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Re: Exhibiting controversial materials



Curtis Lyons wrote:

>         A group of erotic drawings done by a very famous person (not an
> artist by profession) has come into our possession. [snip]

>         The library is quite excited to have these and might want to
> display them at some point in the future. My director asked me to query
> this list and ask whether anyone has ever exhibited material that was, to
> the minds of at least some, pornographic and what the reaction was.

Hoo-boy!   This happened to us twice.  First, a collection of photographs
(which I thought very creative and high-quality), but which included some
nudity, were displayed in the library (they were not owned by us, but
were taken by a faculty member or grad student, IIRC).  This prompted
several complaints by library staff, and a few by library users.

The second time, an "AIDS awareness" display was allowed, but not
supervised, and what we ended up with was, as the director of the
day put it, "advertisements for sex partners" on the part of the young
man who installed it.  I think it remained up over a weekend, but was
taken down Monday.  This display prompted numerous complaints.

We also caught heck for a display of photos by a Palestinian photographer
(who had numerous awards to his credit) of scenes of the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank, which some Jewish folks here considered
to be "incitements to terrorism."  (It was tendentious, but it presented
a valid point of view and the criticism was, IMHO, way over the top.)

Our policy now is not to allow display of non-library-owned material,
which doesn't help you any, I guess.

Bottom line: expect complaints, and have a written policy that you can
refer to.  Ours is being vetted by the university legal counsel.

Ed Frank
University of Memphis

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