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Re: Exhibiting controversial materials



ah, well...here at the City of Saskatoon Archives I fear the best we're able
to do is  photos of old fire trucks - admittedly, completely unclothed but
pretty non-controversial nonetheless.

I'm busy scanning them for  display, so we'll see if they elicit any
complaints.


Jeff "is it friday yet?" O'Brien

> ----------
> From:         Edwin G. Frank[SMTP:efrank@anduril.memphis.edu]
> Sent:         Thursday, February 24, 2000 3:11 PM
> To:   ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject:      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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A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>