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December 5, 2015 7:31 AM   Subscribe

Librarians in Japan upset after newspaper published names of books that novelist Haruki Murakami checked out as a teenager from his high school library. [Los Angeles Times]
Librarians in Japan are upset after a newspaper published the names of books that novelist Haruki Murakami, 66, checked out as a teenager from his high school library, the Asahi Shimbun reports. The Japan Library Assn. criticized the Kobe Shimbun newspaper for printing a photograph of a library card that contained the names of several Hyogo Prefectural Kobe High School students, including Murakami.
posted by Fizz (21 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
On the one hand, I love learning of things like this, but on the other it is a rather gross invasion of privacy. I doubt that I'd like it very much if people were able to see all of my private information out in public in the same way. And even though this seems fairly innocuous, it's not too difficult to see how this kind of information might be abused or manipulated.
posted by Fizz at 7:38 AM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


The American Library Association agrees with the JLA.
posted by box at 7:44 AM on December 5, 2015 [6 favorites]


This reminds me so much of that scene in Se7en where Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt gain access to John Doe's library check-out list and attempt to use it to profile his behaviour based solely on this list that they've illegally obtained.
posted by Fizz at 7:53 AM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


Of course this is an egregious etc. etc. but Why can't I find The List anywhere? Belle de Jour, Ok, cool...but I want the whole list! I'm a Murakami fanboy! Pics or it didn't happen!
posted by kozad at 7:57 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Of course this is an egregious etc. etc. but Why can't I find The List anywhere? Belle de Jour, Ok, cool...but I want the whole list!

It seems like the only record is of him checking out a three book box set of Kessel's works, as there isn't a report of anything else. This would be an even less worthy story if that was all they managed to glean.
posted by lunch at 8:09 AM on December 5, 2015


"We believed these facts are of high public interest."

Really? As an editor, Hideaki Ono could also have argued for his own newspaper to interview the author and ask him about his childhood reading.

On the whole, there's more high public interest in the issue of citizens' privacy than in gratifying readers' literary curiosity. (At least from an American perspective; perhaps "high public interest" is used and understood differently in a Japanese context?)
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:12 AM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


I agree that what Murakami read in high school is a reasonable matter of scholarly interest. So scholars should definitely ask him about it.

I will say, that while I appreciate that libraries are so careful about this sort of thing, I sometimes wish it was possible for *me* to get a list of items I have borrowed.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:14 AM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


Why can't I find The List anywhere? Belle de Jour, Ok, cool...but I want the whole list!

Here's the list, can't remember where I found it:

  • The Ultimate Dictionary of Dream Language
  • Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture
  • Jazz Theory and Practice
  • Wells for Beginners
  • The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
  • American Sports Legends: A to Z
  • Ear Anatomy: Overview, Gross Anatomy, Pathologic Variants
  • Women Are Mysterious and Probably Figments of Your Imagination
  • Color Theory: For Parallel Universes
  • Cats, What the Fuck
  • Freudian Imagery: Just the Vaginal Stuff
  • Hotels Are Sad
  • Describing Women in Creepy Ways
  • Another Book About Wells
  • Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book

  • posted by shakespeherian at 8:51 AM on December 5, 2015 [91 favorites]


    It's a hole in the wall that we need to patch up, but people need to chill, including the JLA and ALA. Yes, it's an invasion of Murakami's privacy, but that information was garnered from the remains of a circulation system that was in place at a time when libraries did not have such stringent safeguards in place as we do today.
    posted by cupcakeninja at 9:16 AM on December 5, 2015


    You forgot a few books on that list shakespeherian:

    • Japanese Food Brands You've Never Heard Of
    • Phone Call Recordings from the Future
    • Love, Guns, and Edamame
    • Creepy Guy in Restaraunt Who Likes Beatles Records: A Poem in 46 Parts
    posted by Fizz at 9:16 AM on December 5, 2015 [8 favorites]


    Why is the Justice League of America involved?
    posted by wittgenstein at 9:18 AM on December 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


    This seems like a ridiculous story all around. It's not Murakami's ‘library list,’ it's the fact that some 50 years ago he apparently read a few books by Joseph Kessel. And sure, Kessel's best-known work “is about a housewife who secretly works as a prostitute,” but nowhere does it mention if that was one of the books.

