summer 1999 North Carolina Libraries
Of the institutions involved in cases,
the high school was the most targeted
environment, and was followed by the
middle school/junior high school and
public library which tied for second
place. (See Table V) The elementary
school was the next ranked setting.
Compared to ThorsonTs study, this
longer list reflects greater involvement
of various types of institutions in at-
tempts to censor.
Table VI contains data on the types
and titles of materials involved in cases.
The clear majority of books had one
complaint, but The Color Purple, The
Grapes of Wrath, DaddyTs Roommate,and
Heather Has Two Mommies had more
than one complaint. With the excep-
tion of Playboy, the magazines cited were
those referred to earlier in the ogrocery
store� case.
Resolutions of cases were catego-
rized from the perspective of the censor.
Of the reported cases, an almost equal
number were successful in that the mate-
rials were removed and unsuccessful in
that the materials were not removed.
(See Table VII) In a couple of cases in-
volving reading lists for the classroom,
the titles were removed from the lists of
required reading but retained in the
school library media center. Such was
the case in Lexington with Eric?? and in
Randolph County with four videos in
the oDeGrassi Junior High� public televi-
sion series.33 Those cases in which stu-
dents were given options to select other
titles were considered opartially success-
ful� because the titles became alterna-
tive choices instead of remaining the
originally required books to read.
ndividual researchers, People For
the American Way, and this up
date of the Thorson examination
have provided substantive evi-
dence that our profession has cause for
concern. It is incumbent upon us to
remain diligent in our efforts to promote
intellectual freedom and to be alert to
the expanding magnitude of the prob-
lem of censorship. Of equal importance
is for librarians to keep abreast of censor-
ship as it occurs under all circumstances
and not isolate ourselves within the con-
fines of library facilities and limit our
thinking within the theoretical frame-
work which undergirds the profession.
None of us as professionals and citizens
is immune.
(Reports, other publications, video-
tapes and membership information from
People For the American Way may be
obtained by writing the office at 2000 M
Street, NW, Suite 400; Washington, DC or
calling 202 467-4999.)
References
1 Kathleen Douglass Phillips, oFree to
Speak? The First Amendment and North
Carolina High School Journalism (Censor-
ship),� (Ph.D. diss., University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1991). Disserta-
tion Abstracts International vol. 52/10-A,
page 346b.
2 People For the American Way, Artis-
tic Freedom Under Attack, vol.3 (Washing-
ton, DC: People For the American Way,
19QS)\ es
3 Tbid.
4 Gene D. Lanier, Tar Heel Libraries 17
(May/June 1994): 16.
5 People For the American Way in
North Carolina which was located in Ra-
leigh closed in 1994.
6 People For the American Way in
North Carolina, School Censorship in North
Carolina: Conflict in the Classroom (Raleigh:
People For the American Way in North
Carolina, 1990), 4.
Tabi dials:
8 People For The American Way in
North Carolina, Censorship and Sex-Educa-
tion: A Survey of North Carolina Health Edu-
858 Manor Street
Lancaster, PA 17603
cators. (Raleigh: People For the American
Way in North Carolina, 1990), 6.
9 Ibid., 11.
10 Mary Ann Weathers, oAn Investiga-
tion of the Impact of Special Interest
Groups on Curriculum and Instruction in
North Carolina 1983-1988,� (Ph.D. diss.,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill , 1990). Dissertation Abstracts Interna-
tional vol. 51/10-A, page 3323.
11 People For the American Way, At-
tacks on the Freedom to Learn, 1992-1993
(Washington, DC: People For the Ameri-
can Way, 1993), 5.
12 People For the American Way, At-
tacks on the Freedom to Learn, 1993-1994
(Washington, DC: People For the Ameri-
can Way, 1994), 151.
13 Jbid., 13.
14 Ray L. Carpenter, oCensorship,
Church, and Sex,� Library Journal 113 (Oc-
tober 15, 1988).
1S Jbid., 28.
16 [bid.
17 Jbid.
18 Barbara A. Thorson, oIntellectual
Freedom? Censorship in North Carolina,
1981-1985,� North Carolina Libraries 44
(Winter 1986), 230-232.
19 Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom 35
(January 1986): 17.
20 Newsletter 36 (November 1987): 233.
21 Newsletter 35 (September 1986): 171-
1h
22 Newsletter 42 (September 1993):
144-145.
23 Newsletter 37 (September 1988): 156.
24 Newsletter 40 (November 1991): 201.
25 Newsletter 39 (November 1990): 218.
26 Newsletter 39 (March 1990): 58.
27 Newsletter 39 (May 1990): 103.
28 Newsletter 36 (January 1987): 12.
29 Newsletter 42 (July 1993): 108.
30 Newsletter 42 (January 1993): 14-15.
31 Newsletter 36 (November 1987): 239.
33 Newsletter 43 (July 1994): 115.
33 Newsletter 42 (May 1993): 73.
TO LIBRARIES
CURRENT EDITIONS, INC.
WHOLESALERS
1-800-959-1672
1-800-487-2278 (FAX)
"Support North Carolina Libraries�
North Carolina Libraries
Summer 1999 " 79
alt.sex:
Detour Off the Information Highway
by Frances Bryant Bradburn
EditorTs Note: All information for this article has been gathered from a variety of sources on the Internet. The best resource
that this author has found is gopher://chico.rice.edu:1170/11/More/Acceptable. While the resources on this list
asked that quotes not be taken directly from their documents, this article would not have been possible without this
information source.
orror stories abound: Fed-
eral agents swarm an urban
high school after a student
threatens the President
through the schoolTs e-mail
account; innocent children
stumble upon an alternative
lifestyle bulletin board while
completing a homework assignment;
parents discover bomb-making instruc-
tions downloaded from the Internet
stashed under their sonTs mattress. Sala-
cious stories, true or exaggerated, haunt
all librarians as their publics clamor for
more and more Internet access. Addition-
ally, Congress is increasing librariansT
worry quotient as it considers S. 314, the
oCommunications Decency Act of 1995,�
a bill that would oimpose fines of up to
$100,000 and jail terms of up to two
years upon those using telecommunica-
tions devices to send obscene, indecent
or harassing material over the network.�!
But the truth of the matter is that
issues such as these represent only a
minuscule problem when we look at the
overall value and potential of the
Internet. Yet in order to sustain our
patronsT access to the myriad resources
available online, to protect ourselves
and the institutions we represent, and
to gain control over the next major
censorship battleground, we librarians
must be proactive. One of the prime
76 " Summer 1999
resources at our disposal as we take this
proactive stance is the Acceptable Use
Policy (AUP). An AUP is a statement of
common understanding among Internet
service providers and the people who
use their service"a Code of Conduct, if
you will. Every institution that offers
Internet service should have an AUP in
place before allowing access to its sys-
tem. This protects not only the institu-
tion itself, but its Internet service pro-
vider as well.
Acceptable Use Policies are difficult
for librarians, however, because they are
fraught with intellectual freedom issues.
AUPs often are designed for patron sig-
nature, especially in the case of Internet
use by a minor. Additionally, real free-
dom of speech, freedom of expression,
and privacy issues usually are addressed.
The necessity of addressing institutional
requirements for system security, as well
as organizational and staff liability, is in
direct competition with an individualTs
rights to free speech, privacy, and access
to information. (ALATs Intellectual Free-
dom Committee will discuss its draft
statement, oAccess to Electronic Infor-
mation, Services, and Networks: an In-
terpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,�
at this yearTs annual meeting in Chi-
cago.) Then, too, some institutions limit
Internet access to certain groups, classes,
or even to certain hours. Equal access
issues often take a back seat to a libraryTs
financial or curricular issues.
Interestingly enough, K-12 schools
may have fewer problems crafting AUPs
than their other library counterparts
because their prime focus for Internet
use should be the curriculum. Addi-
tionally, individual schools or school
systems already have in place proce-
dures for dealing with many of the prob-
lems that surround Internet use. For
instance, most schools have Codes of
Conduct that address plagiarism, copy-
right violation, and even inappropriate
language. Indeed, a schoolTs field trip
guidelines can apply to Internet use.
After all, the Internet is one huge, vir-
tual field trip, and students are repre-
senting their school out on the Internet
as surely as if they were walking the
halls of the state capitol. Most schools
even require a parentTs or guardianTs
signature for field trip participation. In
short, a schoolTs AUP can be based upon
avariety of documents already in place"
its selection policy, its codes of conduct,
its field trip guidelines.
Public, special, and academic librar-
ies tend to craft broader, less-defined
AUPs than K-12 schools, often forego-
ing signature requirements, and spend-
ing less time on the moral and ethical
issues of Internet use. All AUPS, how-
ever, regardless of institutional affilia-
North Carolina Libraries
tion, should contain these four compo-
nents: mission statement, service pro-
vider, clientele, and disclaimer.
Mission Statement:
The mission statement, your statement
of intent, is the most important part of
an AUP. It is a libraryTs raison dTetre, the
basis for all its service and, subsequently,
the protection for both you and your
service provider. The mission state-
ment answers the questions: Why is
your library providing Internet access?
How is this resource being used? For
schools, the traditional response is to
support the schoolTs curriculum, per-
haps even a specific curriculum area
such as social studies or science. For
other libraries, it may be to supplement
and enhance reference service, or to
provide access to major academic col-
lections in areas that have no local col-
lege or university. Pithy statements such
as oTo enhance the schoolTs teaching
and learning activities� and oTo encour-
age open, scholarly communication and
research� are often part of an
institutionTs AUP.
Service Provider:
The disclaimer as to your institutionTs
gateway is a part of any AUP. Whether
your service provider is NandO, Interpath,
or ECU, this information should be
stated in your AUP. Additionally,
review your service providerTs AUP
as you are writing your own. Check
to see that your institution is in
agreement with the gatewayTs AUP.
It may be that your gateway has a
policy of monitoring and reading
all bulletin board or e-mail postings.
Your insti-tutionTs privacy disclaim-
ers cannot be in conflict with your
gatewayTs.
Clientele:
Also included within your AUP is a dec-
laration as to whom youserve. Is Internet
access only for staff reference librarians,
students and faculty at your school
alone, or the entire community? Spell
this out within your AUP.
Disclaimers:
Most institutions believe it is important
to remind their patrons that their access
cannot be used for profit or extensive
personal business. Additionally, librar-
ies usually post a disclaimer that they
cannot be responsible for loss of data,
the content of general postings, or the
down-time of the system. Some dis-
claimers even include the penalty(ies)
for misuse. All these simply serve to
North Carolina Libraries
protect both the service provider and its
gateway and, ultimately, everyoneTs use
of the system.
There are myriad other issues to ad-
dress as libraries craft AUPs. Some may
be included with the AUP itself; others
can be attached or distributed as expec-
tations or information. Whatever the
distribution decision, all these issues
should be discussed at length and deci-
sions made before Internet access, espe-
cially e-mail opportunities, is offered
your staff and patrons.
One of the basic issues of electronic
access to information, especially the e-
mail provision of many Internet ac-
counts, is privacy. All users need to
understand up front that guaranteeing
complete e-mail privacy is an impossi-
bility. Any system operator can access
e-mail and bulletin board postings on
the system. Therefore, to guarantee pri-
vacy is heresy. We can, however, pro-
vide an institutional policy that deals
with when and how we access indi-
vidual patron information if the need
should arise. Schools that insist on moni-
toring student e-mail activity as well as
institutions that use a gateway that
monitors postings should post this in-
formation in full view of their patrons.
One privacy issue that users tend to
The operative statement
for Internet/e-mail use is
oprivacy, not anonymity.�
We have an obligation to
protect our institutions
and ourselves.
overlook is that of re-posting informa-
tion. Whether as part of the AUP or
provided as attached information, pa-
trons should be reminded that re-post-
ing another personTs correspondence,
whether to you personally or to a list,
without the personTs permission, is a
violation of that personTs privacy and
may even infringe upon copyright.
Another issue is anonymity. The
operative statement for Internet/e-mail
use is oprivacy, not anonymity.� We
have an obligation to protect our insti-
tutions and ourselves. Anonymous
postings from our schools or libraries
are equivalent to anonymous letters
being sent from a local post office " not
post office box, post office. Many insti-
tutions feel that in order to protect them-
selves, they must provide their patrons
with some sort of identification whether
it be a sign-in/sign-out sheet or indi-
vidual e-mail addresses. That way, if a
problem arises (the threat to the Presi-
dent or principal, copyright infringe-
ment) they will be able to follow up on
the allegation.
Of course, this forces us to confront
the freedom of expression issue imme-
diately. Where do individual rights end
and individual responsibility " not to
mention general decency and common
sense " begin? Most AUPs offer some
type of network disclaimer that places
responsibility for opinions and their sub-
sequent airing directly on the user. Some
may offer an additional caveat along
the lines of, oWe provide an intellectual
climate of free and open discussion
within the boundaries of appropriate
school conduct.� The morals and ethics
of Internet use will be hotly debated,
especially as the federal Communica-
tions Decency Act comes closer to a
vote. All patrons deserve protection from
harassment and unsolicited contact; all
patrons ought to act decently and ethi-
cally in all their dealings, both elec-
tronic and otherwise. The bottom line,
however, is that this conduct cannot be
monitored effectively by the institu-
tion. Consequently, the education of
patrons should be discussed and, ide-
ally, provided by the institution that
offers access.
Again, schools may be the most ef-
fective vehicle for this education, yet all
providers should make an attempt to
inform their public of expected behavy-
iors when using this resource. Explain-
ing about the common courtesies of
checking and clearing e-mail regularly,
not usurping the terminal when others
are waiting, not altering electronic in-
formation, and not using anotherTs pass-
word or entering anotherTs mailbox
should be a part of any patronTs initial
access to the Internet.
Finally, as distasteful as it may be, all
AUPs or their accompanying support
materials should address the conse-
quences of AUP violation. Schools, col-
leges, and universities can refer to their
discipline procedures and/or Codes of
Conduct. Public libraries and special
libraries may simply state loss of privi-
leges as their obig stick.� Whatever the
penalty, patrons should know up front
the expectations for use of this invalu-
able resource and the consequences of
its misuse.
Reference
1 Net.News, 1, 2 (March-April 1995): 2.
Summer 1999 " 97
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction
NCDPI InfoWeb Acceptable Use Policy
The North Carolina Department of Public InstructionTs InfoWeb is designed to offer easy
access by the education community and general public to information about education
in this state.
The Goal of NCDPI InfoWeb
The goal of NCDPI InfoWeb is to promote innovation and educational excellence in
North Carolina. To achieve this, the network provides quality, equitable, and cost-effective
information resources.
Use of NCDPI InfoWeb
Successful operation of the service requires that its users regard NCDPI InfoWeb as a
shared resource, with the common purpose of advancing education in North Carolina.
The intent of the NCDPI InfoWeb Acceptable Use Policy is to ensure that all uses of
NCDPI InfoWeb are consistent with the purposes of the agency. The policy does not
attempt to detail all required behavior by its members. The following general guidelines
are offered:
. Any use of NCDPI InfoWeb for illegal purposes, or in support of illegal activities, is
prohibited.
. All use of NCDPI InfoWeb must be in support of education and research in North Carolina
and consistent with the purposes of the agency.
. Any use of NCDPI InfoWeb for commercial purposes is prohibited.
. Any use of NCDPI InfoWeb for product advertisement or political lobbying is prohibited.
. No use of NCDPI InfoWeb shall serve to disrupt the use of the network by other users.
. All communications and information accessible via NCDPI InfoWeb should be assumed to
be private property.
. All NCDPI InfoWeb conferences and bulletin boards will be moderated.
. Any NCDPI InfoWeb userTs traffic that traverses another network may be subject to that
networkTs acceptable use policy.
. From time to time, the agency will make decisions on whether specific uses of NCDPI
InfoWeb are consistent with this policy.
Last updated 1/31/95 ... dfw
QuickLinks
[Homepage] . [Outline] . [Curriculum] . [Internet]
58 " Summer 1999 North Carolina Libraries
Sex in Public (Libraries):
An Historical Sampler of
What Every Librarian Should Know
s historical and sociological
objects of study, public li-
braries present a mirror to
their host societies, not only
of those societiesT reading
tastes and information needs,
but also of their predomi-
nant social values. From a modern per-
spective, some would argue that Ameri-
can public librarianship reflects a wide
though perfect image of society like a
Hubbel telescope, indecipherable in its
constituent parts, but forming a coher-
ent whole. Others would contend that
the image is distorted through a convex
lens, so that the public library embodies
a larger spectrum of ideas than actually
exists in the immediate host society.
Conversely, there are those who per-
ceive a concave lens that condenses or
omits certain aspects of the world of
ideas that the community finds dis-
tasteful, or harmful to its interests. Pro-
fessionals in the public library field have
been extremely prolific, if
somewhat ambiguous, in ar-
ticulating a positivist phi-
losophy of collection devel-
opment that balances com-
munity needs with the prin-
ciples of intellectual freedom.
This philosophy, it would
seem, is intrinsic to Ameri-
can democratic principles, al-
though actually, each gen-
eration of public librarians
has refined it to suit chang-
ing social conditions. Per-
haps in no area is this more
North Carolina Libraries
by James V. Carmichael, Jr.
true than in the complex of ideas that
define the topic of sex and sexual mores.
Popular images of public librarians
are fraught with sex or sexlessness, per-
haps because these individuals have so
often been the gatekeepers of literature
about sex. Certainly, they have been
held accountable for the sexual content
of the literature they acquire, and the
political, economic, religious, and
philosophical content, as well. Very
often, sexual content has provided the
pretext by which much more disturbing
aspects of the work " an attitude of
rebellion, a flaunting of conventional
mores, a political philosophy that bears
disturbingly anarchic overtones " are
suppressed. Standards of decency have
provided the traditional venue of at-
tack, but it is much harder to attack
philosophical, religious, or political
ideas knowledgeably. Europeans un-
derstood the relationship between sexual
libertinage and anarchy, and seques-
Very often, sexual content has
provided the pretext by which
much more disturbing aspects of
the work ... are suppressed.
tered pornographic collections in na-
tional libraries to which only the keeper
of books had access. Is it any wonder
librarians of every type were resented?
In some American books and films,
however, the public librarian is de-
picted asa pretty, romantic figure, drift-
ing in and out of the sexual miasma of
great literature, equally adept at han-
dling steamy fiction and steamy pa-
trons with chaste and unsullied hands
(No Man of Her Own, 1932). Her sister in
academic or special libraries, on the
other hand, is thoroughly abstracted by
the constant traffic of soul-stirring ideas
(Desk Set, 1957). Ironically, in works of
the genre, the librarian ends up with her
(always her) man, whatever her con-
stituency. In other fictional works, the
public librarian is an anti-heroine
(nearly always a anti-heroine), has no
physical allure, bears a pale, repressive
countenance, silences flirtations in the
stacks, or casts a glance over the top of
her glasses that would shrivel
the sexual organs of any pa-
tron in her path. It is, there-
fore, not surprising that por-
nographers sometimes use li-
braries as the settings for their
fantasies, and sexy librarians
as the central figure in the cul-
minating orgy: comic value
derives from lambasting an
authoritarian stereotype.
In more complex fictional
works, like Frances NewmanTs
Dead Lovers Are Faithful Lovers
(1928), the heroine rebels
Summer 19995 " 99
against the ennui of her profession
and its baggage of gender roles in search
of oillicit� passion (with a married or
unmarried man). NewmanTs heroine
definitively rejects the seedy Victo-
rian gentility of oold� Atlanta for the
(unfulfilled) hope of the urban boost-
ers, which her financially well-con-
nected paramour represents. In a more
recent example, Richard PowersT The
Gold Bug Variations (1992), the librar-
ian-narrator " a veritable font of trivia
and oexpertise� " forsakes the public
libraryTs reference desk and her seedy
librarian lover for a patron who inci-
dentally introduces her to one of the
genetic de-coders of the double
helix. The abandonment of the
traditional librarian turf of dis-
connected facts and bits of in-
formation in favor of sexual pas-
sion, spiritual fulfillment, and
new appreciation of science (no
less) is unmistakably pointed.
In both NewmanTs and Pow-
ersT works, sex and librarianship
are metaphors for a larger com-
plex of social values.
One usually has to resort to
fiction to find that public librar-
ians have any sexual life at all,
for biographical accounts of li-
brarians reveal very little of li-
brariansT personal lives. Sydney
Pierce has lamented the lack of odead
Germans� in the profession! " figures
of the stature of Nietzsche and Freud
whose influence is universal, and whose
eminence could only be enhanced by
revelations of eccentricities, including
sexual peccadillos. Part of the
ahistoricity of librarianship may re-
side in librariansT perpetual low self-
esteem, even in face of research that
indicates that their modern public im-
age is benign. Moreover, public librar-
ians preserve the records of mankind
even while they destroy their own pa-
pers, thus robbing future professionals
of their biographical heritage, owarts
and all.� In conducting biographical
research on a deceased public librarian,
itis not unusual to find a scattered paper
trail of committee appointments, clip-
pings that document professional
achievements, a cache of insipid oper-
sonal� papers, and little else to add a
vital third dimension to the dry profes-
sional portrait other than the occasional
marriage certificate, reminiscences of
children, or (rarely) the presence of a
candid surviving associate.
