Censorship is something every librarian has to be aware of when developing their collection and I wrote about this and about our challenged materials policy in my post Developing a Library Collection.  The Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science (as cited in Givens, 2009, p. 22) defines censorship as the “prohibition of the productions, distribution, circulation, or display of a work by a governing authority on grounds that it contains objectionable or dangerous material.” There are a wide spectrum of beliefs and practices regarding censorship in libraries but there are also many policies in place to prevent censorship in libraries. Often censorship comes from the position of wanting to protect children but intellectual freedom should always be considered.

According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) of the American Library Association (2002), “in general, there are four basic motivational factors that may lie behind a censor’s actions.” These are family values, religion, political views, and minority rights. In module 3.4 we were asked how our various roles based on age, family, back ground, societal position, religious beliefs influenced our stance in censorship of children’s literature. I think it is fair to say that for most people all of these life experiences play a massive role in our beliefs and how we translate those beliefs into the library collections we manage. However it is important that decisions are not made on personal opinions but on library policy. The Australian School Library Association’s (ASLA) Policy Statement – School Library Bill of Rights (2018) states that “School libraries are concerned with generating understanding of freedom and with the preservation of this freedom through the development of informed and responsible citizens.”

One of my author heroes and someone who has constantly challenged censorship, Judy Blume, said “I’ve always said censorship is caused by fear” (Baker, 2015). I would agree but I would also add that it can come for a place of ignorance and life experience. I have had some interesting experiences in my current school with regards to challenged materials where a parent or staff member has raised an objection. Each time has been a learning experience to all but after the first experience it highlighted to me how prepared I needed to be for opposition. It also taught me the importance of how important it was that I made the leadership teams in school aware of our challenged materials policy and our collection development policy so that they could not make knee jerk reactions to ask for materials to be removed. It has also highlighted to me how the country you live in and their laws and politics can make challenging censorship and welcoming open minded views difficult. In my context the conservative views and Singapore’s laws on homosexuality have certainly been a barrier to this.

Librarians are tasked with the job of of being an advocate of freedom of speech and in module two we looked at diversity in children’s literature and I blogged about that here. Diversity includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ)  literature which can often be considered a sub genre of realistic fiction.  There are so many quality titles with LQBTQ themes. I was very pleased to discover the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) which is a group in the American Library Association and they have a useful toolkit of resources to help librarians faced with challenges to LGBTQ materials in their libraries

The picture book, And Tango makes three (Parnell & Richardson, 2005) is based on the true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo who adopted an abandoned penguin egg and raised Tango after he hatched. This story was removed and pulped from the National Libraries of Singapore and has been included on Banned Book Lists and censored in US libraries for years. Magnuson (2011) studied the challenges of this book in Perceptions of the Self and “Other:” An Analysis to the Challenges to And Tango Makes Three. As interesting reflection is that all of the conversations and controversy that surrounded these decisions resulted in a lot of publicity, both positive and negative.

Despite my open minded views, the reading this week made me think how much we do censor to a degree in my library and how some censorship is arguably appropriate. My library is for primary school aged children and we shelve, label and display books for the appropriateness of the population we are working with. We have a restricted borrowing section which includes books on puberty, safe touch and reproduction and also labelling on books that could be scary or confronting for some children. We also have reminders set in our catalogue of books that may not be appropriate for younger children and will talk to them, their teachers or parents before allowing them to borrow.

In a secondary school or adult library there are different implications. Our secondary school library enjoys promoting Banned Book Week,  This is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and it spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. This is such a perfect way to entice the teenagers who are often more disengaged with reading to be enticed into interesting conversations about this very important topic.

References

American Library Association. (1996-2015). Banned books week. In Banned & challenged books.  Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/bbooks/

Baker, V. (2015). Battle of the bans: US author Judy Blume interviewed about trigger warnings, book bannings and children’s literature today. Retrieved from Indexoncensorship.org

Givens, C. (2009). Hidden forms of censorship and their impact. Bookbird, 47(3), 22-28. Retrieved from http://www.ibby.org/bookbird/

Magnuson, M. (2011). Perceptions of the self and “Other:” An analysis to the challenges to And Tango Makes Three. School Library Research, 14. Retrieved Oct. 2016.

Office for Intellectual Freedom (2002). Intellectual freedom manual (6th ed.). Chicago: American Library Association.