MADreads

Hey, anybody remember Sex?

October 14th, 2009 Dennis - Central

Hey, anybody remember Sex, by Madonna?  It came out, er, rather, was published in 1992.  Madonna was pretty popular then– lots of music videos on MTV, lots of interest in the press because she was “dating” so many celebrities and professional athletes at the time.  And so it’s really no surprise that her book became a New York Times bestseller.  Not that the subject matter didn’t help.  Which was a bit of a problem for the library, since the book consisted mostly of pictures of Madonna in various stages of dress (mostly undress) and offering her thoughts and opinions on all matters sexual.

Which caused problems for us.  We can’t be seen as buying “pornography” because there are quite a few members of our community who would be quite upset about their tax dollars being spent on “fill in the blank, bad for you books”.  At the same time, lots of other people from all over our service area, were requesting the book.  What to do?  Well, the people who were requesting it were “saved” when the South Central Library System, of which we’re a member, funded the purchases, which would be used throughout our service area, rather than taking the money from the Madison library budget.  We purchased several (three?) copies, had them rebound (they were originally “bound” in a pretty heavy aluminum cover, with pretty sharp edges, as I recall), and sent them out to start filling holds.

At one time, I believe there were upwards of two hundred people waiting to read a copy of the book.  The books spent years in circulation without ever actually having landed on the shelves where people could innocently stumble across it.  Not that they could do that now.  We made a decision at the time we acquired the books, that they would be permanently shelved in our “storage area.”  You can still read it, of course.  You just have to work a little harder to get at it.

I confess, I may be misremembering some of the details.  It all happened a long time ago.  I recall glancing at a few pages of the book when it first arrived but being, frankly, a little embarrassed to be looking at it.  A Catholic upbringing will do that to you.  And the book didn’t look to be particularly well done–grainy black-and-white pictures, hand-written text, “artistic” layout.  We still have it in our system, it’s just not worth the effort to me anymore.  But, again, that could be part of that Catholic upbringing.

By the way, if the thought of that Madonna book, or any other books or sound recordings or videos, sitting on the library shelves bothers you, take some comfort from the fact that none of the materials we buy are required reading, or listening, or viewing.  Some people were outraged by the very thought of that Madonna book, yet hundreds more wanted to read it.  That’s part of what is so great about the library.  We give you choices.  We use public dollars to buy materials (less expensively than you usually can) and let you borrow them.  And we try to choose materials that will ”inform, inspire, enrich, and entertain” — though most of our materials probably won’t do all those things at once.

And they won’t always have that effect on every user.  Your mileage will vary.  But you’ll probably spend most of your time on those materials that will entertain you, or inspire you, or teach you, or challenge you, or help you do that for your children.  And when you’re done with those items, you can bring them back to us, so we can store them until someone else wants to use them.  Which is another thing we’re good at.  We’ll store your books for you and save you money in the process.  Money that you can save or spend locally instead of sending a big chunk of it to a distant publisher or distributor.

Talk about win-win.

And we thank you for your patronage.

Entry Filed under: General, Nonfiction