Many of the current generation of
emerging professionals are too young to
remember the struggles of public librar-
60 " Summer 1999
ians, publishers, and legislators as they
broadened the boundaries of permis-
sible discussion of sex. Sadly, with the
current emphasis on technology, stu-
dents have little time or initiative to
explore the subject during their profes-
sional education programs. They may
be only dimly aware of the polarization
of community values around the sub-
ject of sex, and have little historical
sense of the principles that these battles
engaged. Thus, while only thirty years
ago, literary works by Henry Miller and
William S. Burroughs had to be smuggled
into the United States in their (Paris)
Grove Press editions, they now typically
How would the early oliberal�
courts " the one that
defended Lady ChatterlyTs
Lover, for example "
react to MadonnaTs Sex, a
Mapplethorpe portfolio, or even
the novels of Danielle Steele?
collect dust as leaden curiosities on the
shelves of larger public libraries (Filmic
accounts of these authorsT struggles,
however, such as Henry and June (1992)
and Naked Lunch (1993), circulate
briskly at video stores). Given the
numbing frequency with which nearly
every class of material now is chal-
lenged by somebody, students may be
hard pressed to understand the defini-
tive (now quaint) court cases of only
several decades ago " for example,
Ralph GinzbergTs fight to publish nude
(breasts exposed) photographs of
Marilyn Monroe in the pages of the
literary journal, Evergreen Review. Con-
sider publishersT century-long hiatus
on common Anglo-Saxonisms. How
would the early oliberal� courts " the
one that defended Lady ChatterlyTs Lover,
for example " react to MadonnaTs Sex, a
Mapplethorpe portfolio, or even the
novels of Danielle Steele?
Since the nascent American library
profession was given its first push by
Melvil Dewey, the commerce of sexual
ideas has been restricted by societal mo-
res. In DeweyTs (1851-1931) heyday,
the rigid separation of public morality
and private behavior, concern over fe-
male opurity,� and the limitation of
frank"odiscussion"-of-"-sex"to-"thre
Gradgrindian explanations of medical,
legal, and scientific tomes, confined
public exploration of these issues to the
realm of metaphor and euphemism.
Reading between the lines of some of
these tomes, one can detect concerns
that continue to haunt us. Thus, a turn-
of-the-century womenTs advice manual,�
in a titillating chapter entitled, oLiber-
ties Men Take,� enumerates 1) othe
coarse liberties attempted by strangers
in public places or conveyances;� 2)
othe effort men make to lead young
women into unconventional or impru-
dent actions;� and 3) othe attempt at
love-making which men make
toward married women� " in
other words, sexual harass-
ment, unmarried sex, and ohit-
ting on.� It is worth explain-
ing that Dewey, one of the fa-
thers of the (public) olibrary
idea,� was the object of con-
troversy during his life, not
Omly. because ot- his
communitarian beliefs (in-
cluding the use of Christian
names with acquaintances
and the general loosening of
social strictures, although ap-
parently not sexual mores),
but also because of rumors of
sexual misconduct brought
forth by four female fellow-travellers
in the 1905 ALA post-conference ex-
cursion. Mary Wright Plummer of Pratt
Institute, one of the offended princi-
pals, would not sit in the same room
with him.
Whatever their personal views, pub-
lic librarians of the Gilded Age faced
their most serious challenges from com-
munity leaders who sought to limit li-
brary acquisitions to prescribed fictional
works (if the community condoned
fiction at all), and eagerly condemned
oyernicious trash� that would corrupt
youth and sully the opure� female
mind. A list of such otrash� might
T astound the modern reader. The secre-
tary of the Nebraska Library Commis-
sion, for example, was admonished by
the President of the Commission Board
for ordering Margaret W. MorleyTs
popular study of the principles of biol-
ogy, Life and Love (1895), because he
thought it was oone of those books
which must be circulated with discre-
tion and not a book which should go
into the hands of young people. We
have no way of preventing that after it
once leaves the library.� As for Char-
lotte Perkins GilmanTs Women and Eco-
nomics: a Study of the Economic Relation
North Carolina Libraries
Between Women and Men (1898), he dis-
missed it as unworthy of public pur-
chase, since surely othere must be plenty
in the WomenTs Club Library ... to cover
this point.� Innocence was defined by
age; power was circumscribed by sex.
Between 1915 and 1920, women
from every class, of whom Margaret
Sanger was only the most famous,
banded together to promote the idea
that women owned their own bodies
and therefore had a right to practice
contraception. By the 1920s, the Great
War and Prohibition had loosened Vic-
torian morals sufficiently to remove il-
licit sex from the red-light districts and
into the rumble seats of jalopies. In New
York, a flourishing gay sub-culture be-
came the object of fascination and even
tolerance, yet even in the heat of pros-
perity and oflaming youth� (as it was
called), American prudery resurfaced
with a regularity that foreign observers
found remarkable.* Particularly in the
South, Victorian moral values lingered
longer than elsewhere " for example,
in the collection policies of some public
libraries. Women had great difficulty in
liberating themselves from veneration
as oDixieTs Diadem,� and at Dayton,
Tennessee and elsewhere scientific val-
ues suffered defeat to religious rote in
the courts, while the rest of the country
howled at the side show. Indeed, at
times, the South earned H.L. MenckenTs
soubriquet, odesert of the Bozart.� From
Georgia, one young lady reported in
1921 that
At college I looked on literature
as something apart. Since I
have come home to Georgia, I
find that it is better to submit
myself to the direction of our
good Baptist clergyman, and
have no books on our library
shelves that I cannot read alone
to the young.®
Frances Newman, the Atlanta librar-
ian-author mentioned previously, an-
nounced by the title of her first novel,
The Hard Boiled Virgin (1925), that she
had flatly rejected contem-
porary middle-class southern
sexual mores. The book was
immediately banned in Bos-
ton and became a best seller.
Her former employer,
AtlantaTs librarian, Tommie
Dora Barker (1915-1930),
had some years before noted
in a personnel evaluation
letter that Newman dis-
played contempt for the
publicTs opinion, since othe
North Carolina Libraries
stupidities of the public irritate her,�
although the brilliance of her literary
knowledge was unsurpassed.° Newman
railed particularly against the subjuga-
tion of well-born belles in the round of
debutante balls, teas, and church so-
cials where they were expected to be
vanquished by socially appropriate
beaus in sometimes loveless matches,
or else be relegated to a life of dim
spinsterhood. She had even more con-
tempt for the conventions by which
unmarried women of impecunious
means were assigned miserable and col-
orless ocareers� in the limited range of
exclusively female occupations like
librarianship. Indicative of the tone of
her criticisms is her characterization of
library self-censorship in her last novel,
Dead Lovers Are Faithful Lovers.. There
Barker, thinly disguised as Miss Joma
Currier, reminds her staff that oa novel
is considered immoral if it makes vice
attractive, or if it separates an act from
its consequences� " with obvious refer-
ence to the procreative potential of the
sexual act.� It should be noted that the
real-life Barker justified such a carica-
ture to some degree, since she once fired
an employee for speaking in terms oof
unspeakable vulgarity� of her supervi-
sor, and dismissed another student from
AtlantaTs library school, then located
on the top floor of AtlantaTs Carnegie
Library, for lying about her age on her
application oby a whole year.�® With
respect to this last folly, it should be
stated that BarkerTs disapproval did not
extend to graduates of the school who
underestimated their age by more than a
year, either on application forms or in
the first edition of WhoTs Who In
Librarianship (1933), presumably be-
cause overestimation implied moral tur-
pitude in seeking premature entree to
the privileges of adulthood, whereas
underestimation represented the option
of oshedding� experience always avail-
able to a southern olady.�
Ironically, although Georgia legis-
lators were prescient in opening the
office of State Librarian to women as
... library schools had to exercise
great care in attracting omanly�
graduates, since the imputation of
effeminacy by association with a
female profession had to be avoided.
early as 1896, Georgia did not formally
ratify the Nineteenth Amendment giv-
ing women the right to vote until 1976.
The peculiar ambiguity of southern states
towards gender roles (and by implica-
tion, sexual mores) extended to men as
well. Thus, men were not admitted to
the SouthTs only accredited library school
until 1931, supposedly because as li-
brarians, they could not earn enough to
support a family, but also because of a
deeply-held belief in the oseparate
spheres� of the sexes; coeducation in
southern universities occurred in most
cases only after racial desegregation had
become inevitable. Moreover, library
schools had to exercise great care in
attracting omanly� graduates, since the
imputation of effeminacy by associa-
tion with a female profession had to be
avoided. oEffeminacy,� it should be
noted, did not necessarily carry the bur-
den of association with homosexuality
in the 1920s that it did only a few
decades later. One of the most promi-
nent southern male librarians of the
1920s and 1930s, a father of three chil-
dren and the founder of three southern
library education programs, had execu-
tive abilities that were highly ranked by
his instructors at the University of IIli-
nois even though his graduate file car-
ried a recommendation that warned his
employers of his effeminate manner and
high-pitched osoft� voice.? Even
DeweyTs oold maidish� quality had been
noted some years before, for as Ameri-
can society became more permeated with
the cult of masculinity in the late nine-
teenth century, men in intellectual or
service occupations ran the risk of being
labelled oeffeminate gownsmen� or othe
third sex.�10
The loosening of sexual mores was
stalled by the national emergencies of
the Great Depression and the Second
World War during which time, inciden-
tally, women made short-lived gains in
traditionally male occupations, but was
sent into retreat by the Cold War Era.
During the 1950s, the country reached a
oliberal consensus� on sex.!! Reproduc-
tive sex within marriage
became the legitimate ve-
hicle for greater sexual ful-
fillment for both sexes;
sexual experimentation out-
side marriage was confined
to petting, which supposedly
had marriage as its object,
and, once more, illicit sex
was relegated to the bordello
and racy literature. Sexual
odeviance� (i.e., homosexu-
ality) was uncovered and
Summer 1999 " 61
punished mercilessly even within the
public library. Thus, librarian John
Settlemayer of Atlanta cooperated with
the Atlanta Vice Squad in a sting opera-
tion on homosexuals frequenting the
menTs room of the Atlanta Public Li-
brary in 1957. To understand the tenor
of the times, it should also be men-
tioned that the LibraryTs Motion Pic-
ture Review Board regularly excised
scenes with overtones of miscegena-
tion in features like Band of Angels and
Imitation of Life.
It seems somewhat startling now to
realize that Grace MetaliousT soapy pot-
boiler Peyton Place (1956) once marked
the boundaries of the hotly-contested
terrain of the struggle between family
values and sexual license in the edito-
rial pages of American Libraries, or that
teenagers smuggled copies of Eustac
ChesserTs Love Without Fear (1957) into
their rooms because of the authorTs
frank discussion of the right of liber-
ated sexual expression within marriage.
Who now can remember the early Su-
preme Court cases concerning contro-
versial classics like Frank HarrisT My Life
and Loves or Edmund WilsonTs Memoirs
of Hectate County that, along with the
fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the
demise of segregation in the South, the
resurgence of feminism and the gay
rights movement, spelled an end to the
liberal consensus on sex?
What DTEmilio and Freedman fe-
licitously call othe commercialization
of sex and the sexualization of com-
merce� in the 1970s definitively
changed the way Americans viewed
sex, for omany Americans came to ac-
cept sexual pleasure as a legitimate,
necessary component in their lives,
unbound by older ideals of marital
fidelity and permanence,� while at the
same time, the otension in sexual lib-
eralism between the celebration of the
erotic as the peak experience in mar-
riage and the effort to contain its ex-
pression elsewhere, made sex ripe for
commercial exploitation.�!* For al-
most two decades (ca. 1960-79), an
unparalleled degree of laxity gave rise
to experimentation in sexual behavior
that would have been unthinkable only
a few years before, plus a plethora of
alternate lifestyles and living arrange-
ments, and a basic re-definition of the
limits of verbal expression. More alarm-
ing indicators also surfaced, such as
pornographic movie houses and book-
stores, a rise in venereal diseases, a
flourishing bathhouse and massage
parlor industry, and sex manuals which
glorified sexual experimentation at
62 " Summer 1999
the expense of state statutes which
criminalized some of the specific acts
these best sellers touted. Some librar-
ians might marvel at the fact that
North Carolina and South Carolina in
the 1970s led the nation in the number
of adult movie theaters, obelying the
notion that pornography was the prod-
uct of big-city decadence.�!%
Like its host culture, the public
sector of the library profession reflected
these profound social changes. The
rhetoric of social activism became part
of the editorial battery of the library
press, even if the professional credo of
librarians, expressed in such documents
as the ALA oCode of Ethics,� professed
neutrality. At this time, oneutrality�
seemed to imply openness to all comers
in selection decisions, and if anything,
erred on the side of liberality rather
than nit-picking literary distinctions.
One group of oradical� librarians sought
basic re-definition of the staid library
policies of the past through an over-
haul of patron policies, classification
systems, and subject headings which in
the new social context, now seemed
whimsical, if not regressive: oWe say
oNo way!T to Shh!.� In one sense, aca-
demic librarians led the way for public
librarians, defining the context in
which reform should occur: one Uni-
versity of Massachusetts librarian de-
nounced as intolerable the way the
library establishment disregarded un-
married citizens: oThrough its polar-
ization of what gets into 301.42 [Mar-
riage and family] and what gets left
outside in 301.415 [Sex life outside mar-
riage], Dewey reinforces Official Sexual
Orthodoxy. Baby-making sex inside
marriage is Good. All other sexual ac-
tivity is :perversion.T�!4 On the other
hand, a public librarian, Sanford
Berman, actually modelled subject-
heading reform for the profession at
large in Hennepin County, Minnesota.
Trying to keep in step, the Ameri-
can Library AssociationTs Task Force for
Gay Liberation had been formed in
1970 under the aegis of the newly-
founded Social Responsibilities Round
Table, the first such professional orga-
nization anywhere. Delegates to the
1971 ALA in Dallas were unprepared for
the spectacle that ensued as Israel
Fishman and gay activist Barbara
Gittings put up a oHug-a-Homosexual�
booth that was featured on national
television news broadcasts. The Task
ForceTs agenda was serious, however:
Gittings voluntarily compiled and up-
dated an annual gay and lesbian bibli-
ography that for years was the only list
of its kind. She did this, she said, be-
cause in growing up, she had found very
few positive images of gay people on the
library shelves. On the feminist front,
women in librarianship were challeng-
ing inequalities and discrimination in
the work place and sexism in the media.
Through organizations like the Social
Responsibilities Round Table and the
Black Caucus, a backlog of professional
and literary wrongs was righted, some
more successfully than others, adding
perhaps an uncomfortable degree of
social relevance to the rising tide in
professional debate.
Not until the 1980s, when conser-
~vative proponents learned to exploit
the national media equally as well as
their liberal counterparts, was the Right
able to mount a successful counter-at-
tack to the sexual liberation movement
and librarians who had viewed with
alarm the broadening of the public
librarianTs explicit social mission, the
decline in moral certitude, and who had
questioned the value-free literary aes-
thetic of the post-modernist age, re-
drew boundaries for the traditional olib-
eral consensus� on sex. With the elec-
tion of Ronald Reagan as President, con-
servative footing in the national debate
on sex was secured, and sex was irre-
trievably politicized.
In more than a century of struggle
to define the limits of sexual license, the
only constant has been that of youth: it
is the sexual behavior and attitudes of
youth that serve as the bottom line of
debate, and at no time more so than the
present. No longer is only the eco-
nomic future of the country threat-
ened by the cycle of teen-age pregnan-
cies, welfare mothers, drug-addicted
fathers, or the failure of society to re-
solve such controversial topics as abor-
tion, birth control, and sex education.
Now life itself is threatened by transmis-
sion of the AIDS virus through casual
sexual encounters, shared needles, and
even contaminated blood supplies.
These frustrations have fuelled a cyni-
cal backlash against the liberal values of
the late 1960s and early 1970s, not only
from the right, but also from former
proponents of liberal social values on
the left. The current shrill and strident
tone in discussions of sex and social
values permeates even the pages of the
official professional association journal.
Professional credos of open-mindedness
and neutrality notwithstanding, the
pages of American Libraries have be-
come littered with the detritus of bit-
ter partisan debate from the liberal,
conservative, and even the oneutral�
North Carolina Libraries
camp, on the general topic of social
responsibilities and professionalism,
from which the topics of sex and profes-
sional image are never too far distant.
At the 1995 meeting of the Associa-
tion of Library and Information Science
Education in Philadelphia, the Dean of
one of the largest library schools in the
country took the profession to task for
its lack of strategic vision as indi-
cated, among other things, by its
preoccupation with gender issues,
sexuality issues, and social issues
which he called oicing on the cake
of librarianship� from which the
ocake� threatens to collapse. Yet while
an increasing amount of rhetorical
attention has been paid to some of
these issues in recent years, a review
of library literature yields only a
few citations to research studies on
the attitudes of any type of librarians
towards sex, all of them now long
outdated. Moreover, even though sta-
tistical studies continue to show that
salary differentials between male and
female public library employees have
narrowed considerably in recent de-
cades, librarians continue to have
sexual problems, some of which seep
into the library. Evidence of sexual ha-
rassment continues to surface in public
libraries, just as it does in the corporate
world. Given the relatively common-
place aspect of sexual matters in the
present decade, and the penalties asso-
ciated with ignorance, public librarians
would be foolish to deny the sexual
undercurrents in their lives. A recent
multi-million dollar court award in San
Francisco in September 1994, toasexual
harassment plaintiff, Rena Weeks, sug-
gests that courts are serious in their
intent to punish the misuse of sexual
power. As these principles are extended
into a wider arena of cases, justice rather
than gender may be served, and the tide
of male backlash quelled.
During the past year, the author
and Marilyn L. Shontz of UNC-GTs De-
partment of Library and Information
Studies have conducted a national sur-
vey of Canadian and U.S. 1993 MLIS/
MLS graduates of ALA-accredited pro-
grams on the subjects of social responsi-
bilities, gay and lesbian issues, womenTs
issues, and diversity issues. Interest-
ingly, significant differences in responses
to survey items were more likely to be
determined by graduatesT self-described
social orientations (radical liberal, lib-
eral, moderate, conservative, liberal
conservative) than by their sex, their
sexual orientation, their age, their li-
brary type, the region of their school or
North Carolina Libraries
their personal acquaintance with some-
one who had died of AIDS. Over 79
percent of respondents agreed un-
equivocally that if they were in charge
of collection development in a public
library, they would have acquired
DaddyTs Roommate or Heather Has Two
Mommies if those titles represented the
best of their type available. On the other
... librarians continue to
have sexual problems,
some of which seep into
the library.
hand, qualitative comments which ac-
companied the responses made clear
that these librarians, over half of whom
were thirty-five or younger, are more
comfortable with a passive, neutral form
of sexual tolerance through such activi-
ties as collection development, than they
are in proactive programming which
incorporates sexual issues, sexual mi-
norities, or controversial sexual topics
like abortion. This means that while
most patrons may expect their varied
information needs for explicit informa-
tion on sex to be met by these new
professionals, new professionals feel that
their own personal agendas will not
meet an equal degree of tolerance. Some
graduates reported never having dis-
cussed womenTs issues, gay issues, or
even broader social issues like poverty
or world hunger in any of their library
education programs, although these are
issues central to the controversy that
informs current political debate, news
hour polemic, and the national struggle
to redefine community values.
What about the future? Obvi-
ously, neither the library and infor-
mation profession nor society as a
whole can afford to turn back wist-
fully or angrily to simpler, less so-
phisticated times. Sexually-explicit
material is a readily-available com-
modity on the Internet, in video
stores, on television, and in every
form of advertising. Public librar-
ians, whatever their personal beliefs,
must be informed about sex,
unblinkingly conversant about its
legal, biological, political, medical, re-
ligious, artistic, and (even) romantic
aspects, and aware of the ideological
polarities that mark its outer regions.
The firing of the U.S. CongressT histo-
rian because she had once stated that
children needed to know about Nazi
philosophy demonstrates how disin-
genuously political opponents pur-
posefully confuse knowledge with ad-
vocacy. Society faces a fate far worse
than omoral decline� if citizens donTt
learn everything they can about sex,
for until a cure is found for AIDS, the
hypocritical attempt to suppress sexual
information hurts the very people it is
meant to protect.
To return to the original metaphor
FOREIGN BOOKS and PERIODICALS
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Building Special Collections
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Summer 1999 " 6%
of this essay, the problem with mirrors,
even those not purposefully designed to
distort reflections, is that they are easily
obscured by grime. In a dirty mirror,
even images close at hand may seem
blurred. If public libraries are the mir-
ror of society, then public librarians,
when they emerge from the back-
ground and display some movement
in the interest of the public (the
viewer), generally receive a favorable
reception, more favorable, perhaps,
than they care to acknowledge. Public
librarians must realize, however, that
their image is reflected in the mirror as
well as that of othe public.� They are
inextricably bound to the fabric of the
host society even as they serve it.
Neutral? Probably not. Fair-minded?
Well, thatTs possible. While the library
and information profession in recent
years has more often than not wel-
comed recruits of every religious, po-
litical, social, and sexual persuasion
and professes to welcome the omarket-
place� of ideas, it behooves librarians
of every stripe to be thoroughly famil-
iar with the entire evolution of that
marketplace, including its sexual-
ization, in order to make professional
and personal decisions that truly re-
flect the best of that tradition.
References
1 Sydney J. Pierce, oDead Germans
and the Theory of Librarianship,�
American Libraries 23 (September 1992):
641-43.
2 Ella W. Wilcox, Men, Women, and
Emotions (Chicago: W.B. Conkey, 1893),
106-7.
3 F.L. Haller to Edna D. Bullock, De-
cember 9, 1901, Nebraska State Library
Commission Archives, Nebraska State
Historical Society, Lincoln, Nebraska.
