The Representation of Autism Narratives in Three Libraries at the University of Chapel Hill

Autism and autism narratives are present in the University of North Carolina in a variety of forms and aimed at a variety of target audiences, and so I used a test to examine the types of autistic representation present in the libraries at the university. I visited three libraries - the Manning Library, Davis Library, and the Undergraduate Library - and ran a selection on the books they had available on autism, allowing both fiction and nonfiction in my selection. I also tested for whether the books were aimed at autistic students themselves, neurotypical peers, parents, or teachers, since I theorized that books directly aimed at autistic teens and young adults would be in a minority. This is because the general social atmosphere around autism focuses more on children with the disorder rather than teenagers and adults, even though autism will be present with a child for its entire life and has implications for adult tasks like college application and job hunting. My theory of what I would find in the library was correct, since fiction books centered around autistic characters were in a minority compared to books dealing with autistic side characters. Pop psychology works and especially autism memoirs dominated the library shelves in the Undergraduate Library and Davis. The majority of the autism memoirs were by parents of children and teens with a small minority written by autistic teens and adults. However, the library was also heavily science-focused and didn’t give any time to conspiracy theories surrounding vaccines, which is a strong positive.Master of Science in Library Scienc