Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[SkeptInq@aol.com]

The New Zealand Skeptics have asked us to help.  If you can provide any
information please respond directly to them at:

info@turbopress.com


 Greetings folks,

 I've been asked to challenge our local librarians with some brain
 food this week, and am thinking about seeing how they reconcile
 their mission of "informing the public with integrity and quality
 resourcing" and having vastly more pseudo-science materials on
 their shelves than any critiques thereof.

 I would be very grateful if anyone can point me to any useful
 thought pieces on such a topic. My committee here in NZ couldn't
 think of any material dealing with this, which is a little surprising
 given that it must be a pretty obvious target.

 I thought I'd start off with the idea that the library upgrades its
 resources as they become aware that they are lacking in certain
 areas, either by increasing the offerings in a particular subject area
 or by removing (deaccessioning!) material that is wrong and
 replacing it with better works. (I know they've done this recently
 with medieval clothing and cooking for example, where some
 particularly poor works have been quietly replaced by books that
 have real research in them...).

 I guess I'm looking to see if there are examples of where libraries
 have decided, for whatever reason, not to stock material and how
 they made those decisions. Not so much the "ban Noddy" type of
 PC decision-making, but more the ways in which libraries shape
 the information database they represent through selection of books.

 Anybody out there looked at the library shelves lately and
 wondered why astrology books outnumber astronomy? And should
 we care? Do we have a right to complain?

 I'd appreciate any suggestions, and I have until Thursday (your
 time) to come up with The Answer :-)

 Best regards,
 VIcki Hyde
 Chair entity NZCSICOP
 info@turbopress.com