4 Leo Markun, Mrs Grundy: A History
of Four Centuries of Morals Intended. to
Illuminate Present Problems in Great Brit-
ain and the United States (New York:
Appleton, 1930), 619.
5 Markun, Mrs. Grundy, 621.
6 Tommie Dora Barker to Ernest J.
Reece, June 9, 1922, Frances Newman
File, Carnegie Library School of At-
lanta Student Files, Robert W. Woo-
druff Library, Emory University, At-
lanta, Georgia.
7 Frances Newman, Dead Lovers Are
Faithful Lovers (New York: Boni and
Liveright, 1928), 186.
8 James V. Carmichael, Jr. oTommie
Dora Barker and Southern
Librarianship,� (Ph. D. Dissertation,
The University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, 1988), 158.
a Bet Link
~ Tap Into
The Title
alge:
9 James V. Carmichael, Jr. oSouth-
erners in the North and Northerners in
the South: The Impact of the Library
School of the University of Illinois on
Southern Librarianship,� in WomenTs
Work: Vision and Change in Librarianship
(University of Illinois Occasional Paper
No. 196/197, July 1994), 57.
10 Joe L. Dubbert, A ManTs Place: Mas-
culinity in Transition (Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979), 57.
11 John DTEmilio and Estelle B. Freed-
man, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexu-
ality in America (New York: Harper Row,
1988), 275-300.
12 "PTEmilo and Freedman, Intimate
Matters, 327.
13 PDTEmilio and Freedman, Intimate
Matters, 328.
14 Art Plotnik, oThe Liberation of
Sweet Library Lips,� 5; and Steve Wolf,
oSex and the Single Cataloger: New
Thoughts on Some Unthinkable Sub-
jects,� 41-42 in Celeste West, ed. Revolt-
ing Librarians (San Francisco, CA:
Booklegger Press, 1972).
© 1994 Baker & Taylor
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64 " Summer 1999
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North Carolina Libraries
Mission Position:
Censorship in the Corporate Library
by Justin Scroggs and Teresa Leonard
oAnd so, without more circumstance at all,
| hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business and desire shall point you;
For every man has business and desire,
SUCH: OSaitaiS2
hough our troubles are per-
haps less grave (pun intended)
than the Prince of DenmarkTs,
librarians, corporate and other-
wise, face a dilemma. In serving
our patron base, we make deci-
sions on a daily basis " retain this
item, discard that one, purchase the
third, and ignore the fourth. In wres-
tling with these choices, we face the
potential that members of the popula-
tion we serve will take issue with the
decisions we make. As we are all aware,
in some cases such criticism has led to
the removal of materials from library
shelves and the loss of employment by
librarians making or defending the de-
cisions. Such is our situation.
Some forty years ago Lester Asheim,
now Professor Emeritus of the School of
Information and Library Science, of the
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, described our dilemma:
oTo the selector the important
thing is to find reasons to keep
the book. Given such a guiding
principle, the selector looks for
values, for virtues, for strengths,
which will overshadow minor
objections. For the censor, on
the other hand, the important
thing is to find reasons to reject
North Carolina Libraries
o
" Hamlet, Act I, Scene V !
the book. His guiding principle
leads him to seek out the
objectionable features, the
weaknesses, ...2
While the distinction between
oselector� and ocensor� is perhaps arbi-
trary " and this point has been widely
debated " in the end the distinction is
largely pointless. Librarians make
choices. If an item is not judged as
worthy of inclusion in a collection, it is
excluded.
In building and maintaining collec-
tions, corporate librarians base their de-
cisions on the potential value of an item
as wellas its current value. These choices
are made in the same manner regardless
of the library type. We ask questions
about the item and its potential uses in
furthering company aims.
These questions asked in the evalu-
The one question that
is largely irrelevant in
the corporate setting is:
Is it offensive?
ation of an item may include:
Is the source authoritative and
comprehensive?
Is it affordable?
Does it occupy too much shelf space?
Do the patrons want it?
How long will it be current?
The one question that is largely irrel-
evant in the corporate setting is: Is it
offensive?
We generally do not collect materi-
als of mass interest. While the latest
issue of Sports Illustrated might well be
found in a number of corporate librar-
ies, most would not contain a single
copy of any of the eleven banned books
that led to the 1982 landmark Supreme
Court decision, Pico v. Island Trees.* Nor
would we generally be interested in col-
lecting the works of Grisham, Waller or
Angelou. Succinctly stated, our
mission is different from the mis-
sions of other types of libraries.
Our mission is to build a col-
lection, not for the general public,
but for the corporate environment
in which we work. In that envi-
ronment seemingly irrelevant ma-
terials, old telephone directories
for example, are often of greater
value than the current edition.
With this limited focus, our col-
Summer 1999 " 69
lections are largely discipline-specific
and often small in size relative to the
collections of other types of libraries. It
would be no surprise that the library
collection at the software giant SAS
Institute, located in North CarolinaTs
Research Triangle Park, consists prima-
rily of materials about computers and
related topics.
In general our collections are not
open to the public and thus are not
open to public scrutiny and the attempts
at censorship that can follow. Our col-
lections are built with corporate funds.
The oWe donTt want our tax dollars
spent on that� and oWe donTt want our
children to have access to such things�
arguments have little relevance in our
arena. Weare not by and large driven by
ohigher� goals. We are not charged with
the task of providing resources for the
educating of America,
serving as repositories of
our intellectual heritage
or responsible for the en-
tertainment and enlight-
enment of the general
population.
Ours is perhaps a less
lofty and, thankfully, less
ambiguous charge. The
focus of corporate collec-
tions is perhaps clearer
than that of other types
of libraries. Rarely is an
acquisitions decision
made on the basis of a subjective moral
judgment of ogood or bad.� Each item
collected is, in theory, directly related
to a specific institutional project, task,
or purpose. In that respect, pressure
on our collection development deci-
sions comes from another direction.
In the broadest sense, our acquisi-
tions concerns are the same as those of
public, academic, and school libraries.
Our goal is to provide access to items
desired by our patrons, both present
and future, in a timely and cost-effec-
tive manner. As an integral part of the
corporate world, however, our collec-
tions compete for space and resources
with other segments of our companies.
In the for-profit sector library, our bud-
gets are measured by the same criteria
as the allocations of the companyTs
other departments. Serials subscrip-
tions are reviewed as carefully as in-
ventories and expense reports. In the
corporate world, we are more likely to
experience censorship pressure in the
form of criticism for wasting company
resources or for over- spending than for
purchasing objectionable materials.
As noted above, our collections are
66 " Summer 1999
more specialized in focus and are often
smaller in size. In addition, our libraries
and library resources may be spread
among a number of locations serving
company employees around the globe.
Serving patrons in such an environ-
ment provides us with opportunities
and challenges. One result of these nar-
row and often far-flung collections is
that we quite often participate in the
larger realm of inter-library interactions
as net borrowers.
For many corporate libraries access
to a particular item is more important
than the possession of it. In the same
way that it is often in the corporate
best interest to use contract labor or
lease equipment, corporate libraries
frequently make use of the collections
of other libraries. It may be cheaper to
arrange to borrow from a local library
By and large, we are more
concerned with censorship in
public and academic libraries,
from whom we so frequently
borrow materials, than in our
own milieu.
... we are, in the broadest
sense of the word, censors
ourselves, or at the very least
ohoarders� of information.
or pay inter-library loan fees than to
purchase, catalog, circulate, and store
an item. In this respect we experience
the effects of censorship not as profes-
sionals in the field of library and infor-
mation science, but as borrowers or
patrons.
In our libraries, we would perhaps
not purchase a copy of Heather Has Two
Mommies for our permanent collection.4
But we might on occasion need access to
a copy. The decision to add NewmanTs
book to our collection is based on a cost-
benefit analysis of the purchase, not on
the appropriateness of the content. In
the corporate arena, the fact that we are
considering the book at all would imply
that the book has a potential use by
someone in our company. Appropriate-
ness in our arena speaks to the useful-
ness of an item, not to the possible
offensive nature of its contents.
We choose to collect the item or
borrow materials based on how much or
how often they would be used versus
the cost of acquiring them. If an item is
judged to be of sufficient worth, we get
it; if it isnTt, we donTt. All collection
development decisions are based on the
larger corporate focus. By and large, we
are more concerned with censorship in
public and academic libraries, from
whom we so frequently borrow materi-
als, than in our own milieu.
As borrowers, corporate librarians
affirm the principles of freedom of infor-
mation. We want access to all types of
materials. Yet when placed in the role of
lender, we may not be quite so liberal.
Many corporate libraries are selective
users of services such as OCLC, par-
ticipating as borrowers, but not lend-
ers. And when it comes to materials
generated in our corporate settings,
we are not all that fond of ofreedom
of information.� A large percentage
of the information contained in cor-
porate libraries is proprietary or of use
in creating proprietary materials. In
this context, information is seen as a
company resource in much the same
way as computer code or pharmaceu-
tical formulae.
Even when source materials, such
as census data, are to be
found in the public domain,
dissemination of that in-
formation to a potential
competitor is still suspect.
Competitors have the same
opportunity to access these
data for themselves; it is
our interpretation or un-
derstanding of the data that
is to be protected. In this
respect, we are, in the broadest sense of
the word, censors ourselves, or at the
very least ohoarders� of information. As
frequent guardians of proprietary infor-
mation, we are more concerned with
materials going out than with materials
coming in. Only those on oour side�
have complete and unlimited access.
Often the materials we produce can
themselves be viewed as products. This
is especially true in the for-profit arena.
Information is for sale, not for loan.
Magazines, television networks, and
newspapers copyright their stories and
vend them via online databases or by
fax. In many cases it is the corporate
library that does the vending. After all,
even in libraries, business is business.
North Carolina Libraries
In one sense corporate libraries lead
a sheltered existence. We generally serve
adults only, our patrons are typically
concerned only with items needed for
their jobs, and our collections are not
usually funded by tax dollars. These
circumstances allow us to operate in an
environment largely free of censorship
based on moral or ethical grounds. Most
frequently, censorship only inconve-
niences us, and then only when it ham-
pers our ability to access materials in
other libraries in a timely fashion.
In terms of the collections we man-
age, we choose materials for inclusion
based on their value in meeting com-
pany objectives. These materials more
often are held to standards of value per
dollar spent than to standards of offen-
siveness or appropriateness. Ours is not
a public mission. We are a consumer of
the resources of other libraries in the
same ways as other patrons. If the truth
be known, we often are censors our-
selves, restricting access to the informa-
tion in our care to persons within our
corporate family. Due to the particular
demands of the corporate environment,
censorship in general is not a constant
concern. If we need an item, we attempt
to find it, buy it, or borrow it. If we are
criticized in making collection develop-
ment decisions, it is most frequently for
wasting money " not for collecting
items of questionable moral or ethical
quality.
References:
1 William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I
Scene V. in The Works of William
Shakespeare, ed. William George Clark.
(Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1870), 818.
2Lester Asheim, oThe LibrarianTs
Responsibility: Not Censorship but Se-
lection.� in Freedom of Book Selection,
ed. Frederic Mosher. (Chicago: A.L.A.,
1954), 95.
3Steven Pico, oAn Introduction to
Censorship.� School Library Media Quar-
terly, 18 (Winter 1990): 84-87. Nine
books were banned from the high
school library: Slaughterhouse Five, by
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; The Naked Ape, by
Desmond Morris; Down These Mean
Streets, by Piri Thomas; Best Short Sto-
ries by Negro Writers, edited by Langston
Hughes; Go Ask Alice, by an anony-
mous author; Laughing Boy, by Oliver
LaFarge; Black Boy, by Richard Wright;
A Hero AinTt NothinT But A Sandwich, by
Alice Childress; and Soul on Ice; by
Eldridge Cleaver. One book was banned
from the junior high library, A Reader
for Writers, edited by Jerome Archer.
The eleventh banned book, part of the
twelfth grade English curriculum, was
The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud.
4Leslea Newman, Heather Has Two
Mommies. (Northampton, Mass.: In
Other Words Publishing, 1989).
NewmanTs picture book continues to
draw public criticism and censorship
attempts.
| "|
Has your library initiated an
innovative program to encourage
reading? North Carolina
Libraries is looking for new and
exciting programs for possible
use in an upcoming issue. We're
looking for ideas from all types
and sizes of libraries, and for
readers of any age. If you have
been involved in creating such a
program, please send a brief
(one paragraph) description of
the program, photographs,
brochures, and other promo-
tional materials to:
Rosemary Arneson
Everett Library
Queens College
1900 Selwyn Ave.
Charlotte, NC 28274
704-337-2400
John Higgins, Sales Representative
ww
OXFORD
North Carolina Libraries
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P.O. Box 21011
Columbia SC 29221
1-800-222-9086
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OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Be QUALITY BOOKS INC.
Summer 1999 " 67
Hard Cases:
Some Issues Concerning the First Amendment's
Protection of Free Speech and Free Press
ibrarians, who provide access
to the written word as well as
access to spoken words, music
of all varieties, and now infor-
mation in myriad electronic for-
mats, are guided by their inter-
pretation of the First Amendment
of the Bill of Rights.
The First Amendment in its entirety
protects rights other than free speech
and free press, saying: oCongress shall
make no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the free-
dom of speech, or of the press; or the
right of the people peaceably to as-
semble, and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances.� This article,
however, focuses on the two most im-
portant aspects of the AmendmentTs
protection for librarians, that of free
speech and free press, the right to speak
and write what one wishes in a free
society.
Most American children, by the time
they are in fourth grade, know that the
First Amendment of the Constitution
protects our freedom of speech and
freedom of the press. As we grow older,
we come to realize that the famous
words, oCongress shall make no law
abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press,� are symbolic of our democ-
racy, because they impose a legal barrier
to official censorship, then and now
considered one of the greatest dangers
to a strong democracy.
Legal scholars today, as always, are
debating the strengths and weaknesses
68 " Summer 1999
by Susan Steinfirst
of the First Amendment in consider-
ation of todayTs historical, social, politi-
cal, economic, and technological
changes; and indeed, some legal schol-
ars and laypersons " liberal and conser-
vative " are, in fact, debating whether
the First Amendment serves all the
people equally well. We are, as Cass
Sunstein, a law professor at the Univer-
sity of Chicago, has said in his book,
Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech,
oin the midst of a dramatic period of
new thought about the meaning of free
speech in America.�! Indeed, as Henry
Lewis Gates, Jr., a black historian and
scholar at Harvard, has written (even
before our recent November election!),
oThese are challenging times for First
Amendment sentimentalists.�?
Several striking issues in the 1990s
have risen to the surface again and again.
Funding of the arts, including broad-
casting, is one of them. Should ooffen-
sive� art be funded by the government,
by all our tax dollars? If so, should it be
restricted? What is the role of govern-
ment in funding art? Should the NEA
and public radio be eliminated?
Another topical issue is hate speech
(and ensuing speech codes or bans), a
problem particularly on college and
university campuses, which arose out of
the issues of political correctness,
multiculturalism, and the needs and
rights of marginalized people in our
society to be protected by the institu-
tions of which they are a part. Still
another controversy is pornography,
which will be discussed in greater detail
later. Free speech issues still mean pro-
tecting the rights of children, especially
" but adults also " to read, hear, and
see what they want. Some other general
issues of free speech include restriction
of song lyrics, new regulation of the
press, denying reporters access to some
governmental information, begging that
can be defined as harassment, and the
old stand-by, flag burning.
These are all, as Sunstein has called
them, ohard cases,� ones that even the
most adamant of the First Amendment
absolutists have to reckon with. Por-
nography, cross-burning, student news-
papers that print harmful lies about
minority students, and professors who
teach that the Holocaust did not hap-
pen are just a few examples of painful
issues to each of us and to the country,
but these issues are ones that absolutists
say have to be overcome in an open,
democratic forum in order to preserve
the sanctity of First Amendment rights.
It is what we have to pay, they say, to
ensure the protection of speech for all; if
we give in on just one tough issue, weTll
have to give in on others.
Critics of the First Amendment, on
the other hand, say we are overprotected
by it, and that the First Amendment has
become both an oicon� and a means by
which difficult moral decisions can be
avoided. The First Amendment has pro-
duced a climate that fails to protect the
unempowered in our society.
Our thinking about these tremen-
dously important issues is aggravated
by several factors. Gates has suggested,
North Carolina Libraries
for example, that there is a hierarchy of
free speech. Political speech tends to be
protected, while commercial speech does
not; there are always political and his-
torical ramifications to free speech. But
even more important is the lack of a
clear definition of free speech. Legal
scholars, for example, argue and debate
whether action (nonverbal expression)
is free speech.
At issue, and very much at the cen-
ter of the discussions about First Amend-
ment rights today, is interpretation,
which is necessary because those four-
teen words framed by our Founding
Fathers are not at all crystal clear and
were never intended, most scholars and
legal critics would agree, to be taken
literally to ban all limits on free speech.
What the writers of the First Amend-
ment meant to protectin the eighteenth
century might not be what they in-
tended to protect in the future. Quoted
often on this subject is the U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Hugo Black, a First Amend-
ment absolutist, who wrote that the
writers of the Bill of Rights oneither said
what they mean nor meant what they
said when they composed the free speech
clause in the First Amendment.�? His-
torically, federal appellate judges and
the Supreme Court have heard, hear
now, and will continue to hear cases
which debated, debate, and will con-
tinue to debate First Amendment issues,
and they will make decisions that will
have repercussions for all further First
Amendment issues. Only speech is pro-
tected by the First Amendment, and
that which is declared to be an action, or
a consequence of speech, is not. oCat-
egorization� is the legal buzzword, says
Gates, for deciding whether expression
is protected at all and for then deciding
what category it fits into. In this way,
certain types of speech, namely libel,
invasion of privacy, obscenity, commer-
cial speech, and speech posing irrepa-
rable threat or oclear and present dan-
ger,� have become exceptions to some
degree to the First Amendment rule.
Also, some forms of speech are not con-
sidered protected speech if their pur-
pose is to incite violence; this concept of
ofighting words� is based on the deci-
sion of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
(1942), which said that words that were
olikely to provoke the average person to
retaliation,� would cause a breach of
speech.
There have been liberal
interpretions of the free speech clause
by those who believe there should be no
limits on free speech and by those who
agree with Justice William Douglas, who
North Carolina Libraries
said in 1952, oRestriction of free thought
and free speech is the most dangerous of
all subversions.�* And there are rising
conservative interpretations of free
speech, those who believe, as stated
above, that expression has become over-
protected to the exclusion of other (even
constitutionally protected) rights.
As a means of explication of inter-
pretation, this article will now summa-
rize briefly the contents of three rela-
tively new books that deal with inter-
pretative issues: Stanley FishTs ThereTs
No Such Thing as Free Speech, and ItTs a
Good Thing Too (1994), which attacks
liberal ideas about interpretation and
First Amendment rights; Nat HentoffTs
Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee (1992),
which epitomizes the absolutist stance
on the free speech clause; and Catherine
MacKinnonTs radically controversial dis-
cussion of pornography and its protec-
tion under the First Amendment, in her
1993 book, Only Words.
In a series of eighteen lectures (five
of which are based on the odebates� he
staged with Dinesh DTSouza, the author
of Illiberal Education), Stanley Fish ar-
gues that expressions such as ofree
speech� are really just abstractions that
have no meaning. Everyone, he says,
would like to censor and suppress some-
thing. (A Milton scholar, Fish reminds
us that even Milton, in his glorious
paean to freedom of speech, Areopagitica,
said essentially that freedom of speech
is good for everyone but the Catholics.)
Terms, such as ofree speech� and ofree-
dom of the press� are malleable and
At issue, and very much at
the center of the discussions
about First Amendment
rights today, is interpretation,
which is necessary because
those fourteen words framed
by our Founding Fathers are
not at all crystal clear and
were never intended, most
scholars and legal critics
would agree, to be taken
literally to ban all limits on
free speech.
determined by what the ogood guys�
find correct right now.
Free speech, Fish says over and over
again, is determined by political and
historical considerations and nothing
more: oWe are all products of different
histories; we are all committed to truths,
but to truths perpetually in dispute.�®
oThe line between what is permitted
and what is to be spurned is always
being drawn and redrawn� depending
on its historical context and o[s]tructures
of constraint are simultaneously always
in place and always subject to revision if
the times call for it and resources are up
toit.�© There is no such thing as fairness
when it comes to the laws, because fair-
ness is just another abstraction also based
on different assumptions and back-
ground: oThe truths any of us find com-
pelling will be partial, which is to say
they will be political.�� Free speech, Fish
says, is therefore just the name we ogive
to verbal behavior that serves the sub-
stantive agendas we wish to advance "
a political prize.�®
Fish spends a lot of time debunking
what he calls liberal views on censor-
ship. He insists, for example, that all
specific free speech issues should be
seen within broad contextual limits be-
cause we are inescapably bound by our
ointerpretive communities� (e.g., in the
case of hate speech, the interpretive
community is the university and its
students and faculty). There is nothing
neutral about free speech, he says, and
we would do well to realize this and say
that some speech is better than others
and that de facto censorship is a
fact of life. (Itis on this assump-
tion, the lack of neutrality, that
Fish defends speech bans on
campus, saying that we have to
protect those who have been
dealt with unfairly because otalk
of equality, standards, and level
playing fields is nothing more
than a smoke screen behind
which there lies a familiar set of
prejudices rooted in personal
interest.�°)
At issue for Fish, as for most
critics of the First Amendment,
is the issue again of interpreta-
tion, which he says is the tool
of whatever group of people is
in power and has authority at
any given time. oThe courts,�
he says, oare never in the busi-
ness of protecting free speech
per se ...; rather, they are in the
business of classifying speech
(as protected or regulatable) in
relation to a value " the health
Summer 1999 " 69
of the republic, the vigor of the economy,
the maintenance of the status quo, the
undoing of the status quo " that is the
true, if unacknowledged, object of this
protection.�!° The law is not formalistic
" consistent, precise, or simplistic "
and so it is always open to interpreta-
tion. All law is challengeable, although
we must always remember, Fish insists
over and over again, that oit is impos-
sible not to interpret from an ideology
or moral vision.�!! oInterpretation,� he
insists, ois the name for the activity by
which a particular moral vision makes
its hegemonic way into places from
which it has been formally barred.� !2
Because of the dominance of inter-
pretation, law has what Fish calls an oad
hoc quality,� though he feels that this
odoctrinal inconsistency,� the oinabil-
ity of doctrine to keep itself pure and
precise�! is a strength rather than a
weakness because it produces rhetoric:
oThe law is a discourse continually tell-
ing two stories, one of which is denying
that the other is being told at all.�"4
What is needed, Fish says, is an ad
hoc, case-by-case balancing of interests.
