Posts on banned books week

I think many, maybe most, librarians have a knee-jerk response when we hear about a book challenge. "Ooh! Bad! Censorship!" The challenges that make the news are so often the result of a single parent/guardian's complaint about a book they may or may not have read in its entirety. That one person makes enough noise for an army, and the book goes—unless other folks who feel differently stand up for the book and justify its presence on the shelf.

In other words, the greatest problem is not challenge. The greatest problem is silence. Lack of debate. Complacence. And it happens all too often.

Now, if we librarians address all book challenges with the assumption that the challenger is wrong, what's the point of having a challenge process at all? Why don't we just have a rule that says, "The library is always right, and we don't have to listen to you, nyah nyah nyah"?

Oh, right. Because we're here to serve the public, in all its many stripes and spots.

I believe habeas corpus should apply to books as well as people; books should be considered innocent until proven guilty. But we should remain open to the possibility that, once all evidence has been carefully considered, with witnesses called on either side, the book is "guilty."

As a public librarian, I have a hard time just thinking about this, much less writing it. Every community is diverse on so many dimensions, it's hard to imagine a book that doesn't serve someone in that community's needs, thereby justifying its presence (assuming it meets that library's collection development standards). In that way, I think public libraries have it easy when it comes to deflecting book challenges.

But I'm also a children's librarian, and I experience first-hand the judgment calls that go into our collection's development. It's not just a matter of literary quality or balanced viewpoints. There's the whole age thing. My department serves children from birth to eighth grade, so there's an upper age limit on what we buy. Within that, we decide whether books go in the picture book area versus juvenile fiction, juvenile versus youth.

All the while, we're well aware that some children are "reading up" while others are "reading down." We know middle schoolers are reading Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, and Piers Anthony. (OK, that's actually what I was reading in middle school, but things haven't changed much since then.) But are we buying Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, and Piers Anthony for our collection? No.

There's something vaguely hypocritical about that. We tout the freedom to read, for readers of all ages, yet we're constantly deciding what's "age appropriate," based on book reviews and our personal views. Meanwhile, the book reviews' age recommendations are based on the reviewers' personal views.

Where do these views on "age appropriateness" come from? They come from somewhere. If you read a few reviews of a children's book, you'll see variation in the age recommendations, but there's generally consensus within a couple of grade levels. There's the complexity of the text, syntactically and thematically, and the maturity of the subject matter. But still, how do we decide what's right for what age group?

I guess it's just social/cultural norms. With some bell curve-style variation, we've decided that X is appropriate for 6th but not 3rd graders, 9th but not 6th.

"Ah!" you may say. "But isn't it true that those 'mature' books would simply be of no interest to a younger audience?" Sure it is... sometimes. But that reasoning doesn't work for Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, or Piers Anthony. They were all well within my reading ability as a sixth grader. And boy oh boy, were they interesting!

Yet they weren't in the youth collection of my hometown library, and they're not in the youth collection of my library here. Social/cultural norms at work.

This is all to say that (A) librarians make decisions about "age appropriateness" in the collection all the time and (B) their decisions are ultimately based on personal discretion. Most librarians are making determinations around the center of that bell curve. But who's to say that, just as a book challenger might be down the cautious tail of the curve, a librarian might not make a purchase down the more daring tail—to the point of breaking out of the social/cultural norms and becoming an outlier?

I bet it doesn't happen often. But could it? Yes, I think so, whether due to negligence, an honest mistake, or a difference in world-view. And I believe that's a time when a book, if it were challenged, could be found "guilty."

In a public library, we don't have to worry much about this. It's easy to bump a book from the children's to the youth section, or from youth to high school. Schools, though—things are trickier with schools. There's the whole curriculum thing. The in loco parentis thing. The closed system thing. A book is in the library, or it's not.

When parents/guardians protest that a book is "not age appropriate" (which, if you check out the websites of most "concerned citizen groups" backing book challenges, you will find is typically their greatest concern), there's no bumping it to the next range of shelves and calling it good. And so it's a lot easier for a book challenge to result in that book's removal from the school.

