Word: sassow
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From this jumble of material in the XR cage, it is difficult to guess what criteria Harvard uses to condemn a book to the XR imprisonment. Sassow admits that there are no written cri- teria for judging XR books, and says there are inconsistencies in the classification. A quick check of the Widener card catalogue illustrates these inconsistencies. Of Widener's 39 books on homosexuality, for example, 30 are kept in the XR cage and nine in the stacks. On the other hand, only 11 of 79 books on prostitution are classified XR. The bias is clearly heterosexual...
...Sassow says that books are classified XR by the same process in which the standard Widener call-numbers are determined. "There are no book jackets available," he says, "but we go beyond the table of contents--it isn't a casual thing...
Grey-haired Miss Haskins, in whose pleasant pink office filled with potted philodendrons the final classification of most XR books is decided, disagrees with Sassow. "It's a question of someone happening to notice bad language," she says. "Our classifiers don't have time to read any book...
...Both Sassow and Miss Haskins emphasize that an XR classification does not prevent the use of a book--except that library users cannot browse through the cage or remove the books from the reading room. Unfortunately, many students do not understand the XR system. A junior recalls hiking to the Biology Library as a freshman to get the Kinsey Report because he did not know Widener made it available for general use. The Bio Library also kept the book in a locked cabinet, and the freshman was allowed to read the book for one hour--with a matronly librarian hovering...
...Sassow has mixed emotions about the XR system. "It doesn't bother me that books like Candy are in the open stacks," he says. "From my viewpoint, you can open up the whole shooting match. But with people being the way they are, it just isn't possible...