Well, in the libraries where I have seen cross stickers on book spines, the inspirational books weren’t put on separate shelves, but a book by Janette Oke would have the romance symbol and the cross symbol on the spine. It isn’t quite a section, but it is a way of marking the books so that those who don’t want to read them can identify and avoid them, and those who do want to read them can seek them out.
Where did you buy it from? If you bought it from a chain bookstore, and didn’t mess it up when you read it, you ought to be able to return it for store credit, at least. If you have the receipt, you can return it for a refund. I just recently did this – I bought a stack of books and Barnes & Noble, including one that I thought was a pop science book, but which turned out to be an anti-evolution screed. I didn’t get around to looking at the ‘science’ book until a week or so later and had already discarded the receipt (once it cleared the bank). So I took the book back to B&N, told them, “This wasn’t what I thought it was – I thought it was a science book and it turned out to be anti-science.” And they gave me a gift card for the full amount, no more questions asked.
Would do, but I have two problems:
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The B&N I bought it from is 3 hours drive from here. There is one of the chain’s stores an hour’s drive from here, but I don’t know if they’d take back a purchase from another store.
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I don’t have the reciept.
So, I’m chalking it up to a learning experience. I can always give it to my grandmother, who likes Christian books.
I also know not not to purchase any books from that publisher. I thought about sending them an e-mail to that effect, but they might consider a person who was tricked into buying one of their books a success story, because that was clearly their intent.
I too get irritated by “Christian” literature masquerading as regular novels or stories. I’ve learned to check the publisher - There’s Bethany House, Multonmah (sp?) and a few others that I always avoid.
As far as controversial materials in libraries, I’m pretty sure that Volvelle (the librarian who posted earlier) is in the minority: Most libraries and librarians are passionately devoted to freedom of speech and freedom to read what you want. Even if that means books about astrology, creationism, UFOs, crop circles, “intelligent design”, pornography, gay sex, hetero-sex, or Holacaust denial. Our wonderful public library has all these (and more!) which have been objected to by the public. But we carry them because we don’t censor what people read. Sure, the books about the truth of the Holocaust out number the wacko denial books. Sure, the real science books outnumber the wacko science books. But it’s the consistent offering of material to open minds which allows the truth to rise to the top. And it’s because our library is uncensored from any direction that we can offer books on sex to gay teens who may not have any other resources. (I’m writing this very quickly over lunch, so I hope that makes sense.)
I cringe when I reshelve a creationist screed, or a Henry Miller novel or a Terry Brooks novel (two authors I dislike). But I put them out. It’s not for me to pick what others read. As long as librarians choose a wide range of what’s out there - and they do; what a tough job - our taxpayers are well served. Besides, you have to know what your enemy says, in order to refute it.
Bethany House was the one who victimized me.
I wonder if there’s a website out there who lists inspirational/Christian publishers and their subsidiaries. That would be useful. I could put a list in my purse.
I agree that I don’t want my librarians deciding what is legitimate reading material. However, I do wonder - wouldn’t creationist books belong in the religion section, not science? Or do books get shelved according to the subject they purport to treat, regardless of the accuracy of the description?
Huh. I would’ve thought there’d be plenty of sex…
… But only in the missionary position.
My public library has a separate section for the Christian fiction, same as it does for Sci-Fi or Mysteries. Where we used to live had the sticker thing, where the Christian ones had a cross on them. And one place I lived even had them shelved in the regular romance section. I found it funny, on the one hand, that you’d have this Christian inspirational book right next to some bodice-ripper. But I was also rather annoyed, because if you were looking for one or the other kind of romance, I can see how you’d be very upset to get the wrong kind.
To AerynSun - very good question, regarding where to shelve a creationist tome. This gets to why cataloging is an art, not a science. Where a book gets cataloged will depend on the individual cataloger at times. (Do I put a book about women in ancient Greece in the books about antiquity, Greece, or women’s studies? A book on Al Capone in biography or criminology or American history? and so forth.) Personally I wouldn’t place Scientology books in the 200s with religion; I guess I’d put them in the 100s with the paranormal/occult stuff. But as the librarian said, it’s often a judgement call.