    If Murakami was anything like me as a teenager, he read hundreds, maybe thousands, of books, by many different authors. For example, back in those days, he also read The Castle and The Trial by Kafka, as mentioned here. And yes, he volunteered that information, but just because somebody happened to find a few more titles listed in a public place – not by pawing through his trash as A. J. Weberman used to do at Bob Dylan's house – doesn't seem particularly an invasion of privacy. Or – more to the point – worth calling news.

    I sometimes wish it was possible for *me* to get a list of items I have borrowed.

    I actually asked at the town library yesterday if they could tell me how many books I'd taken out in 2015. Not the titles, just the total number. And the librarian said their computers didn't store that information, so that if the government asked, they couldn't answer. I wouldn't bother to post my list online, like Art Garfunkel, but I have kept one of books I’ve read for the last 45 years. If the government wants to know the number (so far), it's 5,144.
    posted by LeLiLo at 9:34 AM on December 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


    I will say, that while I appreciate that libraries are so careful about this sort of thing, I sometimes wish it was possible for *me* to get a list of items I have borrowed.

    Have you tried asking your librarian for such a list?
    posted by el io at 9:51 AM on December 5, 2015


    Have you tried asking your librarian for such a list?

    No, but I have read the Toronto Public Library's privacy policy and it's really quite specific. If you return materials on time, the information that you borrowed them is removed from their records overnight.
    posted by jacquilynne at 11:00 AM on December 5, 2015


    jacquilynne, It's not the same but there are a few apps and sites that allow you to track your books. Goodreads is a pretty solid 'Facebook but for Book Nerd's kind of site and you can always just create your own database on Excel going forward. It's not the same as going back and finding books from childhood, but I've been tracking my reading habits for a while on Goodreads and its fun to go back and see what I read each year.
    posted by Fizz at 11:04 AM on December 5, 2015


    I have used Goodreads (and LibraryThing and Shelfari and possibly some others), but it's too much trouble to keep them up manually.
    posted by jacquilynne at 11:10 AM on December 5, 2015


    Most library systems do not retain information about what was borrowed. Many do have functionality that lets you create a list of books. If you take that step first, you may be able to keep your own record with one or two extra clicks. That is definitely worth asking your librarian about, since every time I've had a patron complain about not being able to access a history of books they've read, I've explained how they can do it for themselves.
    posted by Athanassiel at 5:24 PM on December 5, 2015


    I sometimes wish it was possible for *me* to get a list of items I have borrowed.

    This is a popular option in a lot of ILS's (integrated library systems, basically the database backend and web and library-software frontends (the part where data is not retained as the default is also very common)). In the one that my library uses, it's called 'reading history,' and it's something that individual users must opt into via the webopac (i.e., the web catalog, or the library's website). It's generally not retroactive from when you opt in--if you ask your librarian (as opposed to your random frontline staffperson--this is manager/librarian/data-nerd stuff), though, they might also be able to produce a list of the books which you were the last person to return, which will help you find some of your old checkouts. This is getting toward the inside-baseball, off-menu end of public librarianship, and the librarian is not obligated to provide this information, so be sure to, y'know, learn the jargon and smile and be nice and stuff.
    posted by box at 5:43 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


    When taking out a library book, back in the old days, I always liked that you could check the card in the back pocket and see who else in our small town also had read it. Eventually those cards featured patron numbers, instead of names, and today of course no one bothers with cards at all. This afternoon, after reading this post, I went to our library to get a book I’ve been meaning to read for some time, and was surprised to see it still had a card, showing the names of 17 previous borrowers. And even more surprised to see that I was one of them – I have no record of having read it, but apparently I took the same book out in April of 1996.
    posted by LeLiLo at 8:34 PM on December 5, 2015 [5 favorites]


    Yeah that's an asshole thing to do. Librarians care a great deal about privacy, being some of the first protectors of it.
    posted by agregoli at 5:53 AM on December 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


    it's an invasion of Murakami's privacy, but that information was garnered from the remains of a circulation system that was in place at a time when libraries did not have such stringent safeguards in place as we do today.

    Yes, this specific example is a sort of shruggo one. The cards had the names, so the laws that have come into play after this sort of can't realistically expand to cover this specific situation. But I'm happy that libraries are using it as a jumping off point for being all "Hey, this is the sort of thing you can trust us not to do nowadays!" That said, just like people in hospitals sneaking out photos, the system is only as secure as the weakest and/or most bribeable employee which is one of the reasons a lot of the online catalogs have settings allowing them to not keep "what you've checked out" lists.
    posted by jessamyn at 11:14 AM on December 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


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