You have to balance whether harms
caused by offending speech (as in the
case of hate speech on campus or por-
nography) might materialize, and if so,
they must be weighed against harms
produced by regulation. Again, Fish
says, this will depend on the social and
institutional context in which the speech
is occuring. (There would be a differ-
ence between the public school and the
university.) Furthermore, Fish says the
weak, who are basically unempowered,
tend not to be protected by freedom of
speech. In terms of ohard cases� " cam-
pus hate speech and pornography, espe-
cially " Fish comes down oreluctantly
and cautiously� on the side of regula-
tory actions: oSome of the things that
the First Amendment, as now inter-
preted, allows, and by allowing, encour-
ages, are worse than the scenario set out
in Fahrenheit 451.�'5 Furthermore, he
argues, since nothing spoken is free from
consequences, we have to otake respon-
sibility for our verbal performances "
all of them " and not assume theyTre
taken care of by the Consititution.�!®
There are risks in permitting speech that
is harmful, and risks that may deny us
art; but Fish is opersuaded that at the
present moment, right now, the risk of
not attending to hate speech is greater
than the risk that by regulating it we will
deprive ourselves of valuable voices and
insights or slide down the slippery slope
toward tyranny.� !�
Stanley Fish is really not the enemy
70 " Summer 1999
of free speech. He says repeatedly that
he would not regulate against it unless
he felt that not to regulate it would
cause more harm than to uphold the
tenets of the First Amendment blindly.
And, because speech is so tied to ideol-
ogy and power, he believes that it is an
impossibility: oThe truth is not that
freedom of speech should be abridged
but that freedom of speech is a concep-
tual impossibility because the condi-
tion of speechTs being free in the first
place is unrealizable.� Because all speech
is informed by politics and ideology, he
goes on, othere is no such thing as free
(ideologically unconstrained) speech; no
such thing as a public forum purged of
ideological expressions or exclusions.� !8
Nat Hentoff, whom Fish calls
(among others) amouthpiece fora overy
neo-conservative political agenda�!?
would heartily disagree with FishTs wa-
vering, issue by issue, on First Amend-
ment matters. HentoffTs thesis is that
the First Amendment is essential to de-
mocracy and that its protection must be
given to all people, empowered or
unempowered, liberal or conservative,
man, woman and child, no matter how
popular or unpopular any of their views
may seem to someone else. oThe First
Amendment wasnTt drafted to protect
bland comments, inoffensive criticism
or popular ideas. It was adopted specifi-
cally to ensure that controversial speech
is not squelched and, in particular, to
protect the free discussion of ideas.�°
He would agree with Fish that there is a
tendency in all of us to censor: oCensor-
ship " throughout the sweet land of
liberty " remains the strongest drive in
human nature, with sex a weak second.
In that respect, men and women, white
and of color, liberals and Jesse Helms are
brothers and sisters under the same
skin.�2! But, and this is the gist of his
book, though we believe in our own
First Amendment rights, there is a ten-
dency not to defend the rights of others
whose views we oppose (e.g., anti-abor-
tionists vs. free choicers) to speak openly
and freely.
The essays in HentoffTs books delib-
erately work at dispelling the need to
censor the hard cases"hate speech on
campus, issues of political correctness,
pornography, offensive literature for
young people, offensive works of art"all
the while championing the absolutist
notion that othe Bill of Rights is for
everyone, even the politically incorrect.�
He speaks of the tendency of cam-
pus administrations to protect the civil-
ity of the community over the right to
free expression by installing speech bans
barring certain people from speaking on
campus as well as the desire on the part
of many minority students, and women
of all colors, who believe that the First
Amendent must give way when hate
speech is at issue, by saying simply and
plainly that everyone, no matter how
despicable his or her point of view, is
entitled to free expression, however
obnoxious and hurtful it may be.?
Hentoff, who feels that speech bans
donTt work and serve mainly to make
the university administration and mi-
norities feel good oby creating and sus-
taining true equality on campus by eradi-
cation of speech that makes minorities,
women and gays feel unwanted,�74
thinks that political correctness " the
politically correct intolerance of issues
such as racism and sexism " is at the
root of this evil.
He argues against Catherine
MacKinnonTs theory that hate speech
and pornography are really Fourteenth
Amendment (civil rights) issues rather
than First Amendment (civil liberties)
issues. The Fourteenth Amendment
guarantees everyone equal protection
under the law, and most Fourteenth
Amendment cases are usually litigated
as group rights rather than individual
rights that the government must imple-
ment. But Hentoff argues that the First
Amendment supersedes the Fourteenth.
He also argues against the position, held
by Fish and MacKinnon, that the
unempowered are weaker and deserve
more free speech than others and that
members of these groups should get a
little extra free speech. Hentoff says that
in those communities that impose bans
so as not to hurt the community, stu-
dents are really being instructed to see
themselves as ofragile victims,� and that
is not the way they will learn empower-
ment. It is wrong, he says, to think you
can suppress certain kinds of unpopular
speech because it does so much harm.
The inviolability of the First Amend-
... freedom of speech is itself empowering
because it opens young people to all points of
view, the open marketplace of ideas.
North Carolina Libraries
ment is not to be tried because of it. The
First Amendment does not say that free-
dom of speech is olimited only to ideas
and symbols that further freedom, dig-
nity, and nonviolence.�*5 oIf speech is
to be free,� he says, othere is always a
tisk that those who would destroy free
speech may be sufficiently eloquent to
use that constitutional freedom to end
it.�26 That is a chance we have to take.
HentoffTs book is the only one of
the three that discusses issues of censor-
ship and free speech related to children.
In his discussion of Mark TwainTs Huck-
leberry Finn, a book he has championed
for many years, Hentoff uses the argu-
ment that freedom of speech is itself
empowering because it opens young
people to all points of view, the open
marketplace of ideas. Hentoff cites very
specifically many of the problems caused
by the bookTs 160 instances of the word
onigger,� and notes that indeed he un-
derstands that blacks believe
that the book makes them feel
unworthy and that some black
children have been taunted by
their white classmates because
of it. He says that banning the
book makes school systems feel
that they have done the re-
spectful thing to these kids and
their parents. And he says that
any and every child should have
the right to say he or she is not
willing to read the book, telling
us that we (as adult teachers and librar-
ians) have to be, above all, sensitive to
to other peopleTs feelings.
Hentoff says that we need to help
children understand the book histori-
cally, to help them understand the con-
text in which it was written and what
Twain, whom he calls a humanitarian,
was trying to say. The meaning of the
book, Hentoff says, quoting an article
by Russell Baker in the New York Times,
is that the white adults in the book Huck
encounters are all white and disrepu-
table; ironically, the only character of
honor is the black man, Jim. We under-
estimate the capacity of young people
to think for themselves and to under-
stand the satire and meaning of the
book, he says, and we do not respect
young people enough to allow them to
talk and think for themselves. If we ban
the book, if we restrict the flow of ideas
through language, we show we do not
trust readers to make up their own minds.
We silence debate, the marketplace of
ideas, which to Hentoff is the horror of
regulating free speech " anyoneTs free
speech. Learning new ideas empowers
people.
Hentoff also discusses the inroads
that have been made against childrenTs
free speech. Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)
gave young people the right to protest
the war in Vietnam by wearing black
armbands to school, with the implica-
tion that the rights of everyone " even
Because it is action rather than
speech, and therefore a civil rights
issue, pornography should be
treated and litigated as such.
the young " were not to be abridged. It
also protected their right to free expres-
sion in student newspapers with some
limitations (e.g., the writing was not to
cause substantial disorder in school and
there was not to be obscenity). In 1988,
however, school authorities were given
the right to censor school-sponsored
papers. Hentoff also notes the tendency
on the part of some librarians to think
that a little censorship is okay if some
material is offensive or dangerous for
children and young people. But, he says,
attempts to control what anybody reads,
and therefore thinks, though increasing
across the country, is itself dangerous
and should be stopped. The right to free
speech as outlined in the First Amend-
ment is a given for all citizens no matter
what their beliefs, no matter what pos-
sible harm their beliefs, as expressed in
language, might cause. For free speech
to flourish, the good must be allowed
with the bad. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,
so concisely put it, oWhen pluralism
decided to let a thousand flowers bloom,
we always knew that some of them would
be weeds.�27
Catherine MacKinnonTs thinking on
issues of the First Amendment is dia-
metrically opposed to HentoffTs and
GatesTs. MacKinnon, a law professor at
the University of Michigan, argues in
her book, Only Words that pornogra-
phy, which she defines as o the graphic,
sexually explicit subordination of
women through pictures or
words,�28 does not fall un-
der the rubric of free speech.
Because it is action rather
than speech, and therefore
a civil rights issue, pornog-
raphy should be treated and
litigated as such.
Her argument is: por-
nography is not just speech
(oonly words�) that serves
as an outlet for male sexual
fantasies that should rightly
be protected by the First Amendment
free speech clause. Rather, it serves as a
manual for men who use it to shatter
womenTs civil rights by humiliating and
subordinating them. The Fourteenth
Amendment, rather than the First
Amendment, should be invoked because
womenTs equal rights have been
abridged. Pornography should be treated
as defamation rather than as an issue of
discrimination. It is the ideas in pornog-
raphy, not the words, that hurt: oPor-
nography (especially films) is not con-
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North Carolina Representative " Phil May
1-800-367-3927
Summer 1999 " 71
stitutionally free speech,�?? she says.
Indeed, it is not speech at all. The First
Amendment protects pornographers be-
cause it says the experience is one of
thought. But, she says, the consumers of
pornography do not want to think when
confronted by pornography. They want
to olive it out�; they want to be violent
and act violently.
The issue of equality, or lack of it, is
at the core of McKinnonTs argument.
She says: oWhat is wrong with pornog-
raphy is that it hurts women and their
equality.�3° oThe Constitutional doc-
trine was developed without taking seri-
ously either the problem of social equal-
ity or the mandate of substantive legal
equality.�3! Those who lack equality,
she says, lack power and need more
protection. Some people " the power-
ful, she argues, as do many others, in-
cluding Stanley Fish " get more free
speech than others and are more legally
protected.
As might be expected, MacKinnon
detests the reflexive appeal to free
speech, saying that when that occurs
the government can make no judgment
as to content. There are no ofalse ideas,�
just ooffensive ones� that we cannot
silence. The notion that in order to
protect free speech we have to take the
bad with the good is equally odious and
wrong to her. oThis approach is adhered
to with a fundamentalist zeal even when
it serves to protect lies, silence dissent,
destroy careers, intrude on associations,
and retard change.� ?2
MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin
have proposed that there be city and
state laws that would allow women to
sue pornographers, writers, artists, and
film makers of pornography, publishers
of pornography, and sellers of pornog-
raphy if they find a piece of literature, a
film, magazine, etc., to be offensive and
can make the Office of Equal Opportu-
nity believe that they have been ma-
ligned. Fines can be levied, material can
be removed, and an injuction (oa prior
retraint�) can be issued forbidding fur-
ther dissemination of the book, maga-
zine, record, media, etc. Though such a
law passed in Indianapolis, it was over-
turned as a restriction of free speech,
although, as MacKinnon argues, it is
similar to a law endorsed lately by the
Canadians in their newly formulated
Charter of Rights and Freedom.
MacKinnonTs theories are hotly dis-
cussed even among feminists who are
unsure about the evidence linking por-
nography to systematic violence, citing
that the data are more anecdotal than
proven. The ACLU has opposed the bill
72 " Summer 1999
when it has been discussed in various
cities and states again on the inadequacy
of the data linking pornography with
crime and on the grounds that pornog-
raphy as speech is protected by the First
Amendment.
MacKinnon, however, remains ada-
mantthat what is needed now isa change
in our thinking about First Amendment
protection:
We need a new model for
freedom of expression in which
the free speech position no
longer supports social domi-
nance, as it does now; in which
free speech does not readily
protect the activities of Nazis,
Klansmen, and pornographers,
while doing nothing for its
victims, as it does now; in
which defending free speech is
not speaking on behalf of a
large pile of money in the
hands of a small group of
people, as it does now. In this
new model, principles will be
defined in terms of specific
experiences, the particularity of
history, subtantively rather
than abstractly. It will notice
who is being hurt and never
forget who they are. The state
will have as great a role in
providing relief from injury to
equality through speech and in
giving access to speech as it
now has in disciplining its
power to intervene in that
speech that manages to get
expressed.?3
MacKinnonTs argument is compel-
ling because most thinking people find
pornography abhorrent.
Indeed, pornography, as
well as hate speech on
college and university
campuses, freedom of
written and artistic ex-
pression that is offensive
to both individuals and
groups of people, cross
burning, and Naziand Ku
Klux Klan marches, are
ohard cases,� not easily
defended.
A glance at some re-
cently collected articles
from the News and Ob-
server and the New York
Times does, indeed, give
credence to the issue of
the use of the First
Amendment to say what
we please. Some examples
include: a University of Michigan stu-
dent, jailed on charges of transporting
threatening material across state lines
because he published a sexually violent
piece of fiction about a classmate on the
Internet, who invoked the First Amend-
ment, saying oI havenTt harmed any-
one. I think it is a violation of my First
Amendment rights and probably sev-
eral other rights;�34 the state of Ver-
mont, which voted down a resolution
that would ban flag burning because it
would odiminish the very freedoms and
liberties for which the flag has stood for
over 200 years�*5 (however, 45 states
have urged Congress to pass an amend-
ment on flag desecration); a local artist,
who said her First Amendment rights
had been abridged when a Raleigh art
gallery asked her to remove a piece of art
which is said to be osexually offensive�;
_a letter to the editor of the New York
Times, which complained that, in the
case of the president of Rutgers Univer-
sity, who had made a careless remark
about the ability of black students to do
well on college entrance exams because
of their genetic hereditary backgrounds,
what is at stake is free speech: oThe
potential link between genetics and in-
telligence continues to be of public and
academic interest, and it ought to be
possible for reasonable people to talk
about the subject freely, especially in a
university setting, without rousing
anybodyTs thought police�;*° and a ra-
dio station in San Francisco, which in-
voked its right to broadcast under the
First Amendment after changing its for-
mat to conservative from liberal (declar-
ing itself othe new voice of the city�),
appalling politicians and gay-rights lead-
ers who have been opposing the new
New thinking about the First
Amendment clause indicates a
move toward looking at the
environmental context in which
the speech takes place (e.g., the
university or the public schools),
focusing on who is the target
audience for certain forms of
speech, and always looking out
for ofighting words.�
North Carolina Libraries
station, insisting that it goes beyond
poor taste and has crossed the line into
inciting violence.?�
While Nat Hentoff and Henry Louis
Gates, Jr. would argue that itis a difficult
time for First Amendment purists, and
Catherine MacKinnon and probably
Stanley Fish would argue that the cur-
rent First Amendment thinking tends to
be absolutist (with exceptions men-
tioned earlier in this paper), [think Cass
SunsteinTs statement that o[w]e are in
the midst of a dramatic period of new
thought about the meaning of free
speech in America�**is most to the point.
Critics of our current legal status are
persuasive in their notions of group-
based harms, such as those described by
Catherine MacKinnon in terms of por-
nography and Stanley Fish in terms of
hate speech on campuses. There is a
perceived move to get the federal courts
and the Supreme Court to take account
of group particularity and of the in-
equality of certain groups. Furthermore,
current social theory emphasizes that
oexpression which distorts or under-
mines self conception can be a serious
social problem.�%?
Kathryn Abrams, in an article,
oCreeping Absolutism and Moral Im-
poverishment: The Case for Limits on
Free Expression,� discusses some of the
problems of the absolutist tendencies of
the First Amendment, noting that this
has ocontributed to a climate where ex-
pression is overprotected, and members
of the intellectual community are de-
terred from thinking systematically about
how to reconcile expression with other
norms"for example, respect for and
recogition of politically marginalized
groups.�4° New thinking about the First
Amendment clause indicates a move to-
ward looking at the environmental con-
text in which the speech takes place (e.g.,
the university or the public schools),
focusing on who is the target audience
for certain forms of speech, and always
looking out for ofighting words.� What
this does is focus more on the victim and
the nature of the harm, which absolutist
First Amendment readings disallow.
oSuch criteria pave the way to a system
where a speech interest will be neither an
icon nor a ground for moral judgment,
but one factor to be placed in the balance
with other, socially valued goals.�*! Hard
cases, indeed, for librarians, who protect
their readersT, listenersT and viewersT
rights to read, listen and view, to ponder
with great care.
References
1 Cass Sunstein, Democracy and the
North Carolina Libraries
Problem of Free Speech (New York: Free
Press, 1993).
2 Henry Louis Gates, Jr., oTruth or
Consequences: Putting Limits on Lim-
its,� in The Limits in American Intellectual
Life, ACLS Occasional Paper 22, 1993:
IES).
3 Bruno Leone, ed., Free Speech: Cur-
rent Controversies (San Diego, Cal.:
Greenhaven Press, 1994), 13.
4 Leone, 14.
S Stanley Fish, ThereTs No Such Thing
as Free Speech...And ItTs a Good Thing, Too
(New York: Oxford University Press,
1994): 79.
6 [bid., viii.
7 Wide.
8 Jbid., 102.
9 Jbid., 82.
10 Thid., 106.
11 Jbid., 151.
12 Jbid., 158.
13 [bid., 168.
14 Tbid., 176.
1S Thid., 132.
Lo TDid. palace,
17 Jhid., 115.
18 Jbid., 116.
19 [bid., 306.
20 Nat Hentoff, Free Speech for Me"
But Not For Thee: How the American Left
and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other
(New York: Harper Perennial, 1993
[1992, HarperCollins), 131.
21 [bid., 17.
22 Thid., 221.
23: Tbidsi2233
Zeal bidn aad)
25. Thid.; 253,
26 Thids253.
27 Gates, 28.
28 Catherine MacKinnon, Only Words
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1993), 22.
29 Tbids 6:
30 Tbid., 88.
ol Tbid save
S42 IDid jaded
33 Tbid., 109.
34 News and Observer, February 14,
99S"
35 New York Times, February 14, 1995.
SOG (rGE
37 Ibid.
38 Sunstein, ix.
39 Kathryn Abrams, oCreeping Abso-
lutism and Moral Impoverishment: The
Case for Limits on Free Expression,� in
The Limits in American Intellectual Life,
(ACLS Occasional Paper). 22, 1993, S.
bids ale
Allanels,
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Summer 1999 " 73
Subtle Censors:
Collection Development in Academic Libraries
by Mae Rodney
oIntellectual freedom is the right of people to hold any belief whatever on any
subject, and express such belief or ideas in whatever way the person believes
appropriate... the second component of intellectual freedom is the right of
unrestricted access to all information and ideas regardless of the medium of
communication used.
acilitating free access to all in-
formation is primary to the
mission of any library, especially
an academic library. The basic
purpose " to provide sufficient
information for making informed
decisions " is imbedded in aca-
demic library mission statements and
collection development policies. Often,
the parent organizationTs mission state-
ment is the guide for the libraryTs mis-
sion. These statements are the founda-
tion for the objectives and specific poli-
cies included in collection development
policies. Secular or state supported col-
lege/university libraries may have very
general missions " the collection will
support the curriculum, faculty research
requirements, and general reading needs
of the university community; whereas,
smaller colleges or denomination-sup-
ported institutions may have more defi-
nite missions " support the curriculum
and faculty research. The general pur-
pose of mission statements should be to
guide the collection development pro-
cess toward clearly appropriate titles
while avoiding questionable additions.
In a comprehensive academic envi-
ronment, intellectual freedom is dem-
onstrated by almost unlimited access to
information, from the pros and cons of
assisted suicide, to the availability of a
74 " Summer 1999
mM
variety of resources relevant to the con-
troversy over DaddyTs Roommate, to al-
most unlimited access to various for-
mats. The objective " building collec-
tions that educate " is accomplished by
collecting current, varied, and relevant
resources on contemporary issues.
Broader-based mission statements direct
librarians to provide for the general read-
ing interests of the university commu-
nity. A very unusual opportunity, how-
ever, may arise when a questionable title
is requested. Do librarians avoid pur-
chasing that specific title because funds
are not available?
In academic environments where
the mission is specific "
build and maintain a col-
lection relevant to the cur-
riculum " the issue of cen-
sorship may be clouded
by adhering to a strict in-
terpretation of the mission
statement. Librarians must
decide how ohot� topics
such as the religious right
or left, sexually explicit lit-
erature, or directions for
the making of bombs will
be addressed. When is it
censorship? When is it
building a collection that
reflects the curriculum?
