Sometimes collection development isn't easy....

Whilst I work with a team of others to select titles for our library, I do however, possess the final say in all selections and purchases. It's my job and we have limited funds. I am constantly saying "yes" to some titles and "no" to others all based on a whole myriad of considerations. This is what collection management and development entails.

So when a book was recently suggested to me for the library to buy which is basically about a married school teacher in a suburban US town who has a singular sexual obsession with 14 year old boys - "It is a craving she pursues with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought, her sole purpose in becoming a teacher is to fulfil her passion and provide her access to her compulsion” - I said 'no'.

I found myself quite distressed by the synopsis of the book. I tweeted about it. One of my friends commented that she'd once been offered a self-published non-fiction title on incest for her library to buy. Though the particular title she'd been offered was completely lacking in academic rigour or literary merit and so was rejected, she made a rather significant point - "as one of the last societal taboos, surely accurate and non-sensationalist discourse would be valuable?" I tend to agree with the sentiment. 

I considered what GoodReads readers had to say about the book in question. The ratings and the comments vary from 0 stars right up to 5 stars. Comments also range from praise of the writer's skill in presenting a distinctly horrible character to those who lambasted it as nothing more than sensationalist pornography..
This sort of blurring the lines is evil. If I could do it over again, I'd have stayed away, just to avoid the corrosive effect that desensitization has been proven to have on our psyches. At the very least, I implore you, don't let your kids read it, even your "mature" ones. (Recynd)

The range of comments went on to raise the issue of how a particular crime is viewed not only in society but also in different countries.

This made me curious as to what our very own Crimes Act 1900 No. 40 has to say - not just about the kind of behaviour being portrayed but also the fact of the physical presence of the book in bookshops...

Sections 66A - 77 cover the whole gamut of sexual offences relating to children.
Section 91FB describes child abuse material as any "material that depicts or describes, in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive ... a person who is, appears to be or is implied to be, a child engaged in or apparently engaged in a sexual pose or sexual activity (whether or not in the presence of other persons)."
This section goes on to state that "the matters to be taken into account in deciding whether reasonable persons would regard particular material as being, in all the circumstances, offensive, include:(a) the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults, and (b) the literary, artistic or educational merit (if any) of the material, and (c) the journalistic merit (if any) of the material, being the merit of the material as a record or report of a matter of public interest, and (d) the general character of the material (including whether it is of a medical, legal or scientific character)".
91H describes the penalty for production, dissemination and/or possession of said material to be a maximum of 10 years.

Does the book depict acts of child abuse as per the Crimes Act 1900? Yes. 
Am I a reasonable adult to be offended by it? Yes.
Does the book have any literary, artistic, or educational merit? No. Do any of the characters in the book participate in sexual offences against children? Yes. Do these characters actively pursue this activity? Yes. Do they know it is wrong? Yes. Does that stop them? No. Do they consider murder in order to hide their crime? Yes. Are they sexually interested in any kinds of sexual partners other than children of a certain age? No. (Note: I am basing my answers here on the majority of comments I read on GoodReads).

The book in question does not have graphic images but it does explicitly detail sexual activities between an adult and a child that leaves little to the imagination. The adult protagonist actively seeks out children of a certain age bracket and does not appear to be interested in these children as they mature. Based on what the Crimes Act 1900 tells me this is both behaviour and the presentation of behaviour that is a crime in Australia. Indeed there is a very good paper by Kylie Miller, Senior Analyst with the National Crime Authority, which considers the nature and definition of a paedophile. So, considering all these elements it could be fair to say that the library buying this book and making it available to the general public would constitute a breach of the Crimes Act. It's probably a good thing I said 'no' then isn't it.

It will be interesting to see how this book progresses through the Australian literary scene. We're a pretty forgiving lot, open to reading about all sorts of subjects, but I truly query whether this 'debut novel' is worth the paper it has been printed on.


