Searching the databases : a quick look at Amazon and two other online catalogues

H. Potts

The Amazon Online Catalogue was compared with the Library of Congress Catalogue and the British Library Catalogue, both also available online, by searching on both neutral (Gay, Lesbian, Homosexual) and pejorative (Perversion, Sex Crime) subject terms, and also by searches using Boolean logic in an attempt to identify Lesbian Fiction items and religion-based anti-gay material. Amazon was much more likely to be the first port of call for nonacademic enquiries. Although excluding much material necessary for academic research, it carried more information about the individual books and less historical homophobic baggage in its terminology than the great national catalogues. Its back catalogue of second-hand books outnumbered those in print. Current attitudes may partially be gauged by the relative numbers of titles published under each heading-e.g., there may be an inverse relationship between concern about child sex abuse and homophobia, more noticeable in U.S. because of the activities of the religious right.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]