CHAPTER 8:  CONCLUSION

I was specifically looking for systems that could be used to organize collections of “pornography.”  I examined a number of libraries where “pornography” was likely to be held.  I found a number of examples of thesauri and Web portals that are actively used to organize sexual materials from a variety of perspectives.  Libraries that catalog and provide access to collections of “pornography” exist in a few significant examples.  These materials are most often held incidentally to the purpose of the collection.  In comparison, the Web provides aggressive, but often unsystematic, access to the most “pornographic” of materials. 

Each of the various university, public, and special libraries contextualized their pornographic holdings.  None held “pornography” as such.  Searching for the term “pornography” results in books and articles about censorship, about the various debates and court cases around pornography, and discussions of the anti-pornography movement.  To find actual, literal examples of “pornography” requires an approach, a set of keywords, which is different for each collection.  The collections that hold materials considered “pornographic” carefully places these materials in context through subject analysis, orderliness, and access controls. 

The University of Washington interfiles most of the sexually explicit materials.  They are kept as part of a comprehensive research collection, contextualized with Library of Congress Subject Headings.  Similarly, public libraries such as Seattle Public Library and the San Francisco Public Library analyze their sexually explicit materials with LCSH or a modification thereof, placing them within a context of public entertainment and information needs. 

SIECUS specifically addresses appropriate sex education (K-12 and beyond), and holds materials in support of their published curricula.  NISSO’s library is similar, in that its materials, although sexually explicit, are not very “pornographic.” Their thesaurus reflects their users, who are researchers, professionals and students looking for serious materials about sexual behavior.  

Collections such as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Historical Society (GLBTHS) and Homodok-LAA have the goal of exposing the cultural, historical, philosophical, artistic, and social history of GLBT people.  The “pornography” held by these collections, and there certainly is some, is placed within the context of that history.  Users are not encouraged to come in and view the “pornography” as such.

Libraries such as Kinsey Institute and the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality are really in the business of holding and providing access to “pornography” – though called different names.  The Kinsey collection is the most organized collection of “pornography,” held and organized as “examples of sexual expressiveness.”  The Kinsey thesaurus, Sexual Nomenclature, is also the most specific and detailed tool in English for subject analyzing this material.  Some complain that this thesaurus is too objective, and it is indeed very scientific.  It is also rather idiosyncratic, expressing Alfred Kinsey’s unique perspective on sexuality.  It is very thorough and works well to provide a variety of access points into a collection of sexually explicit materials.  The long-term success of this library is a testament to the doability of the project of collecting and providing access to the most raggedy of smut.  Access to the collection is carefully controlled, though currently efforts are being made to open the library to a wider audience.  Users include students, researchers, professionals, artists, and writers.  Proper use of the library materials is in the reading room only, as the materials do not circulate.  Xerox copies can be made of less-fragile items. 

The IASHS collection is in the process of being organized.  They have looked at the Kinsey thesaurus and rejected its detailed use.  Books are organized alphabetically by author; easier for volunteers and students to manage than a complicated classification system.  Access is limited to students of the Institute and a few approved researchers.  That the materials may cause sexual arousal in the users is assumed, discussed, and even gently accounted for in the circumstances of use.  In this, the library and the collection is more controversial, or perhaps more honest, in its presentation and use.

The kinds of terms on Web directories range from informative to prurient.  Examples of public use of Internet pornography, such as from a public library Web terminal, are related as trouble and are not the “normal” usage pattern.  I assume that Web directories and the sexually explicit and “pornographic” information behind it are normally used privately, or in small, intimate groups.  Further research on this topic would be very interesting.

I am looking at what it is like to take “pornography” not as a dirty joke, but as a serious information science topic.  It has been a puzzling and difficult topic to research, because “pornography” use, and with it sexually explicit information -- supposedly the most-searched for topic on the Web – is not positively addressed by the field of information science.  “Pornography” tends to be looked at obliquely in library and information science literature, and discussed in terms of censorship rather than in terms of access.  Actual, lived use of “pornography” is not well understood, and is an exciting avenue for future research.  Analysis of users and usings of “pornography” must include an unembarrassed look at the fact that its use is sexually arousing.  Many interesting findings will come when these topics are taken seriously.