Five books written by Sanford Berman, the former Hennepin County (Minn.) Library head cataloger who resigned in April 1999 in protest over an “involuntary reassignment,” were apparently removed from the HCL online catalog sometime in January. The record for another volume, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sandy Berman But Were Afraid to Ask edited by Chris Dodge and Jan DeSirey (McFarland, 1995), is also missing.
“There is no way to determine who might have deleted these bibliographic records,” HCL Manager of Community Relations Nancy Perron told American Libraries. “Staff at each of the branches are authorized to delete the records of discarded books. However, we have no reason to believe that anyone issued a formal recall for the materials nor do we think that they were weeded.” She said that at least some of the titles were still physically on the library shelves.
In a February 1 press release, Berman suggested that HCL might be attempting to purge itself of his accomplishments: “Am I being morphed into a nonperson, flushed down an Orwellian ‘memory hole?’” He told AL, “Whether the copies are on the shelf or not is secondary. No one can find the books if the records are missing. This is bibliocide.”
Posted February 14, 2000.