Debate: Should Librarians Remove Bellesiles's Book from the Shelves?

Should librarians take Michael Bellesiles's Arming America off the main circulation shelves?

MAYBE: Mr. Sternstein

The other day, while traveling back from New York City, I heard an item on local Public Radio. It said that a reader in Goshen, N.Y. (there is also a Goshen, Conn., and a Goshen, MA) complained about Arming America being on the open shelves despite the fact it had been discredited, etc. The librarian investigated, and agreed that Arming America should no longer be available and pulled it off the shelves. The reporter didn't say what the library did with it.

I'm conflicted about what to do with books like Arming America. Should works deemed fraudulent be removed from the library shelves? And if so where should they reside? Should they be put in a rare book room or in special collections?

This is not the first time this problem has arisen. In the mid 1960s I helped expose a book by S. Walter Poulshock, The Two Parties and the Tariff in the 1880s, published by Syracuse University Press. The author, after being confronted by overwhelming evidence of his fraud -- concocting hundreds of documents -- confessed and resigned his teaching position at Rutgers University. (I wrote all about this for HNN in February, just when the Bellesiles scandal was heating up.) Syracuse recalled the book. But not all libraries returned their copies and the book is still available in some collections. I was amazed to find it was on the shelves at Brooklyn College when a student there cited it in his term paper. I went to the librarian and asked her to place it in the Special Collections room. She did, It remained there only for a short time. Somebody later returned it to the open stacks. I protested, but the librarian then in charge refused to remove it and it probably still is on the shelves for students to use for their "research papers," despite the fact that it is filled with hundreds of invented sources.

The problem with leaving works like Poulshock's or Bellesiles's on the open shelves is that over the years sometimes even professional historians forget about the problems attached to them. About five years ago, a book by Robert W. Cherney, American Politics in the Gilded Age, 1868-1900, written primarily for college students, appeared with Poulshock's fraudulent book prominently cited in its bibliography, where it was praised for shedding light "on major issues and policies." When Cherney, a specialist on the Gilded Age who teaches at San Francisco State, was informed that the book was a fraud, he was terribly embarrassed. He then set about to track down whether other libraries in California -- other than the one at SFS -- had copies and found that many did. I don't know if he succeeded in having the book removed from the open shelves but that was his intention, I'm told.

So if a professional historian can be deceived by a fraudulent book that remains on the open shelves years after the fraud has been uncovered, what about the general reader? And should readers be protected from these books? Should they perhaps remain on the shelves with some statement attached about their unreliability as works of history?

As I said earlier, I'm conflicted about what course to take. I'm uneasy about the Goshen, NY library removing Arming America from its shelves but I'm equally uneasy about leaving it there without notifying the unwarry about its serious flaws.

NO (WITH SOME EXCEPTIONS): Mr. Volokh

I think this is a very interesting, and difficult, question.

Seems to me that research libraries, and main branch libraries, absolutely should keep the book on the shelves: The book is of substantial interest precisely because of the controversy, and of course the book continues to have some defenders, at least as to some parts (though I'm certain that it's flawed in much more than its use of probate records).

The matter is more difficult for smaller libraries, where shelf space might be an issue, and where the main market is more people doing general reading about the subject, rather than scholars tracking down the entries in a particular debate. My sense is that libraries should keep the book on the shelves if there's no lack of space; but if there is a lack of space, this book ought to be on the to-remove list, alongside other books that seem no longer that informative (because they're obsolete and no longer reflect what is seen as sound scientific or historical thinking). I'd like to know more about how librarians actually handle such shelf-space problems, though.

But should libraries take steps to label the book, so readers know at least that there's serious controversy about its accuracy? (I see no reason for the library to take a stance on whether the critics are right or the author is right; at most, they should let readers know about the criticisms, and let readers decide for themselves.) I think that in principle they ought to: The library's purpose is to inform readers, and if there seems to be a substantial chance that the book is grossly in error it seems good to stress that. This is especially true since the error doesn't seem obvious at first glance: I don't think libraries need to label astrology books this way, since most people know that astrology is at the very least a highly questionable discipline; it's a different story, though, when a book seems at first like serious scholarship, but it turns out that its factual underpinnings have been seriously undermined.

On the other hand, I can also see why many librarians would rather stay out of this, simply because there are so many books whose factual assertions have been seriously criticized. True, it's rare to have scandals of quite this magnitude, with serious claims of outright dishonesty. But there are surely lots of other books that have also been exposed to withering criticism, some of it perhaps correct. Many librarians would prefer not to get into those debates, and take an "as is, no warranties" attitude towards their collections.

Finally, this raises a broader point: In law, there are computerized mechanisms -- and, before that, there were print mechanisms -- for seeing whether a case has been overruled, or even cast into doubt, by other cases. I don't think there are as many mechanisms in other disciplines for easily tracking down criticism of published articles or books. It would be great if such mechanisms were developed, and if libraries could make them easily available to people.

On the other hand, maybe the Internet, despite all its limitations, is already beginning to prove to be such a device. Anyone who knew enough to do a google search on "Michael Bellesiles, Arming America" would pretty quickly figure out that there's a pretty hot controversy about the book.

This exchange first appeared on Mr. Volokh's blog and is reprinted with permission.