And again, generally speaking, I think that's the wrong thing to do. The books that get challenged are, so often, books that challenge us. They're opportunities for discussion and personal growth. They're never going to be right for every child, every family, and chances are they're just the right book for someone in that school. But I'm not willing to say the issue is so black and white that book challengers are just plain wrong, just plain ignorant, overprotective censors.

Here are some of the questions I've asked myself this week. I'd love it if you, dear readers, would share your opinions.

• Is it ever right to "submit" to a book challenge, i.e., find a book "guilty"? If so, when?
• Is it ever right to remove a book from the library in response to a challenge? If so, when?
• What about limiting access to it in another way, e.g., putting it in a restricted area where you have to ask staff for it?
• Does it make a difference whether it's a public library or a public school library?
• Does it make a difference whether the book is simply in the school library versus on a required reading list?
• Is the greater problem with book challenges the challenges themselves or the lack of balanced debate that follows?
• Why have children's librarians consistently decided over the past 20 years that it's not appropriate to collect Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, and Piers Anthony, when we know darn well the kids read it anyway?

I'd like to make clear that I'm not in favor of every person who objects to a book's content running out and challenging it. We're better off learning to mind our own business, to live and let live, and to accept that what is right/wrong for us is not right/wrong for the rest of the world.

But I'm not willing to speak in absolutes. And I've always had a tendency to play Devil's Advocate.

Anyway, let it not be said that I don't think things through (and possibly too much).

All week, I've been talking about the (generally unfortunate) practice of limiting access to library materials. High time to talk about increasing access, don't you think?

Last week at the ILA conference, I had the pleasure of attending a session called "I'm Coming Out: The Ins and Outs of Serving GLBTQ Teens," presented by the knowledgeable and dynamic Monica Harris of Oak Park Public Library. Here are some of her suggestions for improving service:

• Bolster your collection with recent and high-quality books (fiction and nonfiction) dealing with queer issues in a positive way. Include books that discuss alternative viewpoints as well, e.g., Greenhaven Press's Opposing Viewpoints series.
• Make queer books visible in a non-stigmatizing way. Don't set aside a special section for them or label them. Instead, keep them out on the shelf with all the other books. Include them in book displays, book talks, and recommended reading lists of any genre.
• Improve access through the library catalog by ensuring books include subject headings that are up-to-date, consistent, and reflect what teens would actually be searching for. (More on this below.)
• Make the library a "safe space." Don't stigmatize patrons through obvious discomfort with words like "gay" or "lesbian," uncomfortable body language, probing questions, etc.; act natural and neutral. Don't tolerate hateful language in the library. If there's a need/opportunity in your community, consider setting aside a "safe space time" when teens can gather for guaranteed hate-free time and space (sort of like a gay-straight alliance).
• Know your local organizations. Be able to refer questions to community organizations when the need arises. Stay in touch with local GSAs, helping out with obtaining materials, recommended reading lists, etc.
• Don't make assumptions. Don't assume that every patron looking for GLBTQ materials is, him/herself, GLBTQ. You would be dead wrong.

Some additional suggestions from attendees:

• Make a recommended reading list of GLBTQ books and have it available online and in the same binder as your department's other recommended reading list. Even if patrons don't specifically request it, they may come upon it serendipitously and find it helpful.
• Don't assume that because books aren't circulating heavily they're not being used. Books on sensitive topics often see a lot of covert in-library use, even if patrons aren't comfortable checking them out to take home.
• Increase visibility with paperback copies. Okay, this was actually my own suggestion. Face-out paperback shelving, e.g. carousels or staggered wall shelving, makes any book that much more visible.

Unlike some conference sessions I leave feeling simultaneously inspired and utterly overwhelmed, I left this session confident of some simple steps my library can take to improve service. Here's what we've started working on, just in the past week:

• Ordering a copy of Serving Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Teens: A How-to-Do-It Manual for Librarians, by Martin and Murdock (Neal-Schuman, 2006), highly recommended by Monica. There was only one copy in the consortium as of last week; now there will be at least two.
• Working on a recommended reading list of GLBTQ books. I'd begun one months ago but got side-tracked. Now I've dusted it off and will soon have it ready to circulate.
• Looking at catalog subject headings and talking about how to improve them.

