The Dissidents Podcast (in which Pam discusses the ethics of librarianship)

The Dissidents Season 4 Episode 6 Keeping Up Appearances: Ethics and Neutrality in the Everyday Life of a Librarian

See also The Librarians Are Not Okay

The Heart Goes Last - by Margaret Atwood

Like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale this is a brilliant piece of dystopian literature. The Heart Goes Last, however, is a bit lighter and more satirical. It tells the story of Stan and Charmaine who are living in their car until they find out about the Positron Project - an experimental community in which residents spend every other month living in prison, while their "alternates" live in their houses. There is no unemployment, and the "prisoners" are treated well and provided with good food. Stan and Charmaine start out adjusting to the life, and are glad to have a nice home for six months out of the year, but when Stan discovers that Charmaine is having an affair it sets off a chain of events that neither of them could have ever expected involving a plethora of Elvis impersonators, a knitted-blue-bear fetish, and chilling Stepford-esque experimentation.

Even dystopias have libraries. Positron has one but apparently it's picking are slim. During one of her trysts Charmaine and her paramour, Max, are so swept up in the passion we learn that

he couldn't wait, and because he couldn't neither could she. It was like the copy on the back of the most lurid novel in the limited-titles library at Positron. Swept away. Drugged with desire. Like a cyclone. Helpless moaning. All of that. She'd never known about such a force, such an energy inside herself. She'd thought it was only in books and TV, or else for other people.

Of course this one reference to the library had me questioning what kinds of books were being withheld from the good citizens of Positron. Clearly bodice-ripping sex was in, so what was out? We are left to ponder, as this was the only instance in which the library was mentioned.

Like a Virgin - by Aarathi Prasad

I had a bit of trouble concentrating while I was reading this one, not because of the sexual subject matter, but rather because it gave me an earworm. Much as I like Madonna, hearing the refrain of one song over and over in my head was pretty distracting.

This was a fascinating book though, explaining how different organisms reproduce, including those who do so asexually. Discussions of cloning mammals, and advances in fertility treatments demonstrate that a human virgin birth is probably not far outside the realm of possibility, perhaps in the very near future.

There were also two noteworthy things for the "Library Books" blog. One mention that the sequencing of human DNA "has provided a library of essential biological information". If there had been nothing else in this book to blog about here, it might not have even gotten an entry, but in addition to libraries in books, any time I find information about banned books I have to comment. Book banning is a time-honored tradition, which appears to go back as long as there have been books. I can even imagine Neanderthals chipping away someone else's cave drawings in order to put up a "more accurate" or even "less offensive" version of events. The banned book in question here is Aristotle's Masterpiece, or, The Works of Aristotle. This book was, in fact, not written by Aristotle, but includes some of his ideas, as well as others', and was banned in the UK from the 18th through the mid 20th century, when it became available in 1960.

The book includes descriptions of midwifery, female reproductive organs, and all things related to sex and embryos...In the United States...[it] was much more accepted. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, it was the most commonly read medical text-despite the arrival of new microscopes, dissection tables, and complex experimentation, which completely contradicted the book's depictions of the workings of reproduction.

Never let science get in the way of education. Such things are still taking place today as creationists make their religious viewpoints the focal points of science classes, even in public schools.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - by Rebecca Skloot

I've been intrigued by this title for several years. So, recently when two different friends of mine suggested that it be would be a good choice for Bridgewater's One Book One Community (OBOC) reading program several of us on the OBOC steering committee decided to read it. It does look like an excellent choice for a community-wide read with a lot of issues for discussion including race, class, medical ethics, legal ethics, and science vs. religion.

Author Rebecca Skloot, sets out to find out about the real person behind the HeLa cell line. In 1951 cancer cells were taken from Henrietta Lacks who was being treated at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland (one of the few places that offered treatment to African American patients at the time). Lacks' cells turned out to have an incredible rate of reproduction and were the first cells that were able to be kept alive in a culture. Still reproducing today they have been used in countless medical, and other scientific experiments. Lacks' family did not find out about the cells until 25 years later. And virtually none of the people doing research with Lacks' cells knew anything about the woman they came from (most thought her name was Helen Lane). In Skloot's quest to find out about the mother of five who died of cervical cancer at age 31 she consulted doctors and researchers; traveled to Lacks' family home in Clover, Virginia; and interviewed family members, much of the time accompanied Lacks' daughter Deborah, who knew almost as little about her mother as Skloot did.

Henrietta Lacks moved from her hometown of Clover to Turner Station, a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland for her husband to take a job at Bethlehem Steel. So, it is at the Turner Station Branch of the Baltimore County Public Library that Skloot meets the librarian who shows her a VHS tape of the BBC program The Way of All Flesh.

At the time of Lacks' death there were no laws or ethical codes that required doctors to ask permission from patients to take living tissue. There were laws requiring permission of the family before removal of tissue from dead bodies. Controversy remains as to when the cells were removed, and whether consent was granted.

This work is completely readable and accessible, even for those of us who have not had a science class since tenth grade biology.

More information
http://rebeccaskloot.com/
http://henriettalacksfoundation.org/
Recent article from the New York Times tells of the Lacks family finally being given a place at the table.
Remembering Henrietta Lacks
The Supreme Court ruled in June that naturally occurring genes could not be patented, although synthetic ones can be.