[WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV: Libraries?

Thu Jun 30 20:22:55 UTC 2005

Hopefully the book is cross-referenced under both "categories."

Fred

On Jun 30, 2005, at 2:10 PM, <dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:

> How do libraries handle it?
>
> When I was about eleven, I discovered that my local library had a  
> copy of
> Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" shelved among the  
> science books.
> I went to the librarian full of indignation, demanding that they  
> reshelve it
> under "science fiction." The librarian somehow calmed me down...  
> and the book
> stayed where it was.
>
> Well, I'm older. (And to tell the truth the geologists seems to be  
> a lot less
> uniformitarian than they used to be. Asteroids extinguishing the  
> dinosaurs?
> Well, OK. But I still don't think the fall of manna that saved the  
> Israelites
> resulted from the earth passing through a comet's tail.)
>
> Anyway, it seems to me that librarians must deal with this sort of  
> thing all
> the time. And the many public libraries that use the Dewey Decimal  
> system
> can't just fall back on the Library of Congress. Although perhaps  
> there's
> some central authority that recommends Dewey classifications. But  
> in any
> case, someone has to decide whether Velikovsky is science or  
> science fiction.
> Who does? and how?
>
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