Libraries with limited budgets must
review carefully every title added to the
collection since a tight, useful collection
is the goal. Budgets rather than policies
ought to limit the quantity and variety
of resources in academic libraries. Are
there instances when the obudget� be-
comes a means of censorship?
Collection development method-
ologies further document librariansT
belief that the library empowers patrons
by providing sufficient balanced infor-
mation for patrons to make their own
decisions and possibly to improve their
social conditions.2 Democratic selec-
tion methods should be used to cover
Since budgets can prohibit
acquiring extensive collections,
and since hidden agenda may
preclude the purchase of specific
controversial materials, many
libraries have embraced resource
sharing to extend patron access
to information.
North Carolina Libraries
adequately all aspects of the curricu-
lum, including recommendations from
subject bibliographers, selection com-
mittees, and faculty representatives. But
are there cases when the thrust to sup-
port the curriculum becomes the over-
whelming goal, rather than providing
varied information for intelligent deci-
sion making?
Since budgets can prohibit acquir-
ing extensive collections, and since hid-
den agendas may preclude the purchase
of specific controversial materials, many
libraries have embraced resource sharing
to extend patron access to information.
Resource sharing became an important
component of library services when pub-
lishing rates skyrocketed, library fund-
ing decreased, and patron informational
needs beyond the resources within one
library increased. Today, resource shar-
ing is so expected that national accredit-
ing associations require statements that
describe the provisions made to trans-
port resources between libraries and/or
the borrowing procedures visiting pa-
trons must follow.
The formation of national biblio-
graphic utilities, such as OCLC, which
placed thousands of shelflist files online,
increased access to all resources cata-
loged online. OCLC and other biblio-
graphic utilities greatly increased the
importance of interlibrary loan services
by offering patron access to information
located in libraries within and even be-
yond the United States.
The need for formal resource shar-
ing arrangements between libraries be-
yond interlibrary loan is increasing be-
cause articles, books, and visuals are be-
ing accessed through sophisticated in-
dexes, databases, and online catalogs.
Businesses, such as UMI Article Clearing
House and CARL UnCover, provide ar-
ticles for a fee plus copyright charges.
These services are excellent, but fees are
often beyond what faculty and students
are able or willing to pay.
Shared online catalogs also increase
the significance of resource sharing be-
cause patrons can review catalog entries
for several collections. The downside to
shared databases is the fact that patrons
are exposed to information that is not
immediately accessible, thus leading to
increased user frustration. Several North
Carolina academic libraries are sharing
databases, but only the three western
UNC libraries (Appalachian State Uni-
versity, UNC-Asheville, Western Caro-
lina University) supply patrons reliable,
promptaccess to titles listed in the shared
databases in a cost effective manner.
With todayTs diverse population, writ-
North Carolina Libraries
ten resource sharing agreements that do
not include a reliable, prompt means to
transport desired resources are not suffi-
cient. Librarians can no longer rely on
the intent to provide access to informa-
tion; instead they must devise realistic
means of delivery.
As new formats are designed, pro-
duction costs increase, and library fund-
ing shrinks, deci-
them. Some libraries must adopt this
policy because budgets are so limited
that any attempt to acquire newer me-
dia, even ona limited or controlled basis,
would limit the number of books re-
ceived and journal subscriptions main-
tained. Additionally, the varied subjects
produced on videos can place some li-
brarians in the position of determining
the oappropriate-
sions about what in- i ; ness� of a title for a
formation and Many librarians feel collection or using
which formats to ac- eer restricted access poli-
quire become in- that the limited cies in their circula-
creasingly difficult to . . tion.
make. With each subject headings or Because of the
new format, the
problem broadens.
Music is produced as
scores, compact
discs, tapes, and
records in various
speeds. Written in-
formation is gener-
ated in everything
from books to vid-
eos to multimedia
compact discs. The statistical probability
of having the specific format desired by
a patron decreases as the number of
formats available for titles grows. In ad-
dition, the selection of the most appro-
priate format involves issues of durabil-
ity, sound or visual quality, or entertain-
ment quality. For example, libraries with
large record collections now are faced
with the task of finding record players
and attempting to decide how the music
will be preserved, transferred, and stored
in a format that contemporary patrons
can utilize.
Technology and varied formats can
be used to offer more reliable access to
current information and maintain bal-
anced collections. For example, micro-
fiche subscriptions can be used instead
of traditional bound periodicals to main-
tain access to required journals. Com-
bining microform reader/printers as
companion equipment ensures high
quality reproduction
of articles.
The extent and
variation of media
formats cause many
librarians to rely
upon larger or spe-
cialized collections to
give patrons access to
video and films. Vid-
eos are excluded from
many small collec-
tions because of the
expense of purchas-
ing and maintaining
access points that
have been assigned
to media have
limited access to
this information.
size of their budgets
and the extent of
their collections,
large libraries have
provided more infor-
mation in varied for-
mats to satisfy patron
needs. They also
have responded
more effectively to
patrons with unique
physical needs. While they have pur-
chased varied formats, they have not
been able to solve adequately the prob-
lems of cataloging, indexing, and stor-
ing these resources. Processing and stor-
age of media are not done with the same
care and consistency as that of books.
Many librarians feel that the limited
subject headings or access points that
have been assigned to media have lim-
ited access to this information.
Librarians committed to providing
unrestricted access to information have
devised indexes and catalogs to help
patrons identify and locate media, as
well as other resources in their collec-
tions. But the basic design of traditional
indexes " using standardized subject
headings and indexing a constant group
of journals " immediately creates a bar-
rier for patrons in locating current infor-
mation. The subject headings used are
not terms commonly considered by the
Either by omission or commission,
much of the information about the
worldTs minorities currently is being
withheld from the average
researcher because of the design of
common indexing systems.
Summer 1999 " 79
general public and are difficult to inter-
pret. The chance that a patron will select
the same heading as the indexer is slight.
Another limitation " indexing stan-
dardized journals " severely limits ac-
cess to current and sometimes contro-
versial information. Researchers in spe-
cialized areas such as WomenTs Studies,
African American Literature, or African
American History have difficulty locat-
ing information because the indexing of
these topics is not sufficient and the
journals that are indexed
are not those that cover
those subjects.? In the book
Unequal Access to Informa-
tion Resources: Problems and
Needs of the WorldTs Poor,
Kay Klayman Brown de-
scribes indexes as obstacles
to retrieving information.*
Either by omission or com-
mission, much of the infor-
mation about the worldTs
minorities currently is be-
ing withheld from the aver-
age researcher because of the
design of common index-
ing systems.
New CD-ROM-based indexes have
enhanced access to current resources
significantly; patrons can search for in-
formation covering two to three years at
one time using Boolean and keyword
searching capabilities. Keyword search-
ing eliminates the necessity of using
standardized terminology. Full-text da-
tabases expand patronsT access to cur-
rent literature and increase the chances
of finding a desired article. In addition,
CD-ROM full-text databases often pro-
vide patrons almost immediate access
to articles without leaving the worksta-
tion. These databases are good, but they
still limit access to current information
because, again, publishers select titles
included in the database; moreover,
these titles often are the same as those
found in traditional paper indexes.
Journals are a vital section of aca-
demic library collections, but the grow-
ing number of journals and escalating
publishing costs have made journal col-
lections difficult to control. Originally,
serials collection development policies
consisted of adding all titles recom-
mended by faculty and maintaining sub-
scriptions until titles ceased publica-
tion. Because of inflation, sustaining
serial collections within the limitations
of the budget is an awesome task. Serial
collection development policies have
been modified to direct expansion and
ensure that collections mirror instruc-
tional programs while, at the same time,
76 " Summer 1999
outlining review procedures for addi-
tions and cancellations from renewal
lists. While the professed intent will be
to provide the most useful serial collec-
tion within specific budget guidelines,
subtle opportunities to shape academic
collections and censor potentially
controversial titles and topics will arise
continuously.
The Internet has allowed informa-
tion to be shared beyond the walls of the
library at a faster rate than ever before.
Although technology in theory
is bringing libraries closer to
the goal of universal and equal
access, the goal has become
more elusive because of the
vast amount of information
produced.
Although technology in theory is bring-
ing libraries closer to the goal of univer-
sal and equal access, the goal has become
more elusive because of the vast amount
of information produced.
Vice President Al Gore coined the
term Information Superhighway in
1978. This concept has developed into
a oseamless web of communication net-
works, computers, databases and con-
sumer electronics that put a vast amount
of information at usersT fingertips.�
One of the objectives of the Internet or
Information Superhighway is to pro-
vide the general public with the infor-
mation they need when they need it,
but increased public access to
information is unlikely be-
cause many people will not
have access to computers and/
or will not be able to afford
line charges.
Internet users are already
facing several urgent issues.
Can users express their opin-
ions without censorship? Can
users remove unwanted com-
ments and advertisements
from the screen? Can omem-
bers� of informal user groups
be banned from participating
in the group without concerns
for censorship?®
The Internet will, in
theory, make more informa-
tion available, but the audi-
ence will be smaller. A select
group will view the Internet as a oworld
library and the individual library will
simply be one information supplier
among many.�� Whitson suggests that
the role of the local library will be to
provide patron access to the resources
needed via electronic means. In addi-
tion, the local staff will help patrons
with odefining information needs, since
the network of information resources
will be more complicated and searching
those resources efficiently will require
experts.�8 He predicts that libraries
will have basic collections that will be
accessible without costs or subsidy, but
many of the services and resources ac-
quired through electronic means will
require some form of cost recovery.
If too many libraries embrace an
electronic means of disseminating and
preserving information, the average
citizenTs intellectual freedom and the
right of access to information will be
controlled because a small group of
people will determine what is included
on the Internet. Decisions will be made
based on limited information. ~
Electronic publishing has generated
some controversial points. Among them
is the question of its role in the scheme
of providing information to the masses.
Scientists and researchers view electronic
publishing as an excellent means to
share research promptly with fellow re-
searchers and to receive equally prompt
feedback.? Critics indicate, however,
that it allows information to be shared
only among a select few. Controversy
apart, electronic publishing has several
short comings, including lack of index-
ing and adequate tamper-resistant
security.!9 Also, very few people con-
trol which information is digitized, and
information that is covered by copy-
If too many libraries embrace
an electronic means of
disseminating and preserving
information, the average
citizen's intellectual freedom
and the right of access to
information will be controlled
because a small group of
people will determine what is
included on the Internet.
North Carolina Libraries
right laws is not generally accessible.
Those persons with the money will
omake the rules, and those who invest
billions in the new digitized world will
have control of access to knowledge and
information, and limitation of intellec-
tual freedom is boundless.�
Because of the information explo-
sion, the varied formats used in publish-
ing, and the introduction of electronic
publishing into the information arena,
the task of providing patrons with com-
prehensive access to information has
become even more challenging. Add-
ing in the factors of limited budgets and
protesters, the challenges librarians must
overcome to safeguard the public rights
to have sufficient information for in-
formed decision-making will be great.
Although these issues are significant
and the costs great, academic librarians
must not abdicate their mission to pro-
vide sufficient written information to
educate and inform the public. Build-
ing and sustaining comprehensive aca-
demic collections guarantees that intel-
lectual freedom will be upheld. Librar-
ies without extensive resources should,
as a group, decide which ones will pro-
vide access to specific formats or highly
specialized subjects, and design a reli-
able, efficient, timely means to trans-
port information among libraries. These
efforts are important and will ensure
that the library mission to inform the
masses continues to be met.
References
1 Frank Hoffman, Intellectual Free-
dom and Censorship: An Annotated Bibli-
ography (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press,
1989) Fala
2 Plummer Alston Jones, Jr., oFrom
Censorship to Intellectual Freedom to
Empowerment: The Evolution of the
Social Responsibility of the American
Public Library: A Bibliographic Essay,�
North Carolina Libraries 51 (Fall 1993):
136.
3 Kristin H. Gerhard, Trudi E.
Jacobson, and Susan G. Williamson, oIn-
dexing Adequacy and Interdisciplinary
Journals: The Case of WomenTs Stud-
ies,� College & Research Libraries 54
(March 1994): 125.
4 Kay Klayman Brown, oInformation
Poverty: The Rose of General Periodical
Indexing,� in Unequal Access to Informa-
tion Resources: Problems and Needs of the
WorldTs Poor (Ann Arbor: Pierian Press,
1988): 25-27.
5S Mark L. Gordon and Diana J.P.
McKensie, oFrom County Roads to Su-
perhighways: Keeping Pace with the New
Business and Legal Turns on the Infor-
North Carolina Libraries
mation Super Highway,� Illinois Librar-
ies 76 (Summer 1994): 124.
6 Thomas J. Delaughry, oGate-
keeping on the Internet,� The Chronicle
of Higher Education 41 (November 23,
1994): A21.
7 William L. Whitson, oFree, Fee or
Subsidy? The Future Role of Libraries,�
College & Research Library News 55 (July-
August 1994): 426.
8 Tbid., 427.
9 Carol Tenopir, oElectronic Pub-
lishing,� Library Journal 119 (April 1,
1994): 42.
10 David L. Wilson, oInternet Users
Get New Alert on Hackers,� The Chronicle
of Higher Education 41 (March 3, 1995):
A19-21.
11 Michael Gorman, oThe Treason of
the Learned: The Real Agenda of Those
Who Would Destroy Libraries and
Books,� Library Journal 119 (February
15, 1994): 131.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS ...
Pauletta Brown Bracy
Education: B.A., Fisk University; M.L.S., University of Pittsburgh;
Ph.D., The University of Michigan
Position: Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Sciences at
North Carolina Central University
Frances Bryant Bradburn
Education: B.A., Wake Forest University; M.L.S., UNC- Greensboro
Position: Chief Consultant, Library Media Programs, North Carolina Department
of Public Instruction
James V.Carmichael, Jr.
Education: B.A., Emory University; M.L.S., Emory University; Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill
Position: Associate Professor, Department of Library and Information Studies at
the UNC-Greensboro
Thomas Kevin B. Cherry
Education: B.A., UNC-Chapel Hill; M.L.S., UNC-Chapel Hill; Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill
Position: Local History Librarian, Rowan Public Library
Plummer Alston Jones, Jr.
Education: B.A., East Carolina University; M.S., Drexel University;
Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill
Position: Director of Library Services, Catawba College
Teresa Leonard
Education: B.A., UNC-Chapel Hill; M.L.S., UNC-Chapel Hill
Position: Director, News Research Department The News and Observer
Publishing Company
Rodney E. Lippard
Education: B.A., UNC-Chapel Hill; M.L.I.S. program, Graduate student, UNC-Greensboro
Position: Approval Plan Coordinator, UNC-Charlotte
Bill Roberts
Education: A.B., Earlham College; M.S. in L.S., Drexel University
Position: Director, Forsyth County Public Library System
Mae L. Rodney
Education: B.A., North Carolina Central University; M.L.S., North Carolina Central
University; Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill
Position: Director of Library Services, G. C. O'Kelly Library at Winston-Salem
State University
Justin L. Scroggs
Education: B.A., Wake Forest University; M.A.Ed., Wake Forest University
Position: Research Manager, News Research Department The News and Observer
Publishing Company
Susan Steinfirst
Education: B.A., Sarah Lawrence College; M.L.S., University of Maryland;
Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh
Position: Professor, School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill
Summer 1999 " 77
Point
oEternal Vigilance
is the Price of Liberty�
(Attributed to Thomas Jefferson)
by Bill Roberts
t a time when government employees are under attack in Oklahoma City and
Washington and Raleigh, when the NRA can issue a statement that ogovern-
ment Officials� are ojack-booted terrorists� the librarian at least knows that his
role in the defense of Intellectual Freedom is not only legitimate but also
imperative as a defense for democracy. To turn our backs on fifty years of the
progressive realization by the library world that every citizen deserves access to
the world of knowledge and that each individual should have his or her right to make up
his own mind as to what he wants to read, see, or hear, would be to turn our backs on the
gains of an entire generation of Americans. The librarian stands at the doorway of the
house of knowledge, preaching free access to every form of material and expression!
It was not always so. Early librarians tended to be censors " they wanted only the
best books in the library. As a young director in Iowa in 1965, I threw out so many Arcadia
and Avalon and Hardy Boy books that the Library Board of Trustees questioned the
shrinking of the collection by the Director. Today the Forsyth County Public Library buys
all of these books for their patrons without any questions.
If a librarian in 1970 lost his job defending Intellectual Freedom, he could go down
the street and get another job, usually at no loss of salary. Losing your job and/or causing
your library to lose its popular standing in the community are results that most library
directors want to avoid. Second, a librarian has to decide how far he will go defending an
unpopular topic. Most people will defend a librarian wanting to keep Catcher in the Rye in
the library. Fewer people will defend Mapplethorpe and his photographs. Fewer still will
defend a Ku Klux Klan exhibit in the local library; in fact, the defense of the Klan or the
American Nazi Party can cost the support of other community liberals who would usually
back Intellectual Freedom.
What should be the position of the librarian as we approach the year 2000? Most
public and school librarians are members of a county or school bureaucracy that has a
procedure for handling complaints or grievances. This procedure should be set out and
known by all involved. In order for librarians to protect themselves, they need to make
sure that their input is part of the total process, and that they do not stand out. They
definitely must not be seen as opposing the School Board, the Library Board or the County
Commissioners. Librarians make the points that need to be made, and should involve the
Board Attorney or County Attorney for a legal opinion as well. Then they should accept
the decision as made by the board, commission, or court.
Librarians basically are liberal. Librarians basically are fair people who want to
provide a balanced view in every library, and most librarians came into librarianship
because they wanted to help other individuals better themselves and prepare themselves
for a place in our society.
We serve like the vestal virgins of Rome under a set of rules decreed by the American
Library Association that are generally accepted by all. Librarians are expected to defend
Intellectual Freedom, but they are no longer expected to lose their jobs over it.
Is Intellectual Freedom a legitimate issue for library professionals today? As libraries
enter the world of the Information Highway, the World Wide Web, and the shrinking of
the Planet Earth, the librarian stands in a place of honor: the guarantor of the Demo-
cratic way of life through the provision of all knowledge to all people. Yes, it is a
legitimate issue!
78 " Summer 1999 North Carolina Libraries
Looking for Love
in All the Wrong Places
by Harry Tuchmayer, Column Editor
tTs nice to know that the survival of democracy comes down to sex! After all, it
seems that everything else in todayTs world does. In fact, librarians can sleep easy
tonight knowing that their stalwart defense of the 616.85835Ts and that special
project in beefing up the 616.96Ts will aid us not only in the pursuits of the flesh,
but in the much loftier pursuit of intellectual freedom.
DonTt misunderstand, I like sex " and I think you have
the right to like it, not like it, or tell me that itTs none of my business ip se ies
what you like or donTt like. But what does any of this have to do Isnt it hypocritical to argue
with libraries and intellectual freedom? Can somebody please tell me that we stan d fi rm aga j nst
how Doeena RenshawTs Seven Weeks To Better Sex contributes any- : :
seep tine body politic? " Obviously, the body politic ainTt what it cen sorsh Ip when we quietly
used to be! : ;
The pursuit of oneTs sexual pleasure has been called many things censor, by choice, materials
in the past, from perverse to liberating, but ITve never heard it ue :
called an intellectual pursuit and quite frankly, I resent it! Intellec- we deem In appr opr. 1a i.
tual pursuits may have changed somewhat over the years, but not *
that much. Titillating pictures, graphic descriptions of intimate C00 exp ensive, or of Pp oor
acts, and other published works meant solely to arouse may have q Ua lity M
their place in bookstores and on nightstands, but not necessarily in rater:
the public library. " Tuchmayer
That doesnTt mean there isnTt a market for this material, nor does
it mean that publishers should be prevented from selling or distributing
such filth. Buying sexually explicit material, or even a good old ohow to
manual� on the finer points of lovemaking, may be perfectly appropriate
purchases for individuals in need of advice, assistance, or just plain fun,
but itTs an inappropriate purchase for a publicly supported institution.
Librarians can and should support oaccess to every form of material and
expression,� but it doesnTt have to be free and available in the library.
In fact, try finding any good smut, pornography, or even a current Librarians are e xpected
sex manual in the library " you canTt! Libraries donTt buy these things
very often, and why should they? Aside from the very practical reason to defend Intellec tual
that these books rarely, if ever, stay in your collection very long " in
fact, you might as well just give then away " they just donTt warrant the Free dom, but they
spending of precious dollars on inappropriate materials.
Librarians make purchasing decisions all the time, and rarely, if ever, aren ot exp ected Ke) / ose
do they decide to purchase this stuff. Is that censorship, or common reo :
sense? And if we are not buying it, then why are we always making such th elr J ob S over It.
a loud noise about keeping it in the library? IsnTt it hypocritical to argue
that we stand firm against censorship when we quietly censor, by choice, " Roberts
materials we deem oinappropriate, too expensive, or of poor quality�
according to one reviewer's opinion?
Intellectual freedom is not about the right to publish and display perverse and vile
photos of a deeply personal act. It is, and has always been about the right to say and argue
a point of view, about the right to take a courageous stand on issues of public meaning
and importance, without fear of censorship and retribution. Perverts who hide behind this
banner do the principles of intellectual freedom and librarians a disservice.
