Ginny Maziarka & Co insist that numerous books in West Bend Library's young adult section are "sexually explicit" and should be labeled as such and moved to the adult section, purportedly to reflect "community standards".
I decided to take three of the books Ginny highlights and see how other area libraries catalog them. Here are the results:
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| The Perks of Being a Wallflower | The Geography Club | Deal With It! | . | Beaver Dam |
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| Non-fiction | . | Big Bend | Fiction | Young Adult |
| . | Brookfield | Fiction |
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| . | Brownsville | Young Adult |
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| . | Cudahy | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | Delafield | Teen Fiction | Teen Fiction |
| . | Eagle | Young Adult |
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| . | Elkhorn | Young Adult |
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| . | Fontana | Young Adult |
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| . | Fort Atkinson |
| Young Adult |
| . | Franklin | Young Adult | Young Adult | Young Adult | . | Germantown | Young Adult |
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| . | Greenfield | Young Adult | Young Adult | Young Adult | . | Hartford | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | Hartland | Young Adult |
| Non-fiction | . | Horicon | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | Hustisford |
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| Non-fiction | . | Jefferson |
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| Non-fiction | . | Kenosha | Young Adult | Young Adult | Adult | . | Kewaskum | Young Adult |
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| . | Lake Geneva | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | Lake Mills |
| Young Adult |
| . | Lomira | Young Adult |
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| . | Merton | Young Adult |
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| . | MPL Atkinson | Young Adult |
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| . | MPL Bay View | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | MPL Brown Deer | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | MPL Capitol |
| Young Adult | Young Adult | . | MPL Center |
| Young Adult |
| . | MPL Central | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | MPL East | Young Adult |
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| . | MPL Forest Home | Young Adult |
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| . | MPL Hales Corners | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | MPL Villard |
| Young Adult |
| . | MPL Washington Park |
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| Young Adult | . | Mukwonago | Young Adult | Young Adult | Young Adult | . | Muskego |
| Young Adult |
| . | Northshore |
| Young Adult |
| . | Oak Creek |
| Young Adult | Adult (call no indicates "YA") | . | Oconomowoc | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | Pewaukee | Young Adult | Young Adult |
| . | Racine | Fiction | Fiction |
| . | Shorewood |
| Young Adult | Young Adult | . | Sussex | Young Adult | Young Adult | Young Adult | . | Theresa | Juvenile |
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| . | Twin Lakes |
| Young Adult | Young Adult | . | Waterford | Young Adult |
| Non-fiction | . | Watertown |
| Young Adult |
| . | Waukesha | Fiction | Young Adult |
| . | Wauwatosa |
| Adult |
| . | West Bend | Young Adult | Young Adult | Young Adult | . | Whitefish Bay |
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| Young Adult | . | Whitewater | Young Adult |
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As you can see,
nearly every area library that holds these books places them in the young adult section, reflecting what appears to be standard classification practices for southeast Wisconsin libraries.
(Acknowledging that
Deal With It! seems to be the one text that is also frequently placed in the regular non-fiction sections)
Are West Bend's "community standards" really that different than nearly every other southeastern Wisconsin community? Or, perhaps, must we realize that Ginny's opinions
don't necessarily reflect the entire community?
Posts
Nice post, and thanks for taking the time to research the stats.
ReplyDeleteInformation = knowledge. 'Bout time someone providing some real information surrounding this debate.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this. Just a bit of clarification. I live in Tosa. We don't have a YA section in the library, just children's and adults.
ReplyDeleteBefore beesbees posted her comment, I wondered about that possibility. I wonder if there are more as well, like maybe Racine or Brookfield, that do not have a separate YA fiction section, or that perhaps don't separate YA nonfiction from adult nonfiction. That would narrow the list down even more.
ReplyDelete