Awful Library Books

Mormon Meat

December 5, 2022 Holly You Ate What? One comment

Favorite Mormon Recipes
Meats Edition Including Seafoods and Poultry
2000 Favorite Recipes
Montgomery Second Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
1966

Submitter: While weeding the cookbook section, I spied this sad spiral bound book being held together with a prayer. There is one thing I hate about cookbooks and that is a lack of pictures. In the case of this book- there were about 4 black and white photos in total for all 380+ pages. Incidentally there were no secret Jello recipes from Joseph Smith.

Holly: The Frankfurter-Kraut Noodle Ring, pictured below, reminds me of a dish my Polish family makes called haluski. We don’t Jello mold it, though. Missed opportunity.

Tape and Prayer

November 28, 2022 Holly Condition/Processing Fail 3 comments

Christy
Marshall LeSourd
1967

Submitter: While assisting a rural library with their weeding, we came across Christy. The solo librarian could not believe that it was still on the shelf. She was horrified. It was last checked out in 1995. This little library has done an excellent job of serving its citizens of 353. They use catalog cards and do everything manually, so it is hard to keep up! Someone must have thought that Christy could be brought back to life!

Holly: Poor Christy is being held together with about a pound of tape and a prayer – which is appropriate, since this book is popular with Christian homeschoolers in my community. My library’s copy has circulated 43 times since 2007 when our current copy was added, most recently one year ago today. It would even be worth buying a new copy if ours was in bad shape. Clearly it is not that popular in Submitter’s library, though, if they have a copy in this kind of condition that hasn’t gone out since 1995. I think they’re safe weeding it and letting it go. Different strokes for different folks! I am curious about the tape job, actually. You can no longer see any title from the spine and there’s no call number sticker either. Even the title on the cover is so faint you have to look closely to see what book it is. Maybe it would have circulated if anyone could tell what book it was while browsing.

Collection development - picture of books

Diversity Collection Development

November 24, 2022 Mary Kelly Practical Librarian 5 comments

Thanksgiving represents the start of the holiday season. I particularly like working post Thanksgiving due to the large number of college students that show up telling me that their family is driving them crazy. There is also a high probability of pumpkin pie in the break room. Thanksgiving also makes me think of holiday books, especially ones for the kids.

As we head into the holiday season, it is a good time to dig deep into your holiday book collection. Instead of looking to see that holidays are represented, take a minute to really evaluate the collection, especially the older titles. Our library has been making a a concerted effort to make sure we are inclusive and respectful of both religions and cultures. Particularly helpful for collection development of non-Christian religious holidays and celebrations is Diverse Bookfinder.

Be mindful of how non-Christians or indigenous people are represented in books. Thanksgiving holiday books can be quite problematic in native representation – not to mention factually inaccurate. If you want some examples, check out the category “Holiday collection” on our site for examples.

Although I don’t do kiddie collection development (adults are SOOOO much easier!) anymore, I thought I would share a few resources for both youth and adults. (Holly cobbled this together based on some workshops and recommendations.) Of course, this is only to scratch the surface and gives you a starting point. I am sure there are more resources out there and this is not to be considered a comprehensive list. If anyone has any to share, by all means say so in the comments!

I will also point out that we have some sample collection development policies if you are looking for language on DEI. I also want to point you to the ALA discussion on Diversity in Collections.

The “first” Thanksgiving

November 23, 2022 Mary Kelly Holiday Collection 8 comments

This little book is really more of a mild tirade about communism and eroding of traditional American ideals. Thanksgiving, in particular. There was an old school history lesson about the pilgrims, settlement of Plymouth, settlement of Jamestown, and President Lincoln’s proclamation of a “day of thanksgiving”. This recitation of questionable “facts” was an attempt to get at the real controversy: The first Thanksgiving. Naturally, the native Americans are barely secondary players in this story.

In my opinion, this book was a waste of time and paper. I made a cursory attempt to find out if this author had significance beyond this little book. I didn’t find too much about the author other than a couple of other titles about the FBI and the Nixon administration.

Is this worth keeping? For a public library, probably not, unless the collection is super deep. University collections would probably be okay with something like this, depending on collection parameters or research interests.

I will keep to our family traditions of sweatpants, watching the Detroit Lions lose, and eating too much — just like the pilgrims.

looking, working, living terrific 24 hours a day

24/7 Power Looks

November 21, 2022 Mary Kelly Looking Good 10 comments

Looking, Working, Living Terrific 24 Hours A Day
Cho and Lueders
1982

This title sounds exhausting. At my age, I think showing up for work with my hair combed is an accomplishment worthy of my next performance review. (Holly take note!) This was published at the time the mantra of working women was “I can do it all!” (See this commercial for Enjoli perfume, and you will get the idea.) Those of you old enough to remember this, get ready to cringe.

This book combines looking good with career/personal success advice. I will cop to buying into this type of dressing for success looks. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the budget to sustain this look and it really didn’t make me powerful in my job. (Naturally, I moved to librarianship so I could have the real money and power!<<sarcasm)

From the Beginning

November 15, 2022 Holly But it's Historical! 17 comments

The Atlas of World History: From the Beginning to Alexander the Great
McEvedy
1970

Submitter: Weeding my high school library, where the non fiction books average an age of 1986, I found this in the history section. I flipped through it and it seemed pretty decent for being published in 1970 and White American centric, but then I saw this map and read the text accompanying it. It seems pretty racist even for 1970s.

Holly: Ouch, 1986? You have your work cut out for you, Submitter. Good catch on this one.

Republican Cooking

November 7, 2022 Holly You Ate What? 10 comments

How to Eat Like a Republican: Or, Hold the Mayo, Muffy – I’m Feeling Miracle Whipped Tonight
Townsend
2014

Submitter: This book was just weeded at my public library. It was weeded for low checkouts and there’s a reason why. It’s trying too hard to be funny and the recipes don’t look good at all.

Holly: I bet if you replaced “Republican” with any other group of people, political or not, you’d get the same basic recipes submitted. It’s definitely tongue-in-cheek, and I bet there are libraries where this kind of thing circulates well. I agree that the recipes look kind of dumb. For me, that’s actually what makes it funny! Some of the reviews on GoodReads are pretty funny too.

helping the handicapped teenager mature 1971

Handicapped Teens

November 1, 2022 Mary Kelly Parent/Teacher Collection 4 comments

Helping the Handicapped Teenager Mature
Ayrault
1971

When this book was published, handicapped students were invisible to mainstream students. Student that were different, were routinely shuffled into “special ed” regardless of ability or need. When I graduated college in 1982, mainstreaming students was a new concept. Before I graduated with a degree in education, a course was quickly thrown together for students discussing this concept. It was eye opening for me. Very few distinctions were made in a child’s ability. Regardless of physical or mental capabilities, everyone was lumped together under an umbrella of special ed and were virtually invisible.