Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-27
Public Libraries Keep
Watch on Risque Books
Special Correspondence OF The Star.


A MONG the most successful books
n recently published in England are
those which deal with problems
of various kinds. Social problems, mar
rIage problems. food. health. race, color
war, peace, every conceivable sort Of
problem has found it's way into print So
much has the problem book become the
vogue that at the recent conference of the
Library Association, which sat at Brighton.
the problem book came up for special
discussion, and there was even some
talk of excluding 1t from public libraries.
Last year in England libraries supplied
upward of 7OOO0,OOO books to the public.
and the exclusion of this class of work
would be a heavy blow to authors en-
gagged on various problem novels.
One very interesting fact was brought
to light at this same conference of IL
brarians-namely. that the demand for
fiction seems to be almost Unsuitable.
The great question which the directors
of public libraries in all countries will
have to decide in the very near future is
whether fiction should be bought and
dealt out to meet the public demand, or.
whether instead, the libraries should ex-
ercise sort of censorship. and only
stock" such books as have an educa-
tional and uplifting character Many Ii
brarans held the view that, as the pub
lie paid for the support of the libraries,
they should be the ones ultimately to
decide as to the class of books to be
kept on hand.
Right to Censorship.
People who wished to read Marie Co.
relli. for instance, would not easily be
persuaded to take as a substitute a work
on differential calculus. The right of the
mere librarian to exercise censorship
and to attempt to reform the taste of the
nIh c cd h1-S art If
assumption. And yet, today, librarians
throughout the world have adopted the
policy of limiting their stock of fiction
and the general tendency Is toward in
formative and standard literature; The
spread of this policy will doubtless benefit
the retail bookseller; for the very fact
that a public library does not keep a
certain work on hand will give it an
added value in the readers eyes.
Even as it is today" said one Of the
members of the library conference. in dis
cusslng this topic. we do not allow GER
tain of our readers to take out books
which we consider injurious to public
morals. While 1t is not true that all
tionable novels under the shelf certain
books are not available to any borrower
who chooses to apply. We exercise our
own discretion in many cases; particularly
with young readers. Among the worst
books of this kind are some of the old
in Latin. and. as to those which have been
translated into English, we manage to
keep a fairly strict guard over them.
with problem novels. as we'll as with
works of pure fiction. the greatest demand
comes from women Though the hus-
bands, as rule, hold the library tickets
as householders, the wives and daughters
order the books. Where a man would
often take out some book of an instruc-
tive, and even technical. character. his
wife or daughter will insist on having
some much-talked-of book of popular fic-
ton. This demand on the part of wom-
en- is what keeps the fiction writer's busy.
If we supplied four times the number of
works of fiction, our women readers
would always keep pace with the out
put