This "informal glimpse" is not about proselytization. It is about how those in my profession, librarians and their parent organization the American Library Association, consider books dealing with polemical subjects and why I believe bias, deliberate or otherwise, is a part of this process. Keep in mind, I'm writing as a librarian, not an apologist.

Intelligent Design, is defined withing the subject heading of the Library of Congress (LCSH) as:

works on the theory that there are elements of design in the natural world, especially the biological world, that indicate its creation by an intelligent agent.

Though I've long suspected this subject outside the pale of legitimacy by many of my colleagues, Walter Cressler's "An Evolving Collection" (Library Journal 9/1/2006) gets full credit for substantiating my hunch and providing the impetus to take a look-see. With an annotated bibliography and advice on collection strategies, Cressler's Even anti-evolution evolves section ends with:

The purchase of materials that represent the uncompromising fringes of any conflict in society requires a clear collection policy. For example, we may be obligated to our patrons to make available works that embody ideas fundamental to significant cultural undercurrents such as "intelligent design" but not to burden budgets and minds with every other form of pseudoscience.

And here we have Intelligent Design carefully wrapped as fringe and pseudoscience, worthy of a token purchase but not nothing more. No help even from the likes of an Antony Flew who, having devoted a lifetime serving as a Humanist poster boy, came to the epiphany that that, ".the argument for intelligent design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it." (Christian Century 1/11/2006) Would it help to remind Cressler and others in our profession of subjects once labeled as "pseudoscience"? Continental Drift, Cloning, Osteopathy, String Theory, Cold Fusion, Cosmology, Electromagneticism, Meteors, Big Bang Theory, Black Holes, all presumably at some earlier time not worthy of collecting in a balanced fashion. I'll leave my colleagues to investigate the scientific credentials of these purveyors of junk science like Jonathan Wells, William Dembski and Michael Behe.

Using WorldCat, Baker and Taylor's Title Source III, I set out to identify every book, paperback or hardbound, having a Library of Congress subject heading/descriptor (LCSH) of Intelligent Design published from 2000 through September 2006. As with my previous look into collection bias in 223:1there was no particular reason for beginning with the year 2000. The sample given here should be large enough to establish a pattern with the relatively new subject of Intelligent Design. It is important to note that I deliberately used sources with authority control like WorldCat and Title Source III, rather than Amazon, et al., to prevent a skewed sample collected by various keywords. Is there a chance a few books have slipped under my radar? Sure. But hopefully not enough to have any significant impact upon my findings. Again, this is just a glimpse for your consideration.

My research found a total of 68 books. I divided this group into three sections; "Balanced", Not-Favorable", and "Favorable". Balanced being those books presenting both sides of Intelligent Design, Not-Favorable discrediting Intelligent Design and Favorable supporting the theory. Some may take issue with my designations however I feel reasonably confident that each book has been properly designated.