Martha Cornog & Timothy Perper – For Sex Education, See Librarian: A Guide to Issues and Resources

At long last, here is the definitive practical guide to sexuality materials in libraries and an annotated bibliography of nearly 600 recommended books for school and public libraries. Cornog and Perper, the preeminent experts on sexuality materials for libraries, provide guidelines for materials selection, reference, processing, access, programming, and dealing with problems of vandalism and censorship.

The bibliography, organized into 5 topics and 48 subtopics, annotates a collection of recommended books and nonprint materials on sexuality information for children and adults, most published since 1985. Recommended works represent a wide variety of views, including Christian and conservative.

Part I offers detailed guidance for selecting and processing sexuality materials, including vertical files, audiovisuals, and periodicals, and for doing reference on sexuality topics; lists a full range of topics and viewpoints that libraries should collect; addresses a variety of processing and access issues such as cataloging, programming, and vandalism; discusses how to deal with censorship issues relating to sexuality materials in the library; and reviews the history of libraries and sexuality materials.

Part II, the annotated bibliography, is organized into 5 broad topics―sexuality and behavior, homosexuality and gender issues, life cycle issues, sex and society, and sexual problems―which are then divided into 48 subtopics. Each title is compared and contrasted with similar titles. Titles for young people include grade level appropriateness. Specialized acquisition sources are also listed for each of the 48 subtopics.

Cornog and Perper point out that the key to selection of materials is balance and representativeness of a wide range of viewpoints. They have gone to great lengths to provide a wide variety of materials and viewpoints and to seek out interesting and valuable materials from large and small publishers and organizations. This is the definitive guide on sexuality information for public and school libraries.

About the Author

Martha Cornog, MA, MLS, edited Libraries, Erotica, & Pornography (1991), which won the American Library Association’s Eli M. Obeler Award for Intellectual Freedom in 1992. With her husband, Timothy Perper, she has written articles on sexuality materials in the library for Library Journal, Collection Building, Journal of Information Ethics, and SIECUS Report. She has also published on sexual language and communication and contributed to The Complete Dictionary of Sexology (1995) andIHuman Sexuality: An Encyclopedia (1994).

She and Timothy Perper are currently preparing a work on Sex and Religion in Modern America. She has been active in the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex and served on the editorial board of The Journal of Sex Research. She is manager of membership services for the American College of Physicians.

Timothy Perper, PhD,is the author of Sex Signals: The Biology of Love (1985) and co-editor of A Descriptive Dictionary and Atlas of Sexology (Greenwood, 1991). He has published on human as well as animal sexuality, contributing to Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia (1994) and authored or co-authored three chapters in Libraries, Erotica, & Pornography (1991), edited by his wife, Martha Cornog. An independent writer, researcher, and lecturer, he is active in the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex and a former book review editor of The Journal of Sex Research.

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