From Madonna's Sex to Lady Chatterley: inside the Bodleian's explicit book club

 

The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Lovemaking (London, 1974) by Alex Comfort, with illustrations by Chris Foss. Photograph: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford/© ChrisFossArt.com

 

Libraries today take a dim view of censorship.

 

They are places where knowledge is preserved and shared freely, and where ideas that may seem challenging to some, are nevertheless part of what libraries see as their role in society to make ideas accessible to all.

 

But this was not always the case. My own institution, the Bodleian Librariesin Oxford, created a restricted class, a special category for books that were deemed to be too sexually explicit.

 

These books were given the shelfmark Φ – the Greek letter phi – and students had to submit a college tutor’s letter of support in order to access the racy materials that were contained there. 

 

Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/08/inside-the-bodleian-library-explicit-immoral-books-phi-collection-on-display

Censorship at/in our highest institutions of learning.

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