The ownership of presidential campaign biographies by libraries: an empirical study

The Authors

Gregory A. Crawford, Penn State Harrisburg Library, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA

Glenn McGuigan, Penn State Harrisburg Library, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA

Debra Mattern Kephart, Penn State Harrisburg Library, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA

Abstract

Purpose – This research aims to examine the inclusion of biographies of presidential candidates in library collections.

Design/methodology/approach – OCLC's WorldCat database was used to search for biographies of presidential candidates that were held by libraries. Only biographies from the two years preceeding and the actual year of a presidential election were included in the analyses.

Findings – The results show that although candidate biographies are plentiful, most are owned by only a few libraries. Recent elections have seen the greatest number of these biographies, many of which have been produced by special interest groups. Analyses show that libraries collect these biographies without regard to party affiliation of the candidate or whether the candidate was victorious.

Research limitations/implications – Only major party candidates were included in the analyses.

Originality/value – Although such campaign materials may seem ephemeral, the paper shows that this material provides the raw material for future research on presidential campaigns and its associated advertising.

Article Type:

Research paper

Keyword(s):

Libraries; Elections; Literature; United States of America.

Journal:

Collection Building

Volume:

Number:

Year:

2008

pp:

108-112

Copyright ©

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

ISSN:

0160-4953

Introduction

During the 2004 presidential election, voters had access to a wide variety of candidate biographies, both in print and on the web, including many that were distributed as part of the campaign strategy. Most were written from either a highly favorable or a highly negative point of view, often depending on the source of the biography. Such biographies were usually written in the years or months leading up to the run for the American presidency, often as a way to garner support for a candidate's ideas even before the candidacy has been announced.

This research examines the ownership of book-length presidential candidate biographies in libraries. What does the analysis of the library holdings of these materials tell us about their significance? Are the biographies of the winners or losers kept by libraries? Are the biographies of one party acquired more than the other? Has the publication of these items changed over time? What does this information relate about library collection development approaches?

The focus of this study centered on book-length presidential candidate biographies. Other sources of biographical material, such as newspapers, magazines, and, for recent elections, the Internet are excluded from the analysis, although they all provide abundant biographical material on the candidates. According to Steel (1992), book-length campaign biographies have become less popular over time due to the amount of television and news media coverage of the candidates and their campaigns. Other scholars, notably Novak (1995, 1997), Wye (1996), and Morreale (1993, 1994), claim that in recent years, the candidate “bio film,” or biographical film, has exploded onto the political scene and has taken over many of the features of the printed campaign biography. In more recent research on presidential campaigns, media outlets such as radio, newspaper, local television news, network news, talk shows, and the Internet have been studied, but print resources such as the campaign biography and other printed campaign literature are not discussed (Bucy et al., 1999; Hershey, 2001; Jones, 2005; Kaid and Chanslor, 2004; Nimmo and Savage, 1976; and Whillock and Whillock, 2002). The 2004 campaign, however, witnessed the publication of a variety of candidate biographies, many published by special-interest groups who wished to sway the election toward one candidate or the other. Thus, the campaign biography seems to be alive and well.

Literature review

The presidential campaign biography has a long and rich history. Such works can be found from the earliest campaigns for the presidency. Brown (1956), in his dissertation on the presidential biography, states:

The campaign biography has been a consistent feature of every campaign since 1824. These biographies are neither scholarly productions nor pure fabrications. They are what an advertising-conscious civilization calls “promotional literature,” designed to “sell the customer” a presidential candidate (p. iii).

In the conclusion of his research, Brown writes:

Campaign biographies are propaganda. They are not designed as votive offerings to scholarship, intended to serve truth and increase the knowledge of mankind. They are written to serve a definite and immediate purpose – to aid in getting the candidate elected (p. 291).

Such biographies actually predate the 1824 election. For example, in the campaign of 1800, several biographies of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were used in the campaigns as propaganda, both for and against the candidates (Boller, 2004). Later, in the 1836 campaign, David Crockett, the former Tennessee Congressman and a supporter of Hugh L. White in his bid to become the Whig candidate for president, wrote The Life of Martin Van Buren, calling Van Buren, “turncoat, non-commitalist, prince of magicians” and “an insufferable snob” (Boller, 2004, p. 63). As Brown (1956) states, presidential campaign biographies “are engaged in the creation of a symbol – a symbol compounded of nearly all the ideas, beliefs, images, ideals, and emotions that the American public reveres … they create out of the raw material of the candidate's real life the biography of an ideal citizen of the republic” (pp. iii-iv). Similarly, Korzi (1998) and Casper (1992) both studied nineteenth century campaign biographies to determine the political development of the presidency and to examine how they were used in constructing the impression of ideal American lives.