North Carolina Libraries Summer 1999 " 79
PW ee: to the
n keeping with the theme of this issue of North
Carolina Libraries, oS*x in the Library,� this edition of
Wired to the World will cover a major free dating
service available on the Internet. American Singles is
a nationwide, nonprofit dating service run by Rich
Gosse, who describes himself as oAmericaTs foremost author-
ity on the Singles Lifestyle.� Gosse, author of How to Find a
Lasting Relationship, The Singles Guide to America, A Good Man
is Easy to Find, and The Divorce Book, is a frequent guest on
talk shows such as Oprah Winfrey, Donahue, and CNN. He
also travels the lecture circuit. You can reach Mr. Gosse via e-
mail at: 73125.11 35@compuserve.com
American Singles can be accessed via MOSAIC or
Netscape, at the URL: http://www.apk.net/as/ . The
American Singles Home Page contains links to five additional
pages: Men Seeking Women; Women Seeking Men; a sneak
preview at the American Singles Picture Book; instructions on
how to respond to listings in American Singles, and an
application for joining the American Singles nonprofit dating
service. American Singles is a CNI (Coalition for Network
Information) affiliate and displays its logo on its home page.
Joining American Singles is as easy as filling out an online
registration form. The form requests the standard dating
information: name, phone number, race, age, sex, occupa-
tion, education, children, height, weight, hair color, eye
color; information about smoking, drinking, drug use; othree
adjectives that describe me best are�; and type of relation-
ship desired (dating, committed (I wonTt touch that one "
WTW editor), and marriage). Similar information is re-
quested about the person you are seeking: race; acceptable
age range; minimum educational preference;
smoking\drinking\drugs OK? Respondents also are asked to
estimate how many miles away the person can live from
them, and to describe the type of person they are seeking.
Most information is provided on a voluntary basis by the
applicant as desired. If you send in the form, you also are
asked to certify that you are eighteen years old or older,
single, and not currently in a ocommitted� (here is that word
again!) relationship. American Singles is further authorized to
release all information provided on the form, does not
screen members, and assumes no liability regarding the
dating of individuals. While the American Singles dating
service is free, voluntary contributions from users of the
service are accepted.
If you like, you can also send in a photograph and it will
be included in a forthcoming American Singles Picture Book. A
example of this picture directory can be seen by clicking on
the oSneak a peek� line on the American Singles Home Page.
80 " Summer 1999
orld
" by Ralph Lee Scott
Three sample entries with photographs of the singles are
included on this page. At this point you can cut to the chase
(so to speak) and go to either of two pages: Men Seeking
Women, or Women Seeking Men. Each of the these sections
is organized by country, state, and then city. For example
this week, there are two men in Arizona seeking women, the
first listed is in Mesa, and the second is in Phoenix. Each
gives his first name, race, age, occupation, the famous three
adjectives that describe him best (ofun,� ohappy,� oloyal� in
the case of the Mesa guy), what he enjoys, and the type of
relationship he is seeking. (No one is listed as: odumb,�
ostupid,� and odull�; although one person lists himself as
omischievous� as a come on! Most are ostable,� oloving,�
etc.) A typical entry follows: oBobbi, Oakland, African-
American, 59, Librarian, MA, 5T5/118, NS/ND, adventurous,
genuine, serene, classy. Enjoys performing arts, read, walk.
OPEN to D/O or C/R with SM, Black preferred, 50-65, HS+,
NS/NA/ND, fit,stable, authentic, caring, kind, fin.secure;
within 90 miles. W4954.� Some international respondents
are listed (this week Canada, Germany, and New Zealand),
and this will no doubt grow as the number of Internet users
increases. The person from New Zealand oenjoys hike� (sic!),
and likes to travel and dance anywhere!
After you have made a selection from the list of people
waiting to meet you in American Singles, there are three ways
you can respond. One choice is by USNAIL MAIL to Ameri-
can Singles, 4 Highland, San Rafael, CA 94901. Using this
method, you enclose a letter to the person using the code
number giving in their listing. American Singles will forward
the letter to the person unopened. A second way is through
the Compuserve e-mail address: 73125.1135 which happens
to be the address of Rich Gosse. A third way is through
CupidTs Switchboard, which is a specialized telephone answer-
ing service with two methods of access. The first is a regular
long distance toll charge call to 616-798-4887. Payment at
this number is via major credit card. The second method of
access to CupidTs Switchboard is through a 900 telephone
number, 900-726-7136. The cost here is $1.95 a minute and
calls can run up to ten minutes (thatTs $19.50 for those in
the dumb and dumber category). In both cases CupidTs
Switchboard will call the members you want to contact and
give them your phone number. If they are available, they
will either speak with you NOW, or call you back! (Oh, the
wonders of this modern technology!)
While there are many other dating services, some very
specialized, available on the Internet, American Singles claims
to be the only free service currently available! Some others
found on a recent Lycos search include: The CyberStore
North Carolina Libraries
Dating Service (http:// www.gate.net/
marketplace/Dating-Service.html);
The Ulti-Mate Dating Service (http://
www.primenet.com/~jekagan/
dating/); The NETCENTER-DATING
CENTER (http:// netcenter.com/
cetcentr/dating/index.html); and The
Alternative Lifestyle Dating Service for Bis
(http://www.cs.colorado.edu/
homes/mcbryan/public_html/bb/
715/10/summary.html). The Dating
Center ad reads, alas, oWin a free trip
to Mexico or Hawaii. Guide to the Best
in the Nation. Find IT Faster " Interac-
tive Yellow Pages! Females are admit-
ted FREE! ...Please send pictures where
the lighting is bright, such as an
outdoor situation, with the sun behind
the camera, so that ...�
The author hopes that Wired to
the World readers enjoyed reading
about American Singles and the many
other dating services available to
library patrons with Internet access.
Other articles in this oS*x in the
Library� edition of North Carolina
Libraries will help you deal with some
of the access issues raised by unbridled
patron Internet passion in the Library.
And you thought all those people were
looking at Internet library catalogs!
Instructions for the Preparation of Manuscripts
for North Carolina Libraries
1. North Carolina Libraries seeks to publish articles, materials reviews, and bibliographies of
professional interest to librarians in North Carolina. Articles need not be of a scholarly
onature, but they should address professional concerns of the library community in the state.
. Manuscripts should be directed to Frances B. Bradburn, Editor, North Carolina Libraries,
Media and Technology, State Dept. of Public Instruction, 301 N. Wilmington St., Raleigh,
NC 27601-2825.
. Manuscripts should be submitted in triplicate on plain white paper measuring 8 A/2°x 1
and on computer disk.
. Manuscripts must be double-spaced (text, references, and footnotes). Macintosh
computer is the computer used by North Carolina Libraries. Computer disks formatted for
other computers must contain a file of the document in original format and a file in ASCII.
Please consult editor for further information.
. The name, position, and professional address of the author should appear in the bottom left-
hand corner of a separate title page. The authorTs name should not appear anywhere else
on the document.
. Each page should be numbered consecutively at the top right-hand corner and carry the
title (abbreviated if necessary) at the upper left-hand corner.
_ Footnotes should appear at the end of the manuscript. The editors will refer to The Chicago
Manual of Style, 14th edition. The basic forms for books and journals are as follows:
Keyes Metcalf, Planning Academic and Research Library Buildings (New York:
McGraw, 1965), 416.
Susan K. Martin, oThe Care and Feeding of the MARC Format,� American
Libraries 10 (September 1970): 498.
. Photographs will be accepted for consideration but cannot be returned.
. Upon receipt, a manuscript will be acknowledged by the editor. Following review of the
manuscript by the editor and at least two jurors, a decision will be communicated to the
writer. A definite publication date cannot be given since any incoming manuscript will be
added to a manuscript bank from which articles are selected for each issue.
10. North Carolina Libraries holds the copyright for all accepted manuscripts. The journal is
available both in print and electronically over the North Carolina Information Network.
11. Issue deadlines are February 10, May 10, August 10, and November 10. Manuscripts for a
particular issue must be submitted at least 2 months before the issue deadline.
BROADFOOT'S OF WENDELL
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Phone: (800) 444-6963 * Fax: (919) 395-6008
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- BROADFOOT PUBLISHING COMPANY
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Phone: (919) 686-4379 * Fax (919) 686-4379
North Carolina Libraries
Now Available " NORTH CAROLINA CONFEDERATE MILITIA OFFICERS ROSTER edited and completely
indexed by Stephen E. Bradley, Jr. " CHRONICLES OF THE CAPE FEAR RIVER by James Sprunt "BETHEL
TO SHARPSBURG (2 vols.) by D. H. Hill -NORTH CAROLINA REGIMENTS (5 vols.) by Walter Clark
Being Reprinted "THE COLONIAL AND STATE RECORDS OF NORTH CAROLINA (30 vols.)
"The most important genealogical and historical source for North Carolina since 1790."
Summer 1995 " 81
NORTH CAROLINA
Dicks
Dorothy Hodder, Compiler
n January 5, 1862, twenty-year-old George Job Huntley wrote his friends
and relations back home: oI have not read nary letter from home since I
come to camp. I have been dreaming a good deal about home for several
nights and would like to hear from you all.�
George Job Huntley of Rutherford County and and Montgomery -
CountyTs Burwell Thomas Cotton were former school teachers in their
early twenties when they joined North CarolinaTs 34th regiment; neither man lived
to become a veteran. As a part of Stonewall JacksonTs oLight Division,� the 34th
served in every major battle fought by the Army of Northern Virginia, from the
Seven Days Battles to Appomatox Court House. In their letters home, these two men
reveal the excitements, boredom, fears, and general misery of camp life and battle-
field. Cotton, commenting on the battle at Chancellorsville, wrote,
oIt was the most horrible sight I ever beheld. The battle field was
burned over & the dead & wounded were burned badly.� Huntley
Michael W. Taylor. told those back home that othe death of a man here is nothing
The Cry is War, War, War: more than the death of a hog, or at any rate not much more.�
Huntley, who thought Goldsborough was the onicest place I ever
The Civil War Correspondence saw in my life,� began writing home requesting summer clothes on
of Lts. Burwell Thomas Cotton March 20, 1862. He finally received them, covered in honey that
had leaked out of another container in the package, on July 23,
and George J ob H untley, 1862. The letters do reveal a few lighter moments. Cotton, who
34th Regiment received his new set of drawers in December 1863 (and hoped that
they would olast longer than the war�), told his sister in a March
North Carolina Troops . 1864 letter that he was overy sore having been engaged in snow-
Dayton, Ohio: Morningside,1994. balling for two days.� He assured her oit was fine sport but I think I
194 pp. $30.00 plus $2.50 shipping and handling. have pretty well paid for my part.�
ISBN 0-89029-321-X. Michael W. TaylorTs compilation of these letters home con-
tains a brief history of the 34th, a good index, twenty-five photo-
graphs (twenty were of men mentioned in the letters), and six
battle maps. His footnoted annotations consist primarily of
individualsT service records gleaned from standard sources such as
ClarkTs N.C. Regiments. Succinct notes in the text provide a valuable historical
framework for the letters"the explanatory notes never overwhelm the correspon-
dence. A more thorough discussion of the original letters themselves, however,
would have proved helpful. Future researchers will be left to wonder if they were a
part of larger sets of family papers or, for that matter, where they currently reside.
In his last letter written on June 17, 1864, Burwell Thomas Cotton told his
sister, oI fear the end of the war is a long way off.� It wasnTt for him; he fell six days
later. Just as George Job Huntley had expectantly awaited news from home during
his first months of service, readers will quickly flip to each letter, waiting to hear
from the young lieutenants.
Works such as these give a voice to history.
" Thomas Kevin B. Cherry, Rowan Public Library
82 " Summer 1999 North Carolina Libraries
his little book contains nineteen short stories, averaging four to five pages in
length, culled from the history of the Cape Fear region. Unfortunately
readers expecting the bizarre, as promised in the title, are likely to be disap-
pointed. Mr. Hairr is a faithful reporter of local traditions that surely are
common in many areas, including a river rafter who fell in the water, a
patriot who fell afoul of Lord Cornwallis, a construction worker
entombed in the poured concrete of a bridge pier, and not one but
two operations that were successful but for the fact that the patient
John Hairr. ; : t
died. Even those tales that could make some claim to bizarreness,
Bizarre Tales like oThe Murder of a Tory Captain� or oWhen Flesh and Blood
of the Cape Fear Country. Rained Down,� suffer in the telling. Hairr is not a storyteller, and his
conscientious, unembellished presentation of the few facts available
Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina: Triangle Books, on these cases adds up to curious anecdotes of local interest, but not
1995. 88 pp. $9.95. ISBN 1-884570-17-8. blood-chilling stories with wide appeal.
Recommended for comprehensive North Carolina history
collections.
" Samantha Hunt, New Hanover County Public Library
ay (short for Jacqueline) Winbourne, Barbara WrightTs feisty heroine, is too old
for her years. She and her father Jack raised each other after her mother died
of a ruptured blood vessel in the brain when Jay was five. Jack Winbourne
ought to be writing plays, but, lacking confidence in his writing, he trades
penny stocks instead. He devotes intense study to developing trading systems
that he then lacks the confidence to follow, and loses money steadily.
While still in high school, Jay has become skilled at juggling creditors
and manuevering around her fatherTs mood swings. When he
confesses that he has lost her college fund trying to recoup other
losses, however, she breaks away and moves from their home in
Barbara Wright. Colorado to New York City to try life on her own.
Ea sy Money. In the course of exploring the city, Jay falls for Russ, a jazz pianist
fourteen years her senior with a history of serious drug abuse, and
Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1995. takes him as her first lover. She is lucky enough to find work as a
390 pp. $18.95. ISBN 0-945575-63-7. secretary for Yang Byung-suk, a highly cultured Korean novelist, blind
North Carolina Libraries
from birth, who is writing his autobiography. Jay was an indifferent
student in high school, but Mr. YangTs wide-ranging interests and
scholarly discipline prove to be a good stand-in for the college
~ education she is missing, and provide a strong contrast to RussTs and
JackTs wasted talents.
The other solid influence in JayTs life is her North Carolina grandmother, Leeta
Mae, source of family history, quilts, love, recipes, and values. JayTs and JackTs visits
home to the relatives they regard as hopelessly unsophisticated provide a great deal of
the charm and humor of the book. Although Jay is not conscious of having much in
common with her country Mimmaw, she has grown up to be much the same sort of
nurturer, taking care first of Jack and then Russ. She lacks her grandmotherTs balance,
however. Even though she remains relatively unchanged as Russ grows bitter about his
musicianTs income and turns to serious drug dealing and using, she suffers a break-
down after they break up and he subsequently goes to prison. Her father, who has at
long last taken himself in hand and resumed writing (with his mother as heroine),
comes to New York and nurses her back to health.
Jay, a creative person drawn to creative people, expresses herself primarily
through junk sculpture. As she observes her father, Russ, and Mr. Yang at work (or
not), she learns a great deal about art as work worth doing. Barbara Wright has written
a satisfying coming of age novel, skillfully tracing JayTs slow transition from a naive
girl, constantly imposed on by others, to a young woman with a sense of what she
wants to learn and accomplish for herself. The descriptions of North Carolina are
particularly evocative.
Recommended for high school and public libraries.
" Dorothy Hodder, New Hanover County Public Library
Summer 1999 " 8%
n the 1970s a national news reporter visiting North Carolina came to the
conclusion that oThis is Bill Friday country.� That brief statement was indica-
tive of the power and influence that William C. Friday, President of the
University of North Carolina (UNC) from 1956 to 1986, wielded within his
native state. A man of patience, dedication, and dogged persistence, Friday
attained his influence by using his low-key personal communication skills to
reach compromise and consensus with others rather than by riding
roughshod over them.
RG A Laake During FridayTs tenure, UNC weathered the infamous Speaker
Ban Law, the emergence of the UNC system (including the contro-
William F riday: versy over the East Carolina University School of Medicine), the
Power. Purpo se, and Vietnam War and campus activistsT protests, and a protracted
, 4
struggle with the federal government over integration policies.
American H. igher Education. While dealing with these major challenges, Friday also worked on a
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1995. 494 pp. $29.95. ISBN 0-8078-2167-S.
Power, Parpo'
Other Publications of Interest
84 " Summer 1999
national education panel under President Johnson and played a
major role in bringing the National Center for the Humanities to
the Research Triangle Park.
While this book contains many of the standard elements of a
biography, William A. Link, a professor of history at UNC-Greens-
boro, has written about more than just the facts of FridayTs life. This book is also a
history of UNC and the UNC system as it changed during the thirty years of FridayTs
leadership. At the same time, it is an examination of the local, state, and national
politics that swirled around Friday and UNC. It is at the intersection of these points
that Professor LinkTs narrative rises to the level of high drama and captures the
readerTs attention. For example, by using meticulous scholarship, Link is able to
create a oYou Were There� feeling for the reader as he describes the intricate move-
ments behind such events as the Speaker Ban Law or Governor ScottTs 1969 proposal
to send the National Guard onto the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.
This is an excellent work that all academic, community college, and public
libraries will want to add to their collections. It presents a particularly balanced view
of the era of Bill FridayTs UNC presidency that is well written and documented. The
volume has an extensive bibliography, a comprehensive index, and is illustrated
with black-and-white photographs.
" John Welch, State Library of North Carolina
The second volume of The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance, edited by Joe A. Mobley,
is now available from the North Carolina Division of Archives and History. Its
publication is notable not only because it covers 1863, VanceTs first full year as Civil
War Governor of North Carolina and a crucial year in the history of the Confed-
eracy, but also because it has been in process for three decades under several differ-
ent editors. (The first volume, edited by Frontis W. Johnston and covering the years
1843-1862, was released in 1963.) Major defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, along
with public dissent and unrest over conscription, desertion, inflation, shortages, tax
in kind, impressment, speculation, Federal raids, and fear of insurrection, all added
up to widespread disillusionment with the war in North Carolina during 1863.
VanceTs papers paint a vivid picture of a governor torn between his peopleTs fears
and hardships, and his own loyalty to the cause of Southern independence. Con-
tains an index and calendars of documents included or omitted in this volume.
(1995; Historical Publications Section, Division of Archives and History, 109 E. Jones
St., Raleigh, NC 27601-2807; xxxix, 436 pp.; $35.00, plus $3.00 postage and han-
dling; ISBN 0-86526-262-4.)
Another popular sport in North Carolina is described in Jerry BledsoeTs first pub-
lished book, The WorldTs Number One, Flat-Out, All-Time Great Stock Car Racing
Book, just released with a new introduction in a 20th Anniversary Edition. Bledsoe
explains how stock car racing got started and why, and explores the charisma that
keeps drivers and fans coming back for more. (1995; Down Home Press, P.O. Box
4126, Asheboro, NC 27204; 335 pp.; paper, $13.95 plus $2.00 for shipping and $.84
tax for NC residents; ISBN 1-878086-36-7.)
North Carolina Libraries
ee on ne ee eee eee ee eS
The fourth edition of Dr. Bertram Hawthorne GroeneTs guide, Tracing Your Civil
War Ancestor, includes revised and updated information on important source books,
state and national archives, and forms necessary to trace the military history of a Civil
War veteran. It also offers information about the National Park Service Civil War
SoldierTs System, scheduled to premiere in 1996, that will offer parts of the army
records of Union and Confederate soldiers on computer at National Park Service Civil
War commemorative sites. (1995; John F. Blair, 1406 Plaza Drive, Winston-Salem, NC
27103; xii, 130 pp.; $14.95; ISBN 0-89587-123-8.)
Daniel Barefoot of Lincolnton, North Carolina, spent fifteen years exploring the
stateTs 301-mile-long coastline and writing the local history and stories he collected.
At the end of his journey he had a single-spaced 1,147-page manuscript weighing
fifteen pounds. John Blair, Publisher, took on this mammoth work and has trans-
formed it into the latest additions to its popular Touring the Backroads series, Touring
the Backroads of North CarolinaTs Upper Coast and Touring the Backroads of North
CarolinaTs Lower Coast. Reminiscent of the WPA guides of the 1930s, these guides
are rich in the history, legends, and ghost stories of the regionTs largest cities and most
obscure country roads. They are broken down into marvelously detailed tours that
travelers could cover in a long weekend, and are illustrated with black-and-white
photographs and detail maps. Each has an appendix of addresses, a detailed bibliogra-
phy, and an index. The writing is exceptional, avoiding the real estate gush and the
monotonous listing of hours and prices of the run-of-the-mill travel guide. While
locals will, of course, note minor mistakes, they will most likely say that Barefoot has
done their corner of the coast justice. Few readers will pick these up without feeling
the impulse to toss them into a bag and hit the road. (1995; John F. Blair, 1406 Plaza
Drive, Winston-Salem, NC 27103; xiv, 365 pp. and xiv, 363 pp.; paper, each $15.95;
ISBN 0-89587-125-4 and 0-89587-126-2.)
In his introduction to Country Roads of North Carolina, Glenn Morris notes that
oNorth Carolina has more country roads than you have time.� This slim volume is a
companion to exploring a very few of them, in nine areas scattered from the moun-
tains to the Outer Banks. MorrisTs comfortable philosophy is oif you donTt have to be
somewhere, you canTt get lost,� but he provides detailed directions to exploring each
area, with telephone numbers for local attractions at the ends of the sections. No maps
are included, but beautiful pencil drawings by Cliff Winner make this a very attractive
book. Indexed. (1994; Country Roads Press, P.O.Box 286, Lower Main Street, Castine,
Maine 04421; xi, 157 pp.; paper, $9.95; ISBN 1-56626-067-1.)
Scarcely a quarter of the year goes by without at least one new book about fishing in
North Carolina, a topic of apparently unlimited interest. This time itTs Fly Fishing in
North Carolina by Buck Paysour, author of Tar Heel Angler and Bass Fishing in North
Carolina. This folksy mixture of advice and anecdote includes lists of places to fish and
order fishing tackle, books to read, addresses for more information, and an index.