I’m a librarian. We don’t have a Christian fiction section, but I bet lots of libraries do, especially in areas where there is a lot of demand. We have some religious fiction, but it goes in with everything else (we don’t have a romance section either, just SF/fantasy, mystery, and westerns).
I’m going to come in against volvelle too. Didn’t you learn the importance of representing all viewpoints in library school? It isn’t a librarian’s job to tell people what to think, or what to read; our job is to make the material available, and let people come to their own conclusions. (Note, btw, that people may want to check out books on topics they do not agree with in order to understand the arguments; my husband has frequently requested books on ID in order to construct rebuttals. He doesn’t want to buy them himself.) Telling people what is good for them is going back to the practices of 1900; next, you’ll be refusing to stock Nancy Drew or something.
I’ve never been tricked into thinking an inspirational book was just a novel (all the ones I’ve read had clearly been marked on the jackets) but I’ve been puzzled the other way 'round. Take Frank Peretti. Why is he considered a “Christian Author”? His horror novels have some religious themes, sure, but so don’t a lot of other horror novels. Hell, the novel I’m writing now involves the offspring Lilith and the fallen angels, but I don’t consider it “a Judeo-Christian novel”!
Bummer. They defiantely would take it back without a receipt, although they would not refund you in cash. They would give you a store credit in the form of a B&N giftcard for the most recently discounted price.
You might be able to return it for store credit to the nearer store, but I’m not sure – they scan the barcode to get the price and the nearer store may not carry that particular title, or something. Also, some may feel it isn’t ethical to return a, item from one chain store to a different store in the chain. I wouldn’t do it myself.
However, if you visit the store you bought the book at on a fairly regular basis, (say, every couple of months) you could hold on the book and return it when next you go to that store. I have returned books a month or more after I bought them – so long as the book is still in their database there wouldn’t be a problem returning it for store credit.
I’m sure it’s far from all-inclusive, but I hope this helps.
He has a series out for young teens, my mom bought me the first one when it came out. I was kind of above its age level, but I read it to humor her. Anyway, there’s a scene in there where a character is in a class that’s teaching evolution, and she starts arguing for creationism, and manages to easily win the argument.
Beyond that, a lot of Christians claim to have had experiences similar to what goes on in his books, even the less out there christians. His books are about that kind of thing, and they’re partly meant to help Christians deal with those situations.
I was tricked into reading a trilogy by Ted Dekker. The plot sounded great: this guy gets shot, passes out and wakes up in the future, where he joins a village in their struggle against these gigantic bats and desert nomads. In addition, everytime he falls asleep he switches time periods. Gradually he learns that most of humanity was wiped out by a plague and he may be able to prevent that.
However, the whole village oasis/evil desert creatures plotline turns into a badly done allegory of salvation and being “washed clean” that gets progressively glurgy and annoying. It’s too bad; Dekker’s not a bad writer and he had a great premise.
So far I haven’t been tricked by a book like this, but I would be really irritated by it too. What little Christian fiction I’ve read has been terrible.
I also hate to hear a love song where you can’t tell if they’re talking about romantic love or Jesus love. I like the Scottish group The Proclaimers, but when I realized that they do Christian music, I started scrutinizing the lyrics of their love songs.
I don’t mean to continue the dogpile on volville – well, maybe I do – but I too work in a library and find it disturbing that a public librarian would do something like this. And I actually have a fairly conservative opinion on what constitutes censorship, especially when it comes to collection development. When you are working with very limited resources, and choosing from virtually unlimited subject matter, some points of view are naturally not going to be equally represented in a collection. IMHO, that’s not censorship – that’s just reality. You have to look at the tastes of your patrons and do your best to give them what they want. So if a librarian doesn’t see the need for more books on creationism (or evolution/the Civil War/aliens-killed-JFK, etc.), he/she might choose not to buy them based on their subject matter. Them’s the breaks.