Presidential campaign biographies are produced in a variety of ways. Often, the candidate himself will write (or have ghost-written) an autobiography. At other times, the biography will be written by a known writer, as in the case of the Life of Franklin Pierce, which was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Casper, 1993; Kauffman, 1997; Warner, 1973). The political parties themselves may have the biography written, sometimes in just a few days after the presidential nominating convention. Others are produced by independent publishers, political action committees, or even special interest groups. This research does not differentiate between the origins of the biography nor does it examine whether the biography presents a positive or negative view of a candidate.

Within the literature of library and information science (LIS), little has been written concerning library collections of presidential campaign literature, in particular the campaign biography. In the index of Library Literature, while a subject search of “political science literature – bibliography” will produce a lengthy list of article citations, minimal information can be found specifically on the presidential biographical monograph as campaign literature using either the controlled vocabulary of the database or keyword searching.

The most significant article on the subject of the campaign biography is an article by Rosen (2000) entitled “Booked for the campaign trail” that appeared in Publishers Weekly. In her article, Rosen describes the significance of biographical memoirs as presidential campaign literature when she writes, “For candidates on the stump, writing a memoir is almost as important as kissing babies” (p. 49). She describes that during the 2000 election, while presidential candidates were using memoirs and biographies as electoral tools in the marketplace of books, some publishers found it difficult to accurately determine future sales. Nevertheless, in quoting Hyperion editor Leigh Haber, Rosen relates that the campaign biography is a product that gets “the reader – and the vote – out” (p. 48). Haber continues:

To my mind, they've been experiencing a real resurgence. Not necessarily about the campaigns, but books that give the readers a window into who the candidate is. People trust books even if they don't trust the media. Books seem like a more authoritative source (p. 48).

While no data are presented to document these points in the article, such statements by the editor of a major publisher like Hyperion do support the idea that the presidential campaign biography is a viable product in the publishing industry and is potentially an important and effective tool during presidential elections.

While one may find literature dealing with the subject of the evaluation of political science literature and even discussions of media and elections within the literature of librarianship, discussions of the political campaign biography are rare. For example, Schultz (2002), writing in a bibliographic essay in Choice, provides an excellent analysis of campaigns and elections. While this essay references dozens of books regarding campaigns and elections, in his discussion of media and interest groups the author focuses on newspapers and television and does not mention the book as a form of political persuasion during presidential campaigns. Most of the works cited are scholarly in nature and focus on campaigns and elections. The article does not include the often less scholarly, and more self-serving, presidential campaign biography.

Other articles discuss collections of various types of presidential literature or materials in general. For example, an article by da Conturbia et al. (1993) focuses on the broader subject of analyzing collections of presidential materials and does not address presidential campaign biographical works specifically. Cutter (1991) examines ephemeral items found in museums rather than library collections. Presidential libraries are the focus of other articles. For example, Ziegenbein (2001), in her article on the Clinton Presidential Library, addresses topics related to the construction and maintenance of a presidential library collection in general, but again does not address presidential campaign biography, even though many such biographies were written about Clinton.

Considering that little has been written concerning collections of presidential campaign biographies, this work breaks new ground by analyzing the ownership of such material by all types of libraries, including academic libraries.

Methodology

This research utilized the WorldCat database produced by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center Inc.) which is available through the FirstSearch search system to identify monographic holdings of libraries. WorldCat is a database that lists the records of items cataloged by all OCLC member libraries. Currently, WorldCat contains over 85 million bibliographic records and over 1 billion individual holdings in more than 9,000 libraries worldwide.

For the purposes of this study, the format of materials was limited to monographs. While the WorldCat database includes a variety of materials, including internet web sites, photographs, and sound recordings, the research focused on only those records that were classified with the document type of book. In addition to including different records for various editions of a monograph, the WorldCat database also includes duplicate records or records of the same edition that have variations, generally minor, in the cataloging of the item. In these cases, the researchers viewed the holdings information of every record of a relevant item to determine the accurate institutional holdings information. All records for the same item, including translations into languages other than English, were combined into one record for analysis.

The time parameters for the research included only modern elections beginning with the 1944 presidential election. To determine the set of books to study, WorldCat was searched using the Library of Congress subject heading “Presidential candidates – United States – Biography.” Then, to refine the search, the researchers searched for all books that had the specific candidates labeled as a named person and which contained the material type of biography. The results list was then limited to the material type “book.” To ensure that the biographies were published in conjunction with a specific election, only those books published during the two years prior to and the actual year of the presidential election were included in the research. Finally, only books on the Democratic and Republican candidates were reviewed, thus candidates from the primaries and from third-parties were excluded. Table I lists those presidential candidates from the time frame of the study.

In addition to the publication information for each book, the variables for the study included the following items: party affiliation (Democrat or Republican), win or loss, year of publication, ownership by total number of libraries and ownership by libraries which are members of the Associated College Libraries of Central Pennsylvania (ACLCP).