Senior fly fishermen will appreciate the large print format. (1995; Down Home Press,
P.O. Box 4126, Asheboro, NC 27204; 288 pp.; paper, $14.95 plus $2.00 shipping and
$.89 tax for N.C. residents; ISBN 1-878086-38-3.)
Horseback Riding Trail Guide to North Carolina, by Martha Branon Holden, fills a
real need for public libraries, especially in areas where this sport is popular. In
addition to listing trails in North Carolina National Forests, Parks, and Seashores;
State Parks, Forests, and Natural Areas; Game Lands; and Regional Trails, it also
briefly lists local trails in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The first
section outlines basic trail guidelines, including rules, safety, and horse restraint,
while the final sections detail first aid for horses and riders, and camp recipes.
Includes maps and photographs, lists of sources of information and gear, bibliogra-
phy, and index. (1994; Bandit Books, P.O. Box 11721, Winston-Salem, NC 27611-
1721, available from John F. Blair, 1406 Plaza Drive, Winston-Salem, NC 27103; xiii,
258 pp.; paper, $11.95; ISBN 1-878177-06-0.)
Loyal Jones and Billy Edd Wheeler have published their fourth collection, More
Laughter in Appalachia: Southern Mountain Humor, packed with jokes, anecdotes,
poems, riddles, songs, and other artifacts of Southern wit. (1995; August House
Publishers, P.O. Box 3223, Little Rock, AR 72203; 218 pp.; paper, $10.95; ISBN O-
a a hee: Oy 48a Ha deds)
North Carolina Libraries Summer 1999 " 89
he aguiappe* (North Canrcliniaua
compiled by Plummer Alston Jones, Jr.
Out of the Closet, But Not on the Shelves:
North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Newspapers
by Thomas Kevin B. Cherry
in collaboration with Plummer Alston Jones, Jr. and Rodney E. Lippard
n 1947, using carbon paper and the office typewriter, a
young Los Angeles secretary produced nine issues of Vice
Versa, the first lesbian publication in American history.
Although she could only produce ten copies of each
edition, these copies were passed from friend to friend, reach-
ing dozens, perhaps hundreds of women, all eager to read about
themselves and others like them. When told by a friend that
she shouldnTt be opublishing� this work, that it might even get
her arrested, the secretary replied, oWhy? I donTt mention the
city itTs from. I donTt mention anybodyTs name. And itTs not
a dirty magazine by any stretch of the imagination.� Her friend
replied that even though Vice Versa had no ocuss words or
anything like that in it,� the newsletter would still be consid-
ered dirty by straight people because it was about the ogirls.�!
The friend had good reason to offer this warning. In 1924,
ChicagoTs Society for Human Rights published the journal
Friendship and Freedom, the first U. S. gay publication. The
organizers were summarily arrested on obscenity charges.�
Thirty years later, the October 1954 issue of One, a Los Angeles
gay publication then nearly two years old, was seized by the
local postmaster for being oobscene, lewd, lascivious, and
filthy.� The issueTs cover story was on the law of mailable
material. The resulting legal case went to the U. S. Supreme
Court which cleared the magazine, but offered no written
opinion.T This controversial history is reflected in the holdings
of gay and lesbian newspapers in North Carolina libraries.
North Carolina can claim three gay and lesbian newspa-
pers: Community Connections, The Front Page, and Q Notes. A
recent phone poll of the ten public libraries in the state serving
the largest populations found that not one had a single issue of
these publications on its shelves. A similar survey of North
Carolina college and university libraries showed almost the
same results. Duke began collecting The Front Page in 1989 and
Wake Forest in 1994. Only the North Carolina Collection at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill maintains full runs
of The Front Page and Q Notes; it just began collecting Commu-
nity Connections. No other college or university reported
holdings of these publications. Like those Los Angeles women
in the 1940s, there must be a number of gays and lesbians in
North Carolina seeking information about themselves and
others like them, but unlike the slim carbon copies of Vice Versa
86 " Summer 1999
that attempted to meet those womenTs needs, these three North
Carolina publications are professionally produced, widely dis-
tributed, and cover a broad spectrum of information: news
articles (both from wire services and staff-written), features,
commentary, resource directories and announcements, re-
views (books, music, theatre), and even cartoons.
ne of the more important services offered by these
three publications is their listings of gay and lesbian
events and resources that are covered by very few, if
any, other publications. Here one finds the pertinent informa-
tion regarding gatherings such as the NC Gay and Lesbian
AttorneyTs Spring meeting, the Charlotte Gay and Lesbian Film
Series, a performance by the Common Woman Chorus, meet-
ings of Gay Fathers, and a country western two-step dance.
Here musicals, plays, book signings, and other cultural events
find column space alongside listings of HIV services and ogay
friendly� houses of worship. Resource directories list the
telephone numbers to various North Carolina religious bod-
ies, educational associations, and various support groups and
twelve-step programs. The numbers, varieties, and locales of
groups and associations in these lists might surprise first-time
readers (e.g. the Lambda Amateur Radio Club in Fairview and
a gay and lesbian political potluck in Kernersville). In a world
where few other media sources dare to speak the names of these
organizations, these few lines of typescript provide the only
real publicity and notice groups such as these get.
Since few readers of these publications subscribe and most
pick them up free of charge in clubs, restaurants, and book-
stores, a hefty portion of the cost of publication is borne by
advertising. All three periodicals carry advertisements ranging
from real estate ads to church announcements and from
caterers to pet groomers. A large percentage of these ads come
from bar and club promotions. Among the notices of drink
specials, theme nights, and burlesque shows are photographs
of high-haired female impersonators, campy comedians, and
other performers. Sometimes a full-page and often a double-
page spread, the ads regularly feature photographs of young,
muscular men in their underwear, much like the photograph of
rap singer Marky Mark that was plastered throughout AmericaTs
shopping malls a year or two ago. Personal ads and o1-900�
phone lines also generate revenue for all three newspapers.
These personal ads are slightly more explicit than those that
North Carolina Libraries
AR SRY RE AS TT SEE I TL TS ESTE EA
appear in RaleighTs News and Observer
and the Research TriangleTs newsweekly,
The Independent. The Front Page, which
runs the greatest number and most ex-
The Front Page. Raleigh, NC: Bugle Publishing, Inc., 1979- . Bimonthly.
P.O. Box 27928, Raleigh, NC 27611. E-mail: frntpage@aol.com.
The Front Page is the oldest of the three publications at sixteen (and only
three years younger than North CarolinaTs oldest gay publication, Lambda,
the newsletter of UNC-CHTs gay, lesbian, and bisexual group). It carries the
greatest number of news wire pieces of the three. With compilation col-
umns devoted to North Carolina, national, and world news, as well as
items originating from the GayNet News Service, this Raleigh-based publica-
tion is filled with brief, one- or two-inch pieces with titles such as oSex Ed
Debate Flares in McDowell County,� oHIV Protein Discovery,� oIdaho
Group Planning Another Ballot Measure,� and oAustralian Gays Win
Partner Benefits.� In addition to these short squibs, The Front Page does
publish staff-written news items, primarily concerning North Carolina-
based or regional events. oChapel Hill Recognizes Partnerships� and oTriad
Political Group Forms� comprised most of the first page of the April 28,
1995 issue. This same issue contained a two-page interview with Candace
Gingrich, half-sister to Newt Gingrich, and a chapter from SchoolTs Out, a
soon-to-be-published work that chronicles the experiences of gay/lesbian/
straight alliances in the Chapel Hill and Brookline, Massachusetts public
schools. The All American Boy, memoirs of Scott Peck, son of Marine Col.
Fred Peck, was also reviewed in this issue. The Front Page offers commen-
tary, with editorialists in this same issue covering the Oklahoma bombing
and Conservative-induced homophobia. It also publishes three cartoons, all
with national distribution: oThe Chosen Family,� oThe Mostly Unfabulous
Social Life of Ethan Green,� and oDykes to Watch Out For.�
Q Notes. Charlotte, NC: Pride Publishing & Typesetting, 1986- . Monthly.
P.O. Box 221841, Charlotte, NC 28222. E-mail: Pridtype@cybernetics.net.
The Charlotte-based publication in the trio, Q Notes contains wire service
pieces, as well. These articles concentrate on national issues and tend to be
fewer, but longer items with headlines such as oWhite House to Meet with
Gay and Lesbian Officials.� Q Notes also carries the most staff-written
material of these three North Carolina newspapers. Its May 1995 issue
featured articles written by staff concerning the Clinton military policy, the
fire at the White Rabbit Book Store in Charlotte, and the second National
Miss Gay Pageant held in Atlanta. Commentary in the issue touched upon
subjects including the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, community
involvement, and a piece on self image and beauty. It also carries a column
prepared by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
that tracks the portrayal of gays and lesbians in the media. In addition, the
May issue of Q Notes contained a short music review of oMessage of Love,� a
European dance house mix and one cartoon, oCurbside.�
Community Connections. Asheville, NC: Community Connections, 1988- .
Monthly. P.O. Box 18088, Asheville, NC 28814.
The smallest of the three newspapers and the only nonprofit publication of
the bunch, Community Connections has the look of a nonprofit with its wide
leading and large type. It carries no wire service reports, and most of its
articles are localized to the southern Applachian region. Coming out of
Asheville, this newspaper has a wide range of distribution that extends to
most of western North Carolina and parts of Virginia, Tennessee, and South
Carolina. It is also distributed in Atlanta. Features comprise a higher
percentage of the articles in Community Connections as compared to the two
other publications. oSpringtime in the North Carolina Mountains,�
oTimberfell Lodge, a Paradise for Men in the Southern Appalachians,� and
oLodging In and Around Asheville,� were headlines associated with the
three most prominent articles found in the April 1995 issue. News articles
included oPat Robertson Announces Antiviolence Stands on Air� and
oAsheville Gay Father Makes History.� One regular column, oBoots and
Saddles,� keeps track of the gay and lesbian country western activities in the
area. The April issue also contained a review of a recently released jazz disc,
Tom BriggsTs Moonlight, and one comic strip, oDykes to Watch Out For.�
North Carolina Libraries
plicit of these types of ads, attempts to
segregate most of this sort of advertising
to one classified opullout� section, al-
lowing readers not wishing to peruse
these items to dispose of them easily.
Community Connections actively edits
such ads to reflect the standards of main-
stream publications.
Libraries and librarians do not need
to be sold on the importance of newspa-
pers in a communityTs life; they recog-
nize their cultural importance and the
often unique information found upon
the tall, flimsy pages. As just one example
of this recognition, during the last several
years the North Carolina Newspaper
Project has gone to great lengths to at-
tempt to preserve Tar Heel newsprint for
future generations. In the case of these
three alternative newspapers, however, it
is apparent that libraries are not provid-
ing access to all of the resources that they
generally champion.
And, as it was in 1947 Los Angeles, so
it isin 1995 North Carolina: most readers
of gay and lesbian newspapers get their
copy from a friend who borrowed it from
an acquaintance who just happened to
visit some out-of-town nightspot.
References
1 Eric Marcus, Making History: The
Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights,
1945-1990, An Oral History (New York:
HarperPerennial, 1993): 6, 10.
2 Polly Thistlethwaite and Daniel
Tsang, oLesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender� in Magazines for Libraries,
edited by Bill Katz and Linda Sternberg
Katz (New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bowker,
1995): 745-58; andJohn DTEmilio, oDreams
Deferred� in Making Trouble: Essays On Gay
History, Politics, and the University (New
York: Routledge, 1992): 34-35.
3 Marcus, Making History, 2.
4 The ten public libraries serving the
largest populations were determined from
the State LibraryTs Statistics and Directory
of North Carolina Public Libraries, July 1,
1992-June 30, 1993. The ten largest col-
lege and university libraries in the state
were determined by number of books, as
listed on the State LibraryTs North Caro-
lina Information Network (NCIN). Phone
calls were made to the local reference
desk, except in cases where the call was
forwarded to the periodicals unit of the
library. Individuals on the staffs of these
newspapers did state that their publica-
tions were sent to some of the libraries
contacted.
Summer 19995 " 87
LLL LS TL IE TA I SP OP
NorTH CAROLINA LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
Minutes of the Executive Board
Members of the North Carolina Library Asso-
ciation Executive Board and guests met in the
media center of East Mecklenburg High School
on April 28, 1995, at 9:30 a.m. President Gwen
Jackson presided. The following Executive
Board members and committee chairs were
present: Augie Beasley, Margaret Blanchard,
Frances Bradburn, Joan Carothers, Wanda
Brown Cason, John Childers, Cynthia Cobb,
Martha E. Davis, David Fergusson, Nancy Clark
Fogarty, Janet L. Freeman, Richard Fulling,
Dale Gaddis, Beverley Gass, Gwen Jackson,
Gene Lanier, Judy LeCroy, Maria Miller, Sandra
Neerman, Christine Tomec, John Via, and
Cristina Yu. Also attending were Vice Chairs
Carol Freeman, Phyllis Johnson, Karen Perry,
and Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin.
President Jackson thanked Augie Beasley
who serves as media coordinator at East
Mecklenburg for serving as host for the
meeting. Principal Eugene Hawley welcomed
the group.
Christine Tomec was introduced as the
new administrative assistant for the associa-
tion. Ms. Tomec began work in mid-January.
Minutes of the January 20, 1995, meeting
were approved as was the TreasurerTs Report.
Christine Tomec presented the Member-
ship Report showing a current total of 1712
members. On December 31, 1994, 1804 mem-
berships expired. Renewal notices have been
mailed twice. As of this date 1146 have re-
newed their memberships. | One hundred
forty-nine new members have been received
into the association in 1995.
President Jackson congratulated Frances
Bradburn, Editor of North Carolina Libraries, for
the recent announcement that NCL has won
the 1995 H. W. Wilson Award. A blue ribbon
was presented to Ms. Bradburn as a symbol of
this honor.
Committee Reports
AIDS Materials Awareness Committee:
Frances Bradburn reported that the committee
will meet in June. A Friday morning program
is being planned for the NCLA Conference in
October.
Conference Committee: The NCLA Bi-
ennial Conference will be held in Greensboro
October 2-6, 1995. David Fergusson reminded
board members that the conference theme is
Libraries Link Lives. In May a postcard will be
mailed to association members, with full regis-
tration information being sent in August. Reg-
88 " Summer 1999
April 28, 1995
istration fees for the conference are the same as
in 1993. Members are urged to make hotel
reservations as soon as possible in order to get
conference rates. The Program Committee has
secured Hiram Davis, Deputy Librarian of Con-
gress, as speaker for the Ogilvie Lecture. The
Touring Theatre Ensemble of Greensboro will
perform for the Friday luncheon. Those with
suggestions for Table Talks should contact
Waltrene Canada. SIRS will sponsor a gala
reception from 5:00"7:00 on Thursday
evening. Because of space limitations, exhibits
will be in place on Wednesday and Thursday
only. Helen Tugwell is in charge of local ar-
rangements and has secured a dining room at
Guilford College as site of the Executive Board
Dinner.
Finance: Beverley Gass distributed a
written report that told of the committeeTs
meeting on April 7, 1995, to revise a draft of
procedures that govern NCLA operating funds.
This document is being written to define
budgetary practice as NCLA moves to a system
of fund accounting. Under the new system
the administrative assistant will have more
involvement in fiscal matters. Conference
funds procedures will be developed as well as
procedures for restricted funds that are man-
aged by sections and committees. Ms. Gass
asked that two forms be completed and re-
turned to her by May 26, 1995"one asking
for input about restricted funds and one re-
garding section accounts. Karen Perry noted
that two areas of concern are the handling of
conference funds and the delivery of cash to
the administrative assistant. She also asked
whether the reconciling of bank statements
by the past president would be difficult under
the new procedures. Janet Freeman answered
that this should not be a problem. Ms. Perry
expressed concern about the procedures re-
garding investments. Chair Gass responded
that an Investments Subcommittee would
probably be needed to make recommenda-
tions on this topic. She said that there would
be further revision of the NCLA Financial
Procedures statement and that the Finance
Committee would meet again in early June.
President Jackson asked that board members
be notified of the revision by e-mail and asked
the administrative assistant to print and dis-
tribute a list of board membersT e-mail ad-
dresses so that there could be correspondence
about this matter.
Governmental Relations: Carol
Southerland was not present, but President
Jackson reported that plans are well under- way
for Legislative Day in Washington, D.C. on
May 9, 1995.
Intellectual Freedom: Gene Lanier pre-
sented a written report detailing activity of
this committee for the first quarter of 1995.
He is serving on the ALA committee to formu-
late a new interpretation of the Library Bill of
Rights. The committee hopes to finalize its
work at the ALA Conference in Chicago in
June. The Chair urged all those who are using
or planning to use the Internet to formulate
an Acceptable Use Policy. He and Frances
Bradburn will present a program on this topic
in Chicago.
Membership: John Via distributed a list
of those recommended by the committee for
special honors to be awarded at the Biennial
Conference. Frances Bradburn made a motion
that oNCLA Membership Committee recom-
mendations for Life Membership, Honorary
Membership, and NCLA Distinguished Library
Service Award be accepted as presented.� Dale
Gaddis seconded the motion. It was approved
unanimously. Chair Via offered NCLA posters
with attached membership forms to any who
wanted to distribute them. Such posters have
brought in 23 new members in the past two
years. Cynthia Cobb asked if minuses in the
current membership report were to be expected.
Christine Tomec responded that the decline in
April was expected; figures should climb by
July. President Jackson said that letters pro-
moting NCLA membership have been sent to
both ALA and SELA members who live in
North Carolina but are not currently NCLA
members.
Publications: Sandy Neerman reported
that committee members met in Matthews on
April 18, 1995. Since the committee now
incorporates two former groups (Publications
and Marketing), discussion centered around
how the two will work together. Other topics
were conference planning and the Pass the
Buck campaign.
Special Projects: Patrick Valentine was
not present, but President Jackson pointed out
that the committee has been hard at work
approving grants for the Biennial Conference.
Reports of Work Groups
Intellectual Freedom: Gene Lanier stated
that the group has met all of its benchmarks.
Organizational Issues: Janet Freeman
North Carolina Libraries
distributed a report that showed the com-
bined section and round table responses to a
survey measuring reaction to the five vision
statements formulated by the work groups.
The report was for information only and re-
quired no action. Chair Freeman asked that
board members reflect on the survey results.
Personnel: The work group had no for-
mal report, but David Fergusson noted that
there seems to bea current trend toward reduc-
ing professional staff in the public libraries of
North Carolina. President Jackson asked that
the Personnel Work Group investigate this
situation and report to the board.
Technology: President Jackson said that
the progress of NCLA-L and the growth of the
Technology and Trends Round Table both re-
flect the work of this group.
Other Reports
North Carolina Libraries: Frances
Bradburn thanked the board for financial and
personal support that has enabled the journal
to win the H. W. Wilson Award for the 1994
publishing year. She noted that there were
some problems of distribution with the last
issue through no fault of the NCL staff.
ALA Councilor: Martha Davis gave a
report on the ALA Midwinter Conference held
in Philadelphia in February. A record number
attended. The hot topic for discussion was ALA
Goal 2000 which includes a recommendation
for a $25 dues increase to be spread over three
years in order to support the work of the
Washington Office. The issue of the composi-
tion of ALA Council was debated in round
table discussions at the conference. In the
general session it was decided not to address
the issue at this time. Whenever the matter is
introduced at general session Councilor Davis
will present the NCLA recommendation which
was approved in January, 1995, regarding elec-
tion of at-large Council members.
SELA Representative: Nancy Clark
Fogarty presented a written report with infor-
mation on the SELA Leadership Workshop
held in Atlanta March 24-25, 1995. The Octo-
ber conference in Charlotte was successful fi-
nancially, and attendance was good fora stand-
alone conference. The 1996 Conference will
be held in Lexington, Kentucky. Since the
decision about the 1998 Conference is not
final, board members were presented the fol-
lowing motion by Ms. Fogarty: o...that the
NCLA Executive Board inform me by vote of its
preference for the location of the 1998 SELA
Conference, with the choices being Green-
ville, SC, and Little Rock, AR.� Janet Freeman
seconded this motion. Board members voted
to support the Greenville location, and Presi-
dent Jackson asked that Ms. Fogarty vote ac-
cordingly.
Section and Round Table Reports
Documents: Rich Fulling noted that the
sectionTs spring meeting will be Friday, May
12, at North Carolina State University. Title of
the session will be Electronic Processing of Fed-
eral Documents: An Update on What North Caro-
lina Libraries Are Doing.
Library Administration & Management
Section: Dale Gaddis reported that the section
met on March 17. Plans were finalized for the
NCLA Conference program. There will be a
preconference session presented by Abigail
North Carolina Libraries
Hubbard using LAMATs Leadership Survival
Kit. In addition, three conference programs
are planned. The Ropes Course scheduled for
April 6 was canceled due to insufficient num-
ber of registrations. A meeting was also held on
March 17 to plan the first biennial NCLA
Leadership Institute which will occur in 1996.
The institute will be modeled after the Snow-
bird Institute offered in Utah, and participants
will be limited in number and selected for
diversity and leadership potential. Sylvia
Sprinkle-Hamlin has agreed to co-chair the
steering committee for the Institute; another
co-chair is yet to be named. The next meeting
of the section will be on June 16 in Durham.
NC Association of School Librarians:
Augie Beasley informed board members that
the 1996 NCASL Conference will be held Au-
gust 7-9 in High Point. The NC Department of
Public Instruction will provide assistance for
this conference. NCASL plans to have one-day
meetings in August the years of NCLA confer-
ences. 2
NC Public Library Trustees Association:
John Childers said that the association has
been working on its conference program. There
will be a newsletter issued by mid-May.