However . . . a public librarian actually removing books from the collection because he or she personally disagrees with them? I have never met a single librarian who would not be horrified by that. If those books have been sitting on the shelves gathering dust for years, not circulating, just taking up space, then by all means get them out of there. But denying access to them because you, personally, don’t like them? Who gave you that right? Believing that you are somehow responsible for housing “accurate” information is no justification. Why not go through the entire religion section, find the books promoting the faiths you don’t follow, and get rid of that “misinformation,” too? Why not get rid of the UFO conspiracy books? Well, unless you believe in them, in which case you should get rid of all the UFO skeptic material. Right?
Sorry for the semi-hijack. Like I said, I’m no reactionary when it comes to issues of censorship, but your actions clearly went too far.
As for the actual topic at hand, our library does separate Christian fiction (which is quite popular) from the rest of the collection, and the system works very well. Or I should say, we separate fiction from Christian publishers. If you do anything else, you run into the problem of determining what actually constitutes “Christian fiction.” I don’t think *Lord of the Rings * or even the Narnia books should be separately shelved based on the fact that their authors were Christian and that their religious beliefs influenced their fiction. I mean, if you did that, you’d have to put Flannery O’Connor in with the “Christian fiction,” and boy would *that * be awkward. So separating them by specifically Christian publishers, like Bethany House, seems the best way to do it.
And yes, the publishers should make it more clear that these books are religious in nature. They shouldn’t just assume that everyone knows Zondervan (or whoever) publishes Christian titles. I assume they are being deliberately vague to capture a cross-over audience, but truth in advertising should trump that, I think . . . especially for a “Christian” publisher.
No, they can do it any way they want, as long as it’s through a hole in a sheet.
I’m one of those people who obsessively researches any books I plan to buy, and is very stingy with money when it comes to buying books (after all, I have one of the best liberries in the country fifteen minutes away), so I don’t understand how someone can just walk out of a bookstore with a Christian/anti-evolution book without knowing it. Don’t you at least read the first chapter while you’re there (or the TOC for non-fiction)? B&N is cool with it. Of course, I never buy my books at B&N because of all the sticky fingers that have touched the books there, so I guess it all goes full circle.
I was deployed for four months recently at a station that had a very small library.
Most of it was fiction, and I don’t read much fiction. So after I’d been there a while, I was pretty desperate for new books.
One day, I noticed someone had returned one of those “Bathroom Reader” books, that have one-page synopses of various topics.
I started reading it, but noticed that every synopsis had some tie-in to Christianity. Biographies always mentioned how important the subject’s religion was, and things like that.
I looked at the cover a little more closely, and for the first time noticed the word, “Good” in sneaky-small type in front of the words “Bathroom Reader”.
I’ve got nothing against Christianity, but it felt like I was tricked into picking it up.
That’s really upsetting. I’ll have you know that I’m single-handedly responsible for destroying Western Civilization. Or I will be once I finish mobilizing and arming my legions of flying sharks with plasma cannons on their heads.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to torturing the secret of aquatic telepathy from Mr. Curry.
I probably sound more biased than I actually am. I haven’t come across our specific collection development policy yet, though, if it’s like others I’ve used, it probably has some sort of statement about current, accurate information. We also usually have a section dealing with what we will accept as donations so that we’re not required to catalog any book some nutso wants to give us about their particular cult.
Information can go out of date pretty quickly. Medical books have to be weeded and updated on a much more frequent basis than biographies. Similarly, there’s not much use in housing earth science books written before continental drift was an accepted theory. I’m trying to apply the same standard to science texts, even if they’re intersected with religion.
I’m an atheist, but I’m not yanking books on religion from our shelves. And any religious book that’s about the mythology or theology of the creation story wouldn’t fall under this rubric, either. If one needs information on these movements, there are plenty of books about creationism and ID that aren’t arguing for them.
And, if a patron specifically asked for a creationist book, I would get it for them (although I’d probably try to get another library to loan it to us before I bought one for the collection).