Worth Noting

The topics of these 34 selections range from “Herrenvolk” terminology, fiction access, and subject headings for consumer health information to South African censorship, Idi Amin’s repressions, and the Creationists’ “hidden agenda.” Also includes material on cataloging teenage literature, racism in children’s books and an ALA–produced film (The Speaker), and reportage on the “intellectual freedom” scene in Greece, West Germany, and Soviet Union.
Reprinted from sources such as Interracial Books for Children Bulletin, Top of the News, Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, Technicalities.

Famed librarian Sanford Berman as written several books and numerous shorter works (“provocative”—Library Journal. He is the recipient of an American Library Association Honorary Membership (2004) and the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award (1996), and was named Minnesota Librarian of the Year in 1977.

Sanford Berman
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 184
Bibliographic Info: bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2014 [1988]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9351-7
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Foreword by Bill Katz vii
Cataloging
Herrenvolk Language 3
Fiction Access: New Approaches 9
Fiction Access: (Continued) 18
A Bonnie Screw-Up 21
Where Have All the Moonies Gone? 23
Title Access: The Need, the Policy, and the Practice 32
Missing Titles 36
The Terrible Truth About Teenlit Cataloging 38
C’Mon Guys, Lighten Up! 51
Catalog Access to Consumer Health Information 53
Orwellian Postscript to the Proposed Subhead “—Health Hazards” 56
Thanks a Lot! 57
Indoor Flings 59
Indoor Flings (Continued) 60

Censorship/Human Rights
Notes from Europe 65
Letter from Stuttgart 70
Prexy Song 71
South African Censorship 72
IFLA and Racism 75
Palatnik/Trachtenberg Case 77
Uganda: Speak in Whispers, If at All 79
“The Speaker”: Not Recommended 84
Jake—And Library Issues of Selection 87
On Beyond Jake: A Call to Dialog 89
The Letter That Wasn’t 91
Another Letter That Wasn’t 93
Technology, Humanism, and Civil Liberties: A Review 95

Creationism
Not-So-Hidden Agenda 101
Gimme That Old Time Religion 102
“In the Beginning”: The Creationist Agenda 105
Religion and/or Science 111
Another Letter That Wasn’t/Gimme That Old Time Religion (Grand Finale) 113
No Comment 115

Alternative Perspectives: A Conversation with Sandy Berman, by Jim Dwyer 119
Bermaniana: A Select Bibliography 135
Index 153

“Wonderful”—Booklist; “a unique voice and style…always something fascinating to find”—Public Library Quarterly; “recommended”—Library & Information Science Annual; “Berman is someone American librarianship needs many more of”—Libraries & Culture; “valuable reference”—SRRT Newsletter; “a welcome addition…a compendium of writings…these essays are entertaining…thought provoking”—The Journal of Academic Librarianship; “entertaining and informative”—Wilson Library Bulletin; “librarian gadfly Sanford Berman speaks out against rchaic Lc Subject headings, inadequate cataloging of fiction, South African censorship, racist children’s books, creationists and other material”—American Libraries; “he really believes what he says, and he says it eloquently”—Reference Quarterly.