I want to talk more about the subject headings. When I started putting together that GLBTQ list, I noticed it took a lot of different subject searches to turn up the books I already knew about. How did I know I wasn't missing ones I didn't know about? Thinking back to my own high school years, I remember finding the same thing in my hometown library catalog. Trying to track down those books was like a treasure hunt—or a wild goose chase. Any way you spin it, it's ultimately bad news if you want people to easily find the books they need.

After ILA, I took a closer look at the catalog. And what I found, frankly, appalled me. (Though I will be quick to add that I'm not laying blame on anyone here. Headings change over the years, catalogers are often working off records created by the Library of Congress or other catalogers in parts afar, cataloging is subjective, etc. Inconsistency happens!) Here's a taste of the scattering of subject headings we currently have:

• Homosexuality
• Gays
• Lesbians
• Gay high school students
• Sex role
• Identity
• [nothing pertaining to sexuality or gender at all]

If you're familiar with the workings of most online library catalogs, you will already know that a subject search for "gay" will not include items catalogued under "gays," much less "homosexuality." "Lesbians" is essentially a narrower term for "gays," but as far as the computer knows, they're mutually exclusive. What teen is going to know to do a search for "sex role" to turn up books that deal with gender fluidity? As for "identity"—um, could we be any more vague?

I took a gander at the current Library of Congress bible of subject headings to see what our options are for improving catalog subject access. I liked what I saw. Some examples:

• Gay youth
• Lesbian youth
• Bisexual youth
• Children of gay parents
• Transsexual people

There's no "transgender(ed) youth" heading at this time, and I couldn't find a heading for some variation on "gay family members and friends." (The "Gay family" subject heading appears to refer to a family by the name of Gay.) But the options are way better than much of what we currently have in place.

In all this talk of improving access to GLBTQ materials, a question that can't help floating to the surface of my brain is, "If we're making these materials easier for the right people to find, aren't we also making them easier for the wrong people to find?" In this case, "the wrong people" are those who encounter a queer book and decide it doesn't belong on the library shelves.

After all, homosexuality is consistently among the top reasons for book challenges. From 1990–2000, gay material was cited as a problem (though not necessarily the only problem) in 515 out of 6,364 challenges (just over 8%). And, of course, the true story of a same-sex penguin couple raising a chick together, And Tango Makes Three, topped ALA's list of most frequently challenged books in both 2006 and 2007.

The answer is, of course, yes. If you make it easier for one person, you make it easier for everyone. But libraries cannot, must not, act in fear of potential challenges. We are in the business of providing information. Don't let the nay-sayers stop you from doing your job.

I was glad when Dan of SafeLibraries.org commented with a link on my post from yesterday because I'd wanted to write about national organizations and watchdog groups on various sides of the book challenge issue. My own feelings on matters of intellectual freedom ought to be pretty clear by now—to put it briefly, I don't believe that any subset of the population should be allowed to dictate what the rest of the population may or may not read, or limit access to those materials, no matter how good its intentions—but below I'm going to stick to the facts.

Here are some of the major players, listed in alphabetical order:

• American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE)
  Mission statement:

  Founded by the American Booksellers Association in 1990, ABFFE’s mission is to promote and protect the free exchange of ideas, particularly those contained in books, by opposing restrictions on the freedom of speech; issuing statements on significant free expression controversies; participating in legal cases involving First Amendment rights; collaborating with other groups with an interest in free speech; and providing education about the importance of free expression to booksellers, other members of the book industry, politicians, the press and the public.

  The ABFFE's website includes news, action alerts, materials, and Banned Books Week handbook, from a bookseller's perspective. You can buy banned book/intellectual freedom themed merchandise in their store.

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
  Relevant portion of mission statement:

  The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees: Your First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, association and assembly; freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.

  The ACLU offers documentation of legal precedent and information about current court cases dealing with censorship.

