I will review the article “Censorship of Library Collections: An Analysis Using Gatekeeping Theory by Steele” by Jennifer Elaine. In this review I will discuss what I learned about censorship from the article.
I do not have anything negative to say about this article and found the advice and issues it pointed out were interesting. There are a couple of highlights for me are the different ways that organizations and people define censorship. The article gives the example of the American Library Association which defines censorship it as the availability of a resource being repressed by the government or a representative of the government. The article also gives the example of Gordon’s definition of censorship which is defined as information or resources being denied to a person because the information they contain is considered dangerous or harmful to individuals or groups of people.
The second thing that I found useful about the article is that it also talks about two types of censorship. One type of censorship is the banning of resources and the second type is silencing resources. This is important to point out as people tend to think of censorship as more in line with information being banned whereas silence is caused by the way governments or the economic or business structure promote information in that society at the expense of other information and views. This means that certain ideas, information or points of view do not get a chance to be heard. This is further highlighted when the article discusses gate theory which is the idea that information has to go through a series of decisions before it reaches the consumer, and how these decisions and information networks are important to understand when considering censorship. The article discusses gatekeeping and the levels of analysis, and names five levels of analysis. These are the individual level, communication routines, organizational level, social institution level and the social system level. Out of these I found communication routines the most interesting as the article divides routines into different types; one that is set up by standards and the other develops by habit. These routines can cause people to censor without realising. Elaine points out that it is important that the habits that are in place at a library should be there to hinder censorship, rather helping people gain access to information.
The last thing I wish to talk about while reviewing this article is that it does discuss the type of pressure that may cause a librarian to censor some articles. It could be pressure from above and a fear of losing their job. A librarian may themselves choose to censor a book or to avoid potential issues that could arise.