Censorship and the school library
In the article entitled Selection & Censorship: It’s simple arithmetic (2002), Dave Jenkinson outlines the following three challenges when dealing with censorship in the school library. This blog post will analyse each challenge and identify if Australian school libraries face the same challenges around censorship.
1. The majority of school censors are parents, but in-school censorship from teachers and other school personnel is still significant.
While it is difficult to obtain statistics around who is censoring materials, there is no doubt that challenges towards resources is happening within Australian schools. Reflecting upon my own teaching career, I have personally experienced in-school censoring of resources. Early on in my teaching career, the Senior Leadership Team at the time were not happy with a picture book that was selected for the CBCA National Simultaneous Storytime that year. The book was subsequently replaced with another picture book that was read at the dedicated time. In hindsight, if I was the teacher librarian at that time, I could have approached the executive team with my concerns, referencing the school’s collection development policy and other relevant documentation from Australian and international library standards to justify why the deselection of the book is a form of censorship.
2. The level of principal involvement in the development of censorship policies and generating awareness around these policies.
Dave outlines how there is a guiding principle within the Vancouver School District that suggests “the principal should review the selection and objection rules with the teaching staff at least annually” (Jenkinson, 2002, p. 22). The Australian School Library Survey Report 2021 (Softlink, 2022) found that 26% of teacher librarians experienced a low to very low level of support from their Senior Leadership Teams (p. 4). This would mean that at least one quarter of principals within Australia would not be engaging with their school library at same level of engagement expected of principals of schools within Vancouver. This has prompted me to ensure that I make the effort to engage my future Senior Leadership Team in creation and promotion of the school’s collection development and management policies, particularly around the topic of censorship and challenges towards the collection.
3. Self-censorship
My initial understanding of the word ‘censorship’ involved the conscious and active suppression of information in order to influence or control. The most significant learning I gained from this article and Module 4 material (Gagen-Spriggs & Oddonne, 2023) is that a teacher librarian pre-emptively not including a resource in order to avoid dealing with a possible challenge to the collection from the school community in the future may find themselves inadvertently censoring their school collection. Relying on the collection development and management policies of the school, teacher librarians need to be courageous and justified in the selection of resources for their library, regardless of a potential challenge.
Although this article is written twenty years ago and from a Canadian perspective, challenges towards resources are not time- or place-bound and are still faced by Australian teacher librarians today. Regardless of how libraries evolve into the 21st century, challenges towards the information housed within will be an eternal minefield that teacher librarians will need to navigate.
References:
Jenkinson, D. (2002). Selection and censorship: It’s simple arithmetic. School libraries in Canada, 2(4), 22-23.
Gagen-Spriggs, K. & Oddonne, K. (2023). Module 4: Selection of Resources [Study notes]. ETL503: Resourcing the Curriculum. Interact 2. https://interact2.csu.edu.au
Softlink. (2022). Australian School Library Survey Report 2021. https://www.softlinkint.com/downloads/2021_Softlink_School_Library_Survey_-_Australian_Report.pdf