Public Library Section: Margaret
Blanchard reported that the Planning Com-
mittee met in Asheboro in February to discuss
the program for the Biennial Conference. A
reporter for National Public Radio will be
speaker. The committee will meet again in May
in Greensboro. The emphasis in the North
Carolina public library community is on the
support of legislation that would increase state
funding from $10.9 million to $18.5 million.
Bills to this effect have been introduced in the
current General Assembly.
Reference & Adult Services Section:
Bryna Coonin was unable to be present but
sent a written report. The RASS Board met on
March 10in Durham. The Spring Program was
held on April 28, 1995, at UNC-Charlotte and
was entitled Tool or Toy: The Role of Internet in
Information Services. Planning continues for
the RASS program scheduled for the Biennial
Conference.
New Members Round Table: Maria Miller
reported that the round tableTs Internet work-
shop in November was successful. The confer-
ence program will be on the subject of cus-
tomer service.
NC Paraprofessional Association: Joan
Carothers told board members that author
Tim McLaurin will speak at the Biennial
Conference.
Round Table for Ethnic Minority Con-
cerns: Cynthia Cobb stated that the Executive
Board met March 31 in Greensboro. The round
table will celebrate its anniversary at the Bien-
nial Conference. Nominations are being sought
for Roadbuilders Awards. Chair Cobb asked
David Fergusson when awards would be pre-
sented at the Conference, and he responded
that the Thursday General Session would in-
clude an awards ceremony.
Technology & Trends Round Table:
Cristina Yu spoke about the teleconference on
the subject of copyright to be aired May 1 at
several sites around the state. Five sponsors
have helped to underwrite cost of the telecon-
ference: the Winston-Salem Journal, the Char-
lotte Observer, Faxon, UMI, and Yankee Book
Peddler.
Old Business
John Via reminded board members of
the motion passed in October that would
offer free membership to the New Members
Round Table to all those joining the associa-
tion. He questioned how this membership
would be funded until it could become a part
of the budget. The amount agreed upon to
provide the New Members Round Table with
$2.00 per new member, and Christine Tomec
reported that approximately 200 persons
would qualify for the free membership. Mr.
Via offered to provide funds for this from the
Membership CommitteeTs budget as long as
the total amount did not exceed $500. Presi-
dent Jackson thanked the Membership Com-
mittee and asked that a letter be written to all
new members saying that they have auto-
matically become members of the New Mem-
bers Round Table. David Fergusson asked that
all new members with e-mail addresses also be
automatically added to NCLA-L.
New Business
President Jackson presented a request
from the Public Library Association asking
that NCLA endorse their 1998 meeting to be
held in March or April in Charlotte. Margaret
Blanchard stated that the NCLA Public Li-
brary Section would support this endorse-
ment and made the following motion: oNCLA
endorse PLA to be held in Charlotte, NC in
March 1998.� David Fergusson seconded this
motion. The motion was carried.
In regard to the Proposed Revision of the
ALA Code of Professional Ethics dated February
7, 1995, President Jackson requested the BoardTs
endorsement. David Fergusson made the mo-
tion that oNCLA endorse the ALA Code of
Professional Ethics. (Revised 2/7/95).� Augie
Beasley seconded this motion. The motion
was carried.
PresidentTs Report
President Jackson thanked board mem-
bers for much hard work. In the current issue
of North Carolina Libraries, she has asked for
feedback on three specific questions and she
asked that board members give them consider-
ation. The questions are:
1) Has NCLA made progress in realizing the
visions that were established at the begin-
ning of the biennium?
2) Does NCLA need to chart a new course or
change direction to accomplish our goals?
3) Do we as members of NCLA need to renew
our commitment to NCLA and to the pro-
fession?
The report of the Task Force on Gover-
nance is not complete but will be distributed to
Executive Board members prior to the July
meeting when it will be submitted to a vote. If
passed, it will be presented at the Biennial
Conference for approval by the membership.
Next meeting of the Executive Board will
be July 21, 1995, in Greensboro.
Respectfully submitted,
" Judy LeCroy, Secretary
Summer 1999 " 89
Nort CAROLINA LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 1993-1995 EXECUTIVE BOARD
PRESIDENT
Gwen Jackson
Southeast Technical Assistance Ctr.
2013 Lejeune Blvd.
Jacksonville, NC 28546-7027
Telephone: 910/577-8920
Fax: 910/577-1427
VICE PRESIDENT/
PRESIDENT ELECT
David Fergusson
Forsyth County Public Library
660 W. Fifth St.
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
Telephone: 910/727-2556
Fax: 910/727-2549
SECRETARY
Judy LeCroy
Davidson County Schools
P. O. Box 2057
Lexington, NC 27293-2057
Telephone: 704/249-8181
Fax: 704/249-1062
JLECROY@DAVIDSN.CERF.FRED.ORG
TREASURER
Wanda Brown Cason
Wake Forest University Library
PO Box 7777 Reynolda Station
Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7777
Telephone: 910/759-5094
Fax: 910/759-9831
WCASONG@LIB.WFUNET.WFU.EDU
DIRECTORS
Sandra Neerman
Greensboro Public Library
P. O. Box 3178
Greensboro, NC 27402-3178
Telephone: 910/373-2269
Fax: 910/333-6781
John E. Via
Z. Smith Reynolds Library
Wake Forest University
Box 7777 Reynolda Station
Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7777
Telephone: 910/759-5483
Fax: 910/759-9831
JEV@LIB.WFUNET.WFU.EDU
ALA COUNCILOR
Martha E. Davis
M. W. Bell Library
Guilford Tech. Comm. College
P. O. Box 309
Jamestown, NC 27282-0309
Telephone: 910/334-4822
Fax: 910/841-4350
SELA REPRESENTATIVE
Nancy Clark Fogarty
UNC-Greensboro
Greensboro, NC 27412
Telephone: 910/334-5419
Fax: 910/334-5097
EDITOR, North Carolina Libraries
Frances Bryant Bradburn
Media and Technology
State Dept. of Public Instruction
301 N. Wilmington Street
Raleigh, NC 27601-2825
Telephone: 919/715-1528
Fax: 919/733-4762
FBRADBUR@DPI.STATE.NC.US.
PAST-PRESIDENT
Janet L. Freeman
Carlyle Campbell Library
Meredith College
3800 Hillsborough St.
Raleigh, NC 27607-5298
Telephone: 919/829-8531
Fax: 919/829-2830
FREEMAN@UNCECS.EDU
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
(ex officio)
Christine Tomec
North Carolina Library Association
c/o State Library of North Carolina
Rm. 27 109 E. Jones St.
Raleigh, NC 27601-1023
Telephone: 919/839-6252
Fax: 919/839-6252
SLLA.MNE (NCDCR Prime address)
SECTION CHAIRS
CHILDRENTS SERVICES SECTION
Edna Gambling
Creech Road Elementary School
450 Creech Road
Garner, NC 27529
Telephone: 919/662-2359
COLLEGE anp UNIVERSITY SECTION
Plummer Alston Jones, Jr.
Corriher-Linn-Black Library
Catawba College
2300 W. Innes St,
Salisbury, NC 28144
Telephone: 704/637-4448
PAJONES@catawba.edu.
COMMUNITY anp JUNIOR
COLLEGE LIBRARIES SECTION
Shelia Bailey
Rowan-Cabarrus Comm. College
P. O. Box 1595
Salisbury, NC 28144
Telephone: 704/637-0760
Fax: 704/637-6642
DOCUMENTS SECTION
Richard Fulling
Hackney Library
Barton College
Wilson, NC 27893
Telephone: 919/399-6504
Fax: 919/237-4957
LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION anp
MANAGEMENT SECTION
Dale Gaddis
Durham County Library
P. O. Box 3809
Durham, NC 27702
Telephone: 919/560-0160
Fax: 919/560-0106
NORTH CAROLINA ASSOCIATION
OF SCHOOL LIBRARIANS
Augie Beasley
East Mecklenburg High School
6800 Monroe Drive
Charlotte, NC 28212
Telephone: 704/343-6430
Fax: 704/343-6437
ABEASLEY@CHARLOT.CERF.
FRED.ORG
NORTH CAROLINA PUBLIC
LIBRARY TRUSTEES ASSOCIA-
TION
John Childers
1101 Johnston Street
Greenville, NC 27858
Telephone: 919/757-6280 (w)
Fax: 919/757-6283
PUBLIC LIBRARY SECTION
Margaret Blanchard
Central North Carolina
Regional Library
342 S. Spring Street
Burlington, NC 27215
Telephone: 910/229-3588
Fax: 910/229-3592
REFERENCE anp ADULT SERVICES.
-Bryna Coonin
D. H. Hill Library
North Carolina State University
Box 7111
Raleigh, NC 27695-7111
Telephone: 919/515-2936
Fax: 919/515-7098
BRYNA_COONIN@NCSU.EDU
RESOURCES anp TECHNICAL
SERVICES SECTION
Catherine Wilkinson
Belk Library
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
Telephone: 704/262-2774
Fax: 704/262-3001
WILKINSNCL@CONRAD. APP
STATE.EDU
ROUND TABLE CHAIRS
NEW MEMBERS ROUND TABLE
Maria Miller
Lorillard Research Ctr. Library
420 English Street
Greensboro, NC 27405
Telephone: 910/373-6895
Fax: 910/373-6640
MILLERMS@CHAR.VNET.NET
NORTH CAROLINA LIBRARY
PARAPROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION
Joan Carothers
Public Library of Charlotte and
Mecklenburg County
310 N. Tryon Street
Charlotte, NC 28202
Telephone: 704/336-2980
Fax: 704/336-2677
ROUND TABLE FOR ETHNIC
MINORITY CONCERNS
Cynthia Cobb
Cumberland Co. Public Library
300 Maiden Lane
Fayetteville, NC 28301
Telephone: 910/483-0543
Fax: 910/483-8644
ROUND TABLE ON SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS
Sharon Snow
Wake Forest University Library
P.O. Box 7777 Reynolda Station
Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7777
Telephone: 910/759-5755
Fax: 910/759-9831
SNOW@LIB.WFUNET.WFU.EDU
ROUND TABLE ON THE STATUS
OF WOMEN IN LIBRARIANSHIP
Anne Marie Elkins
State Library of North Carolina
109 E. Jones Street
Raleigh, NC 27601-2807
Telephone: 919/733-2570
Fax: 919/733-8748
SLAD.AME@NCDCR.DCR.STATE.
NC.US
NCLA
North Carolina Library Association
90 " Summer 1999
North Carolina Libraries
NWS CENT Vig eee s 22 as th Dee ee ee Ps eo
Editor
FRANCES BRYANT BRADBURN
Media and Technology
State Dept. of Public Instruction
301 N. Wilmington Street
Raleigh, NC 27601-2825
(919) 715-1528
(919) 733-4762 (FAX)
fbradbur@dpi.state.nc.us
Associate Editor
ROSE SIMON
Dale H. Gramley Library
Salem College
Winston-Salem, NC 27108
(910) 917-5421 :
rose@pals.guilford.edu
Associate Editor
JOHN WELCH
Division of State Library
109 East Jones Street
Raleigh, NC 27601-2807
(919) 733-2570
jwelch@hal..dcr.state.nc.us
Book Review Editor
DOROTHY DAVIS HODDER
New Hanover Co. Public Library
201 Chestnut Street
Wilmington, NC 28401
(910) 341-4389
Lagniappe/Bibliography Coordinator
PLUMMER ALSTON JONES, JR. o
Corriher-Linn-Black Library
Catawba College
2300 W. Innes Street
Salisbury, NC 28144
(704) 637-4448
pajones@catawba.edu
Indexer
MICHAEL COTTER
Joyner Library
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858-4353
(919) 328-6533
miccot@joyner.lib.ecu.edu
Advertising Manager/Point
CounterPoint Editor
HARRY TUCHMAYER
New Hanover Co. Public Library
201 Chestnut Street
Wilmington, NC 28401
(910) 341-4036
ChildrenTs Services
LINDA TANENBAUM
Westchester Academy
204 Pine Tree Lane
High Point, NC 27265
(910) 869-2128
College and University
ARTEMIS KARES
Joyner Library
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858-4353
(919) 328-6067
artkar@joyner.lib.ecu.edu
Community and Junior College
BARBARA MILLER MARSON
Paul H. Thompson Library
Fayetteville Tech. Comm. College
PO Box 35236
Fayetteville, NC 28303
(910) 678-8253
Documents
MICHAEL VAN FOSSEN
Reference Documents
Davis Library CB #3912
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
(919) 962-1151
vanfosen.davis@mhs.unc.edu
Library Administration and
Management Section
JOLINE EZZELL
Perkins Library
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708-0175
(919) 660-5880
jre@mail.lib.duke.edu
New Members Round Table
RHONDA HOLBROOK
Glenwood Branch Library
1901 W. Florida St.
Greensboro, NC 27403
(910) 297-5000
N.C. Asso. of School Librarians
DIANE KESSLER
Durham Public Schools
808 Bacon St.
Durham, NC 27703
(919) 560-2360
dpsbacon@aol.com
North Carolina Library
Paraprofessional Association
MELANIE HORNE
Cumberland Co. Public Library
6882 Cliffdale Road
Fayetteville, NC 28314
(910) 864-5002
Public Library Section
JEFFREY CANNELL
Wayne County Public Library
1001 E. Ash St.
Goldsboro, NC 27530
(919) 735-1824
Reference/Adult Services
SUZANNE WISE
Belk Library
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
(704) 262-2189
wisems@appstate.edu
Resources and Technical Services
FRANK MOLINEK
E.H. Little Library
Davidson College
Davidson, NC 28036
(704) 892-2151
Round Table for Ethnic Minority Concerns
JEAN WILLIAMS
F.D. Bluford Library
NC A &T State University
Greensboro, NC 27411
(910) 334-7617
Round Table on Special Collections
MEGAN MULDER
Wake Forest University Library
PO Box 7777 Reynolda Station
Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7777
(910) 759-5091
mulder@lib.wfu.edu
Round Table on the Status of Women in
Librarianship
JOAN SHERIF
Northwestern Regional Library
111 North Front Street
Elkin, NC 28621
(910) 835-4894
jsherif@escvax.edu
Wired to the World Editor
RALPH LEE SCOTT
Joyner Library
East Carolina University
Greenville, NC 27858-4353
(919) 328-6533
ralsco@joyner.lib.ecu.edu
Trustees
ANNE B. WILGUS
N.C. Wesleyan College
Rocky Mount, NC 27804
(919) 985-5235
(919) 977-3701 (FAX)
North Carolina Libraries
Summer 1995 " 91
NCLA. North Carolina Library Association
Use the application below to enroll as a member of the North Carolina Library Asssociation or to renew your
membership. All memberships are for one calendar year. THE MEMBERSHIP YEAR IS JANUARY 1 THROUGH
DECEMBER 31. If you join during the last quarter of the year, membership covers the next year.
additional section or round table, add $5.00. Return this form with your check or money order, payable to
North Carolina Library Association.
NCLA DUES
m FULL-TIME LIBRARY SCHOOL mw LIBRARY PERSONNEL
STUDENTS (two years only) ... $10 IRAE WHO) a SOOO) caren on ee $15
Earning $15,001 to $25,000........... $25
m RETIRED LIBRARIANS.............. $15 Earning $25,001 to $35,000 ........... $30
mg NON-LIBRARY PERSONNEL: Earning SSO0UP tO $45, O00R 2 $35
(Trustee, Non-salaried, or Friends Earning $45,001 and above ........... $40
of Libraries member)............... $15
mg INSTITUTIONAL (Libraries & = CONTRIBUTING (Individuals, Associations,
Library/Education-related and Firms interested in the work of
BUSITICSSES): co. s tee retetes as oadT. $50 ING IEA eas x Sonne eteaga clic . eae $100
.
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NORTH CAROLINA LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
please print or type CHECK SECTIONS AND ROUND TABLES
New membership Reneuall ONE INCLUDED IN BASIC DUES. Add $5.00 for
each additional section or round table.
Membership Number if Renewal ___- ChildrenTs Services
____" College & University Section
Name ___ _ Community & Junior College Libraries Section
Last First Middle
Documents Section
Library Administration & Management
Title NC Association of School Librarians
NC Public Library Trustees Association
Library
Public Library Section
Reference & Adult Services Section
Resources and Technical Services Section
New Members Round Table
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se oy P Round Table for Ethnic Minority Concerns
Round Table on Special Collections
Daytime Telephone Numb
eee Round Table on the Status of Women in Librarianship
Area Code ete
Technology & Trends Round Table
Mailing Address (if different from above) AMOUNT ENCLOSED: (SEE ABOVE)
$ Membership and one section/round table
TYPE OF LIBRARY I WORK IN: $5.00 for each additional section/round table
Academic
Public $ TOTAL (PLEASE DO NOT SEND CASH)
a= SCHOO!
Special
Other
Mail to: North Carolina Library Association
c/o State Library of North Carolina
109 East Jones Street
Raleigh, NC 27601-1023
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT, NCLA Office Hours: Mon.-Fri. 9-1 Telephone (Voice & FAX) 919/839-NCLA 4
és _
WILLIAM FRIDAY
Power, Purpose, and American Higher Education
by William A. Link
Link traces the long and remarkable career of William Friday, president of the University
of North Carolina for thirty years and one of this countryTs most influential educators.
oA good story of a great man. Bill Friday is
the best North Carolinian of his time. It is
elevating to read the intimate details of his
life, a chronicle of grace under pressure.�
"CHARLES KURALT
2167-5, February, $29.95 Tr
297 by 85
ISBN prefix 0-8078-
Please write for our catalog
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA FESS
oAnything about Bill Friday is important
because his career as a teacher, philoso-
pher, and leader is unsurpassed. All these
great qualities are in this new book.�
"DAVID BRINKLEY, ABC NEWS
THE PARTY AT JACKTS
A Novella
by Thomas Wolfe
Edited and with an Introduction by Suzanne
Stutman and John L. Idol, Jr.
The Party at JackTs affords a significant glimpse of
a Depression-era New York inhabited by Wall
Street wheelers and dealers and the theatrical
and artistic elite. Suzanne Stutman and John Idol
reconstruct Thomas Wolfe's novella as outlined
by the author before his death and present it
here for the first time, in its untruncated state.
oI think it is now a single thing, as much a single
thing as anything I've ever written.� "Thomas
Wolfe, to his agent, Elizabeth Nowell
Mlustration © Ed Lindlof
THROUGH THE GARDEN GATE
by Elizabeth Lawrence
Edited by Bill Neal
Through the Garden Gate is a collection of 144 of the popular weekly
articles that Elizabeth Lawrence wrote for The Charlotte Observer from
1957 to 1971. With those columns, a delightful blend of gardening lore,
horticultural expertise, and personal adventures, Lawrence inspired
thousands of southern gardeners. oThis collection is a treasure.�
"ALA Booklist
1907-7, available, $24.95 Tr cloth
4519-1, March, $14.95 Tr paper
A Selection of the Garden Book Club
A Chapel Hill Book
BIRDS OF THE SOUTH
Permanent and Winter Birds
by Charlotte Hilton Green
With a new Introduction and Appendix by
Eloise F. Potter
Long considered a classic, this charming collection
of essays details more than sixty varieties of birds
common to southern gardens, fields, and woods.
4516-7, March, $16.95 Tr paper
32 color plates + 32 black & white drawings
A Chapel Hill Book
THE TRAILS OF VIRGINIA
Hiking the Old Dominion
by Allen de Hart
New and Revised Edition
Originally published in 1984 and now completely
revised, this book is the most comprehensive
guide to hiking and walking trails in the Old
Dominion. Allen de Hart gives directions to and
descriptions of more than 1,000 trails and covers
all national, state, county, and city recreational
areas with hiking or interpretive trails accessible
to the public. Twenty easy-to-use maps and
fifteen photographs supplement the descriptions.
4508-6, April, $18.50 Tr paper
Post Office Box 2288, Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2288
Toll-free orders: Phone (800) 848-6224, Fax (800) 272-6817
Upcoming Issues
Summer 1995 Sex and the Library
Dr. Pauletta Bracy, Guest Editor
Fall 1995 Resource Sharing
Barbara Miller Marson, Guest Editor
Winter 1995 Conference Issue
Spring 1996 School Libraries
Diane Kessler, Guest Editor
Summer 1996 Leadership in Libraries
Robert Burgin, Guest Editor
Fall 1996 Community of the Book
Rosemary Aronson, Guest Editor
Winter 1996 Managing Technology
TBA
Spring 1997 Regrowing Libraries
Suzanne Wise, Guest Editor
Summer 1997 Library Construction and Design
Phil Barton, Guest Editor
Unsolicited articles dealing with the above themes or any issue of interest to North Carolina librarians
are welcomed. Please contact the editor for manuscript guidelines and deadlines.
North Carolina Libraries, published four times a year, is the official publication of the North
Carolina Library Association. Membership dues include a subscription to North Carolina
Libraries. Membership information may be obtained from the Administrative Assistant of
NCLA. Subscription rates are $32.00 per year, or $10.00 per issue, for domestic
subscriptions; $50.00 per year, or $15.00 per issue, for foreign subscriptions. Backfiles are
maintained by the editor. Microfilm copies are available through University Microfilms.
North Carolina Libraries is indexed by Library Literature and publishes its own annual index.
Editorial correspondence should be addressed to the editor; advertisement
correspondence should be addressed to the advertising manager. Articles are juried.