• American Library Association, Office for Intellectual Freedom
  Statement of purpose:

  Established December 1, 1967, the Office for Intellectual Freedom is charged with implementing ALA policies concerning the concept of intellectual freedom as embodied in the Library Bill of Rights, the Association’s basic policy on free access to libraries and library materials. The goal of the office is to educate librarians and the general public about the nature and importance of intellectual freedom in libraries.

  Here's the Library Bill of Rights. One of the big take-away ideas is that libraries exist to provide free access to materials representing all sides of an issue, not just the views of one person or group.

  The ALA is revamping its website, and I can't locate the page on handling challenges. (I'll try to remember to add the link here when it's restored.) In the meantime, here's the American Association of School Librarians' list of intellectual freedom resources. You can also check out the Center for Children's Books at UIUC's guide What to Do When a Book is Being Challenged in Your Library.

• Authors Support Intellectual Freedom (AS IF!)
  Mission statement:

  AS IF! (Authors Supporting Intellectual Freedom) champions those who stand against censorship, especially of books for and about teens.

  AS IF! is a collective of published authors, largely of children's/YA books. Members share and editorialize on news items about book challenges.

• Family Friendly Libraries
  Statement of purpose:

  Our goal is to keep libraries accountable to the taxpayers in the communities they serve by providing tools, information, and networking resources to citizens across the nation.

  Family Friendly Libraries is a Virginia-based grassroots organization that focuses on "the growing problem of internet pornography and age-inappropriate materials in school and public libraries." It has developed its own standards for K-12 schools and public libraries. It also offers advice on affecting library policy at the local level.

• National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC)
  The NCAC is "an alliance of 50 national non-profit organizations, including literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups." Its statement of purpose:

  • To promote and defend First Amendment values of freedom of thought, inquiry and expression.
  • To oppose restraints on open communication and to support access to information.
  • To encourage, support and coordinate activities of national organizations in opposition to censorship.
  • To encourage understanding that restrictions on the free interchange of ideas threaten religious, moral, political, artistic and intellectual freedom.

  Its website offers news, a Book Censorship Toolkit for schools facing challenges, and resources for forming a local coalition.

• Parents Against Bad Books in Schools (PABBIS)
  Statement of purpose:

  The main purpose of this webpage is to identify some books that might be considered bad and why someone might consider them bad. Another purpose of this webpage is to provide information related to bad books in schools.

  PABBIS offers advice on how to challenge a book as well as various children's book passages found to be objectionable for easy reference. For information about local groups, visit their links page.

• SafeLibraries.org
  This website run by New Jersey resident Dan Kleinman examines ALA policy and action as it relates to intellectual freedom, pornography, and other content deemed objectionable, on the Internet and in books. From the home page:

  SafeLibraries.org is certified in Internet safety training and we wrote "LMIRL" (you'll never guess what it means) to provide information and excellent exhibits on how to protect children in cyberspace. We wrote "P-rn Pushers" to present evidence from people of all political stripes about the downward spiral in books written for children (not necessarily p-rn) and how the ALA encourages this. "Value Voters" details what's wrong, why, and what can be done about it. Also exposed is the ALA's admitted media manipulation to ensure ALA policy controls local libraries.

ETA, 9/30/08:
If anyone has suggestions of additional organizations that should be added to this list, please leave me a comment with a link to that organization. Thanks!

No, I don't mean it. Banned books aren't cool. I mean, the banning isn't cool. But the books? Well, in the words of Judith Krug, director of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, "These are books that say something, that are meaningful to who we are and what we are."

Which is, you know, very cool indeed.

To continue my celebration of Banned Books Week, here are a few more things worth checking out:

• AL Focus has posted yet another amusing video, this one in honor of Banned Books Week.

• Little Willow has posted some nice ruminations on banned books: the chasm between exercising discretion in your own reading and forcing your personal choices on others, the role of ageism in book challenges, and her personal favorite banned books.
• The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 are represented visually in this short video. (Via Bookshelves of Doom.)

