Academic fraud & discredited books

Eugene Volokh has published a letter from history professor Jeremy Sternstein regarding books based on research proven to be fraudulent. Sternstein and Volokh both wrestle with the issue of what libraries should do with such books. Discard them? Label them? Put them in Special Collections?

This might be an instance where reviving the good old medieval practice of glossing reference books would be useful. Certainly, it has never gone out of style in scholars' own libraries -- I own several volumes that formerly belonged to eminent art historians, books which are heavily (and most usefully) annotated in the margins.

On a more serious note, it would certainly be useful if someone were to maintain an online list of discredited books and articles -- not simply works that are controversial, but ones that are based on demonstrably fraudulent scholarship. Being able to Google a title, along with keywords such as "fraudulent" or "discredited", is a big step in the right direction, but a master compilation would be a major service. Perhaps something one of the urban myth sites such as snopes.com could incorporate?

Posted by David on November 25, 2002 5:04 PM