A Critique of the New Statement on Labeling

Journal of Academic Librarianship

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 296-302

  Hitchcock, Leonard A ^a  

^a IDAHO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33646773633     PISSN: 00991333     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.acalib.2006.02.010     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. "History: Statement on Labeling". Intellectual Freedom Manual. Sixth edition (2002), American Library Association, Chicago 187
2. Ibid. p. 191.
3. Ibid. p. 191.
4. This new version will appear in the 7th edition of ALA's Intellectual Freedom Manual, to be published this winter. It is currently available, on the ALA Web site, available at: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/statementsif/interpretations/statementlabeling.htm.
5. Nor have I found any recent commentary by other librarians on the latest revision of the statement.
6. One sentence in SoL has been repeated in order to clarify the meaning of a passage.
7. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993), Clarendon Press, Oxford 1513
8. Ibid, p. 2333.
9. Librarians, by playing the role of disinterested, respectful and objective acquirers and preservers of the collection, who must, as professionals, follow the dictates of Article Two of the Library Bill of Rights, protect themselves, to an extent, from the ire of patrons unhappy with books that they have selected.
10. I attended that meeting, which occurred on Jan. 16, 2005, in Boston, at ALA's midwinter conference.
11. One could, I recognize, take up the case of more traditional elements in bibliographic records, viz. classification and subject headings, and make the point that "value judgments" are built into many of them, thus turning even the most basic record into a "label" of the bad kind. I chose, instead, to point to more recent and substantive additions to records. These, I believe, pose the labeling issue more dramatically and constitute a greater threat to intellectual freedom.
12. For the complete story on the Bellesisles case, consult the following articles published in the Idaho Librarian, written by Philip Homan, A Record Enriched: The Case for a Library Catalog Note for Michael Bellesiles's "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture," Part I [computer file]." Idaho Librarian (Online) 54, 3 (February 2003), and A Record Enriched: The Case for a Library Catalog Note for Michael Bellesiles's "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture," Part II [computer file]. Idaho Librarian (Online) 54, 4 (May 2003).
13. It is also of interest that the omitted portions of the chapter are the only ones in which Charlton Heston and the NRA are attacked by name, and numerous brands of guns and titles of gun magazines referred to.
14. Hitchcock L.A. "Enriching the Record". Journal of Academic Librarianship 26 5 (September 2000) 359-363
15. Intellectual Freedom Manual. 6th ed. (2002), American Library Association, Chicago 147-148