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Sexuality and Religion
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From: Dentan, Sarah <SDentan_at_ci.berkeley.ca.us>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 01:17:09 +0000
So in the spirit of talking through difficult things (and I'll preface this by saying my thoughts are mine, and not representative of any institution I've worked for past or present), I'm interested in how libraries handle those places where certain religious perspectives and sexuality collide.
I've worked in communities where the dominant culture is a conservative Christian one. These are communities where parents and kids both come to the library looking for books on growing up, relationships and sexuality with an explicitly conservative Christian perspective. Our libraries purchased these titles, and shelved them in the 200s with other "living a Christian life" books.
Some of these books contain information that is not simply objectionable to me personally, but that I know to be untrue - that abortion increases a woman's risk of breast cancer, for example. Thinking about conversations we've had here and elsewhere about the importance of dominant narratives that are widely disseminated and factually incorrect, how do we evaluate this material? Does science come in to it? Which science? Does putting these titles in the 200s change the evaluation criteria? Does having IPN and similar books in the collection change things?
My thinking on religion in the collection has changed shape over my 20 years of doing this (in widely divergent communities), and I'm wondering where other people sit with it.
- Sarah
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 01:17:09 +0000
So in the spirit of talking through difficult things (and I'll preface this by saying my thoughts are mine, and not representative of any institution I've worked for past or present), I'm interested in how libraries handle those places where certain religious perspectives and sexuality collide.
I've worked in communities where the dominant culture is a conservative Christian one. These are communities where parents and kids both come to the library looking for books on growing up, relationships and sexuality with an explicitly conservative Christian perspective. Our libraries purchased these titles, and shelved them in the 200s with other "living a Christian life" books.
Some of these books contain information that is not simply objectionable to me personally, but that I know to be untrue - that abortion increases a woman's risk of breast cancer, for example. Thinking about conversations we've had here and elsewhere about the importance of dominant narratives that are widely disseminated and factually incorrect, how do we evaluate this material? Does science come in to it? Which science? Does putting these titles in the 200s change the evaluation criteria? Does having IPN and similar books in the collection change things?
My thinking on religion in the collection has changed shape over my 20 years of doing this (in widely divergent communities), and I'm wondering where other people sit with it.
- Sarah
---
Sarah Dentan
Berkeley Public Library
sdentan_at_cityofberkeley.info
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Received on Fri 07 Mar 2014 07:17:36 PM CST
