A project manager at Reykjavík City Library says that the library’s decision to reject certain books is based on good grounds. There just wasn’t enough room for all the books and some of them were also dated.
“We had to pick out what was best for us to keep. We are a public library, not a library which stores books as The National Library (i. Landsbókasafnið,) does. That’s why all the books must be of interest to the public,” says Úlfhildur Dagsdóttir, project manager at Reykjavík City Library (i. Borgarbókasafnið), when asked why the library only accepted about two-thirds of the books from the national queer organization Samtökin ’78.
According to her the main reason was lack of space and also because some of the books were outdated. She adds that the books from Samtökin ’78, included important historical facts about the history of the gay rights movement. “There were for example many books about AIDS, which was a topical issue back then,” she says and adds that the National Library only kept the educational books from Samtökin ’78.
A large part of the books Reykjavík City Library was offered included gay romances novels. “There were all kinds of fun, old stuff there and it would have been incredibly fun to be able to keep it,” says Úlfhildur. “But we are a public library and there isn’t a top priority for us to have a huge amount of erotic novels in our shelves.”
Úlfhildur says they wanted to accept a cross-section of the romance novels and both include older classic books and some older books which are less known but just as important as the classic ones. “It took a lot of work for us to sort these books out. We looked them up online and read endless reviews. When we accept a gift like this we take it seriously. The erotic books were quite similar and that’s why we picked out the ones we liked the most. The covers of the books played a part in our decision. Our experience is that they matter when people choose books to read.”
We have to follow rules
Asked if explicit sex played a part when choosing the books, Úlfhildur says the library follows simple rules. “We don’t accept books which are regarded as porn. I direct the comics-department and I’ve gotten complains many times over comics about gays, which in many cases include sex between men. I don’t consider that dangerous to anyone, rather the opposite. But when we saw some of the older material [from Samtökin ’78] we found the sex way more explicit than is usually available.”
Úlfhildur adds that the same rule applies to material with explicit straight sex. “Someone once suggested we’d buy a certain comic but when I looked closer it contained scenes and descriptions I didn’t think were acceptable here. The comic was for straight people. So prejudice has never influenced our choice. Actually, in the gay department, the books are probably more explicit than in other departments. When this literature was making its way, explicit sex was an important part of them.”
“…we are very serious in making this a good library, both as a public library and a queer one.”
In books like “Fifty Shades of Grey” there is violent sexual behavior. Why is it then accessible in your library, but not the explicit romances?
“Personally I don’t want books like “Fifty Shades of Grey” in public libraries or come to think of it, any other place,” says Úlfhildur. “I believe many colleagues of mine share my opinion. But the book is really popular and we are a public library. We have to answer to the needs of our customers and we all know how popular this book is. “Lolita”, which was recently released in Icelandic, is another example. Many people have condemned that book but nevertheless we have it in our shelves. We have to follow the literature landscape to some extent,” she explains.
Both a good public library and a queer one
Úlfihildur goes on to say that erotica and porn were the least things the library staff were thinking about, when they accepted the library from Samtökin ’78. “We knew the library was good and thought this was a good place for it. We didn’t want the library to totally disappear. We also wanted to update it and that’s why we put a great effort in buying new books to fill in the blanks, so to speak, from the old library of Samtökin.
Nowadays there are new definitions of genders and sexual orientations and we have been buying a lot of books which focus on that. Young people have been left a little bit behind and therefore we have bought both children books and books for teenagers. We are very pleased to see that these books are already being read in our library.”
She points out that the library is also trying to widen its range by taking in queer literature from all around the world, not only western societies. “We’ve been buying books from Africa and other places, so we are very serious in making this a good library, both as a public library and a queer one. We always want to have the widest selection of books and if we would have accepted all the books from the gay romance sector, the selection would be very one-dimensional. The same thing would happen if we decided to only accept classical books.”
Úlfhildur likes to add that Reykjavík City Library is a very lively library and is open for any suggestions for new books to purchase. The books which the library declined are now being sold at Samtökin ’78.
Main photo: Jóhann Heiðar Árnason.