At the time of the study, ACLCP consisted of 24 member libraries, all of which are located in the greater central Pennsylvania region. The libraries include those of liberal arts colleges, state universities, the State Library of Pennsylvania, special academic institutions, and a community college. A full listing of the members of ACLCP (www.aclcp.org) is:

Albright College;
Alvernia College;
Bloomsburg University (withdrew from membership January 2007);
Bucknell University;
Dickinson College;
Dickinson School of Law (Penn State);
Elizabethtown College;
Franklin & Marshall College;
Gettysburg College;
Harrisburg Area Community College;
Juniata College;
Kutztown University;
Lebanon Valley College;
Lycoming College;
Messiah College;
Millersville University;
PA College of Technology;
Penn State Harrisburg;
Shippensburg University;
State Library of Pennsylvania;
Susquehanna University;
US Army War College;
Wilson College;
York College.

Of these, 14 are private institutions and ten are public. The institutions of ACLCP were chosen for this research because they represent a variety of academically-related libraries, with diverse collections, missions, and services provided to their respective clientele.

Results

In total, 434 monographs were identified that matched the search criteria as described above. Table II gives the number of titles for each of the 21 candidates represented by books included in the study. No books on George McGovern that met the criteria for inclusion were identified. The mean number of titles per candidate is 20.43 (sd=31.28), with five books providing multiple biographies. Hubert Humphrey and John Kennedy are represented by only one title each while George W. Bush has a surprising 146 (28 for the 2000 election and 118 for the 2004 campaign). Only three other candidates have over 30 titles: Clinton (a total of 40; 16 in 1992 and 24 in 1996), Carter (a total of 37; 17 in 1976 and 20 in 1980), and Reagan (a total of 34; ten in 1980 and 24 in 1984). Five books contained biographies of multiple candidates.

As can be seen from Table III, the publication of campaign biographies has varied widely over the years, with the largest number of publications occurring during the last two elections. Overall, the average number of titles published during a campaign was 27.13, but the standard deviation was a relatively high 35.32 due to the recent increase in such titles. A regression analysis shows that the growth has been significant over the time frame of the study (R=0.667, R ²=0.444, F=10.399, p=0.007).

The next analysis examines the number of biographies published by party affiliation of the candidates and by victory or loss of the candidates in the election. Democrats are represented by 161 different titles while Republicans have 268, as shown in Table IV. The Republican total is skewed by the high number of books about George W. Bush. If the average number of books had been written about President George W. Bush, the difference in totals between the Democrats and Republicans would be much less, with the Democrats actually having a slight edge in the total number of books published. A similar result is obtained when the winners and losers are examined. The losers have a total of 138 biographies while the winners have a total of 291. This last number is again skewed by the number of books on George W. Bush. Again, removing the large number of books about President Bush and replacing that number with average number per candidate would reduce the great discrepancy between winner and losers, although the winners would still have a slight edge in the total number of books (see Table V).

The remaining analyses all examine the number of libraries which own these specific titles. According to WorldCat, the total number of libraries owning these campaign biographies varies between 1 and 2,068. Specifically, 55 titles are owned by only one library, 30 titles are owned by two, 29 titles are owned by three, and 18 titles are owned by four. In comparison, 34 titles are owned by over 1,000 libraries. T-tests were run to determine if books on a candidate from a specific party or if books on the winners were preferred. The results indicate that there was no significant difference in the ownership of books on Democratic or Republican candidates (t=1.039, df=427, p=0.300). An additional t-test shows that library ownership of books about both the winners and losers does not vary significantly (t=−0.646, df=427, p=0.518). The research results show that libraries, as a group, purchase materials without regard to party affiliation of the candidates and keep materials on both the winners and the losers.

Similar results are obtained when only those libraries that are part of the Associated College Libraries of Central Pennsylvania are examined. Surprisingly, 334 (77 per cent) of the total number of campaign biographies are not owned by any of the libraries of ACLCP. Of the books, 38 are owned by only one library within the consortium and 12 are owned by two. Only four books are owned by 11 or more of the members of ACLCP. Similar to the analyses for all libraries, t-tests show no significant differences among the ACLCP libraries for ownership by party affiliation (t=0.915, df=427, p=0.361) or by win/loss status (t=−1.025, df=427, p=0.306).

Conclusion

This brief study shows that the publication of campaign biographies has increased over time with the 2004 presidential election witnessing the largest number of such monographs. Libraries, however, have not been assiduous in collecting these items. Although most campaign biographies are owned by only a very small number of libraries, they do remain available, mainly through interlibrary loan, for scholars to study. Of all the results from this study, the most heartening is that libraries, as a whole, have created balanced collections, not favoring one party over another and providing access, although limited, to the biographies of both winners and losers in presidential contests. Brown (1956, p. iii) says “Less boisterous than the songs, less spectacular than the banners and torchlights, less stirring than the oratory and the slogans, the campaign biography endures, gathering dust on library shelves”. As another presidential election approaches, let us hope that conscientious librarians are collecting the new campaign biographies so that this raw material of scholarship will continue to be available for future researchers.

Table IHistorical US election results by party

Table IICandidate's name

Table IIIElection year

Table IVParty affiliation

Table VWin or loss

References

Boller, P.F. (2004), Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, .