On a final note, this is my own personal opinion. It is based solely on my interpretation of the reviews available on GoodReads and my interpretation of the Crimes Act 1900. I do not believe that having a list of 'banned books' is in any way shape or form a good idea. Nor do I believe that content which is extremely offensive to a reasonable person is a good way to get people's attention and change the social mindset that all paedophiles are male. If this were a Non-Fiction title which enabled " accurate and non-sensationalist discourse" I would be all for it - but it's not.

thoughts on self-publishing

image taken from this Salon article

This rather interesting article by Hugh Howey swept past my brain late last night so this morning I trolled back through my FB feed to where I first spotted it and read it thoroughly. It really is worth a read.

It's an interesting point of view on self-publishing and I find its implications for library collection development to be quite intriguing.

Hugh Howey writes books, he self-publishes those books, he maintains complete 100% ownership of his books, they are available digitally and as such this means they will always be available (no out-of-print options here), he also now makes a substantial monthly income from this.

One of the chief challenges I face in my role developing my library's collection is how I treat self-published material. I have to admit that the majority of self-published print material that comes across my desk is appalling in content, style, presentation, and quality. There's one particular picture book featuring a crocodile (or was it an alligator?) that still gives me shudders (*shudders just thinking about it*). These authors are often local people who are so very proud of their work that it is challenging to try to explain that what they are giving me is of extremely poor quality. There has been little or no editorial process and so the concepts of writing to your audience or suiting book content to your audience hasn't been that well balanced. Many of these titles end up in our Local Studies collection simply to satisfy the author and to collect material written by local people.

That said, Christopher Paolini's "Eragon" originally started life as a 'self-published' title printed by his family's printing company. And I have had a couple of beautifully illustrated and written picture books come across my desk which have been gorgeous. But it's not been the norm.

The rise of eBooks has meant that self-publishing has taken on a whole new form. Authors can publish prolifically in eBook format and reach a growing audience of people who do and do not use libraries. Hugh Howey points out that the popularity (or not) of his work is always determined by the readers so making your work broadly accessible raises the chances of success (from an author making money point of view). This is typically the case when you consider the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey (by E. L. James) which started life as a Twilight fan-fiction piece. It only existed as an eBook, you could only get it online, but the popularity there gave it the strength to be physically published as a print book where its increased popularity (and that particular genre) then grew exponentially. (It's a crazy world)

So how do I develop my library's collection when more and more asked-for titles and authors are only available as an eBook? How do I make them accessible to my library customers? How do I catalogue that item? How do I acquisition it? How do I lend it?

We have a series of lending eReaders with preloaded genre titles on them. One of the eReaders features a couple of titles by Lee Child which are only available as eBooks, you can't get them in print. Here's a hugely popular commercially published author whose books walk off the shelves in droves and yet he too has followed the eBook path for some of his work. 

This is not to say that all eBooks have been self-published. Most publishers have jumped on the bandwagon to also sell eBook versions of printed titles, but they generally do so at a hugely marked-up price which compares directly to the cost of the printed item. Self-published authors will undoubtedly sell their eBook titles for $0.99 or so, certainly under the $10.00 mark. This pricing makes more of the books accessible and turns eBooks into impulse buys which more and more people then buy more of - it becomes a lovely cycle of income production for the author. I like this idea.

Self-publishing is a bit like a Kickstarter project but where the thing is available before the money comes in. Self-publishing allows writers to hone their skills and grow and develop in an arena which provides constant feedback and criticism (hopefully mostly constructive). Self-publishing also allows writers to afford to keep writing. It is changing the nature of publishing itself and challenging traditional publishing houses to adapt.

It kind of reminds me of the teen flick "Stick It" featuring a group of rebellious gymnasts who defy the traditional rules to do the routines they want to do, to show the full extent of their skills and abilities, and to choose the winners themselves regardless of what the judging 'rules' determine. Self-publishing allows authors to retain full ownership of their work, to defy the traditional rules of publishing, to defy the standard expectations of success, and to allow their readers to choose the best-sellers based on what they like to read, not what has had the most money spent on a media campaign and groovy cover.

Food for thought.