• For a global cross-section of banned books, check out LibraryThing's Banned Books Library. Currently, it includes just under 700 books that have been banned somewhere around the world. In addition to the usual bibliographic information, there's info about the cited reasons for banning. (Via Abby the Librarian.)

Banned Books Week continues! Exercise your intellectual freedom and read a book that has been threatened with removal from public libraries, schools, and bookstores—BUT, thanks to the First (and Arguably Greatest) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, is still yours to read! Need some ideas? Start with the most frequently challenged books of 2007!

It's worth remembering that in many countries with an authoritarian government, there is no guarantee of intellectual freedom, and you can get busted for reading a banned book. Yes, my fellow Americans, for as many mistakes our government has made over the years, we got one very important thing right: the freedom to think, speak, and read what we choose, even when it goes against our neighbors' beliefs, social norms, or our own government's ideologies. Wow!

ALA goes into more detail here about challenged and banned books, including what the difference is between "challenged" and "banned."

I confess that my library is not doing anything particular to celebrate Banned Books Week besides offering the usual books at the usual prices. But here's a taste of what other organizations are doing to celebrate...

• Wondering what's going on in your corner of the world? Check out the official list of Banned Books Week events.
• Read Write Think suggests classroom activities to tie in with Banned Books Week.
• This month, an Indiana library offered frequently challenged books wrapped in brown paper. Patrons didn't know what they'd picked until they got home with it and unwrapped it. How fun and enticing is that?
• If you're in the Bay Area, check out Banned and Recovered, an art show inspired by banned books. More info here and here.
• In 2007, U of M's Hatcher Graduate Library created a Flickr photo gallery of its staff posing with challenged books—another fun take on a serious topic.

This past Wednesday, I attended the 2008 ILA Conference. Short story, it was a good and worthwhile time. I attended a few sessions, gathered some ideas to take back to work, and made a new friend. What more could I hope for?

Given that today kicks off Banned Books Week, I want to share my notes from the keynote address. Called "The New Inquisition," it was delivered by Jamie LaRue, Director of the Douglas County Libraries in Colorado. La Rue is also the author of The New Inquisition: Understanding and Managing Intellectual Freedom Challenges (Libraries Unlimited, 2007)

LaRue was a dynamic and entertaining speaker, and the talk itself was spectacular. The topic was how libraries can better handle book challenges. LaRue’s main point was that instead of treating people who challenge books as the “enemy,” demonizing them, we should find out where they are coming from and thereby achieve mutual respect.

LaRue emphasized that people who challenge books are not generally evil book-burning sorts. They are people who found something in the library that upset them. These are generally people who use the library and are well-educated and concerned about their children and the public (albeit to the point of overprotection). In other words, “they” are not so different from “us.”

LaRue suggested the following process to get rid of 80% of book challenges on the spot:

1. Give a sympathetic “I’m sorry.” Even if we disagree with their complaint, we are still sorry they have found reason to be unhappy with our library materials.
2. Listen carefully to their complaints with a nonjudgmental attitude and body language. Don’t get defensive!
3. Repeat their concerns back to them, so they know you listened and understood.
4. Offer to help them find something that better suits their wants/needs. They are upset because they found something that wasn’t right for them. Help them find what's right for them.

If they still want to formally challenge the book, LaRue reads the book so he knows exactly what the challenger is talking about and then writes the them a letter about the library's decision. Sometimes the book can be withdrawn because it is out of date or contains misinformation anyway. (He told an amusing anecdote about withdrawing a 1950s teen dating guide a patron challenged—only to replace it with something much racier, of course!)

LaRue suggests finding out who “they” are, e.g., if they are members of Focus on the Family, join Focus on the Family! Find common ground with them so they can respect you even when you disagree with them (e.g., on First Amendment issues). Invite them to suggest books they think the library needs and then stock them, so they cannot complain of imbalance. Remind them that as the library acted to serve their needs, so must the library serve other individuals with different needs.

If you have the opportunity to hear Jamie LaRue speak or to read his book (as I plan to), I really think you should. His talk really made me think twice about how I've reacted to patron complaints about materials, the few times it's happened. He also has a blog and a weekly column available online.