The professional approach to book censorship

Books have been the target of censorship for a very, very long time. (A good summary can be found in The history of book bans in the United States, National Geographic, April 24, 2023 and for a world view Bannings and Burnings in History, Freedom to Read.) Attempted book removals in schools and school libraries were always of some concern to me during my 40 year career as a school librarian and library coordinator.

One flare-up happened in 2007 with the publication of the children’s book The Power of Lucky which won the American Library Association’s Newbery Award. The discussion around it led me to think a little deeper about censorship, banning, selection, and professional librarians’ responses to challenges in their libraries In a column called Don’t Defend That Book, August/September 2007. I wrote:

The discussion over the Newbery Award winning book The Power of Lucky flared last spring on LM_Net, the AASL blog and, I am sure, in meetings, phone conversations and e-mails throughout the country. Some librarians went nuts (pun intended) over the author using the word scrotum in this children’s book. 

I found it less upsetting that an anatomically correct word was used in a kiddie book and that book was given a prestigious prize, than that so many professional librarians seem to have lost the fundamental understandings of selection, reconsideration, in loco parentis, and intellectual freedom. Perhaps the controversy was a timely wake-up call at the beginning of this school year that we all need to brush up on some of these concepts. 

What troubles me is that our professional colleagues are trying to defend a single title rather than defending a fair and open process for selecting and retaining any instructional material in our schools. Quite frankly, if a school decides to remove Lucky or any other book from its library or classrooms, so be it. If it decides to block every Web 2.0 resource because it can’t discriminate between MySpace and a professional blog, so be it. If it decides that Zeffirelli's movie Romeo and Juliet not be allowed because it shows a glimpse of Olivia Hussey's breasts, so be it. 

So long as due process has been followed in making the decision…

While I can't imagine the circumstances under which I would do so, I sort of like knowing that as a citizen I can request that ill-chosen materials be removed from my public school. Harrumph!

The column goes on to list what due process looks like.

As a citizen I have the right to my opinions and values about schools should be teaching and libraries should be making available. In fact, a conscientious citizen really ought to think, communicate, and discuss such things.  

What a professional librarian should not do, however, is disregard the fact that diverse values should have a voice and formal means of challenging the inclusion of materials in public schools and libraries. I know, I know, the people on the opposite end of my end of the political spectrum are nut jobs. Actually people at the extremes of either end of the political spectrum are nut jobs.

But written selection and reconsideration policies are societies safeguards against radicals both left and right. Have your opinions about what kids should see and read - but respect the process that puts materials in libraries and keeps them there.