The issue of censorship is complex but juicy – and I find it fascinating! Last year I attended a session held by former Victorian CBCA Branch President Karys McEwan who spoke about this. She outlined her approach to censorship: that all the books in the collection had been carefully selected for the student community, but that doesn’t mean that all the books will be suited for each individual student. If the book isn’t quite right for that student, then just pick another one!
In theory, I think that high school students should be able to self-censor and select books that are appropriate for them. The reality, however, is probably that they still need some guidance! At our school, we have some content labels and a separate section of ‘Senior Fiction’ which is for books with mature themes (sex, drugs and rock’n’roll). This area isn’t restricted, because students can access these books, but there will be a system alert if younger students want to borrow one of these titles. Some other libraries require parent permission for students to borrow from these restricted sections, but this could potentially impact students’ rights (Jacobson, 2016).
My key takeaways from the module and readings are that: the best response to challenges is to have a clear Collection Development Policy (CDP) that outlines a process for challenging resources that community members may want censored or removed.
I found it interesting that in the 2016 Controversial Books Survey, conducted by the School Library Journal, more than 90 percent of librarians interviewed said they didn’t select a book to add to the collection because of controversial content (School Library Journal Staff, 2016). This controversial content included: “sexual content, profanity, or other non-age-appropriate material” (Jacobson, 2016, p. 21). Dawkins explains that this can become self-selection, “when a school librarian chooses not to add material to a collection for fear of a challenge” (2018, p. 8). To me, this indicates that resources that make it to the collection are selected carefully with consideration about themes, content, and appropriateness for users. This can all be justified, through selection criteria and the CDP, if challenges do indeed arise.
I also found it interesting that most challenges were came from parents, after that it was teachers or administrators and then, finally, students themselves (Jacobson, 2016). This indicates to me that parents are perhaps most likely to be making challenges about collection content.
References
Dawkins, A. M. (2018). The decision by school librarians to self-censor: The impact of perceived administrative discomfort. Teacher Librarian, 45(3), 8-12.
Jacobson, L. (2016). Unnatural Selection. School Library Journal, 62(10), 20–24.
School Library Journal Staff. (2016, September 26). SLJ Controversial Books Survey Responses: Weighing Subject Matter. https://www.slj.com/story/slj-controversial-books-survey-responses-weighing-subject-matter
Image Credit: Photograph by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
