Elaine Magliaro, a guest blogger at Jonathan Turley’s site, comes to the rescue of the Banned Book Week crowd and the effort is entirely underwhelming. There’s a great deal of nonsense here. I’ll focus on just a few points. A big chunk of her response restates my op-ed while casting her incomprehension as if it’s a rebuttal. She writes:
Evidently, Goldberg thinks that books which have been removed from the shelves of public and school libraries “due to pressure from someone who isn’t a librarian or a teacher” don’t count as “banned books.” He appears to believe they can only be considered banned books if they have been banned on a national level. So what if books are removed from school and public libraries? One can always get a copy at a book store or from Amazon.com. Right?
Goldberg got into the numbers of challenged books to demonstrate how “overhyped” stories about banned books are. He wrote that reported challenges had dropped from 513 in 2008 to 348 in 2010—and that the “historic norm is a mere 400 to 500 bans or challenges” a year. He said there are almost 100,00 public schools in this country educating approximately 50 million students—as well as 33,000 private schools and 10,000 public libraries. According to Goldberg’s math—if there were “500 parent-driven ‘bans or challenges’ in a given year in public schools, that would mean for every 200 public schools, or every 100,000 students, at least one parent even complained about an age-inappropriate book. What an epidemic!”
Reported challenges…a mere 400 to 500 bans or challenges…only one book challenge per 100,000 students. What’s the fuss all about? Why should people be concerned? Maybe the American Library Association, public libraries, and schools in this country should only begin to worry when the censorship, challenging, and banning of books becomes an epidemic. Why address the problem when the numbers are so small?
Well, one could conclude that many book challenges aren’t reported. As noted on the ALA website: “We do not claim comprehensiveness in recording challenges as research suggests that for each challenge reported there are as many as four or five that go unreported.” And I have little doubt that there are many librarians, teachers, readers, and defenders of the First Amendment who feel that an historic norm of 400 to 500 challenges a year are a few hundred too many.
The insinuation that the book-banning threat is a much bigger problem because of all the cases the ALA doesn’t know about is incredibly lame (land shark attacks are statistically very low, even non-existent, but that’s no argument for complacency given all the cases we don’t know about!).
The ALA has been saying this for decades, even as the annual rate of reported cases has remained remarkably constant — and low! — for about a quarter century. Moreover, many of the reported cases listed by the ALA are little more than disputes over whether a book is age-appropriate. These disputes don’t end in books being pulled from shelves. They are merely “challenges” — which the BBWers lump in with “bans.” If your seven-year-old comes home with a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and you complain that it’s not age appropriate, your “challenge” gets lumped in with the total number of ominous “bans and challenges.”
Then there’s this:
“When a library removes a book from its shelves because someone disapproves of the ideas or opinions contained in the book, that is censorship. When it is done by publicly funded schools and libraries — government agencies — it is a violation of the First Amendment.”
Raphael said we should remember that when a book is removed from a library it is an act of censorship that affects an entire community—not just one individual or one family. She also said that public libraries “serve everyone, including those who are too young or too poor to buy their own books or own a computer.” She added that the reason librarians and library users celebrate BBW is as “a testament to the strength of our freedom in the United States. We celebrate the freedom to read because we all know that we are so fortunate to live in a country that protects our freedom to choose what we want to read. If you doubt this, just ask anyone from a totalitarian society. That is why we draw attention to acts of censorship that chill the freedom to read.”
Ultimately if you find this treacle persuasive then there’s little I can say to convince you otherwise. If you want to call it “censorship” to pull a book from a library that’s unsuitable for kids or that doesn’t deserve shelf-space compared to a better book, fine call it censorship. But if that’s the case, then there’s nothing unwholesome, dangerous, or sinister about censorship whatsoever. As to whether it violates the First Amendment, that strikes me as nonsense too. Librarians have somehow convinced themselves that they are the final constitutional authority about what should or should not be in libraries, often including relatively unfettered access to online porn.
Oh, and to answer Magliaro’s question, my answer is Yes, I think it might be a good thing if there were more challenges to librarians’ judgment about what books kids should be reading. Newspapers have a much more obvious and direct connection to the First Amendment, but we don’t consider harsh letters to the editor — i.e. “challenges” to editorial policy — to be censorious. But when a parent questions the judgment of a librarian that’s supposed to be an ominous threat to free speech? That’s bunk.
To me, it’s a sign that parents are actually engaged in what their kids are learning at school. Any such engagement will fuel disagreements. Bullying parents by claiming that any disagreement with a librarian is censorious does no one any good.
Jonah,
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOf course, Leftish BBW (heh!) hypocrisy is unmentioned here; that of the major book retailers' whack-a-mole games with hiding conservative titles in oddball sections, obscure shelves, one-off orders, and drippy-salesclerk disdain for the gorillas who buy those books having the effrontery to pretend to know how to read!
I know! Let's boycott those places and put them out of...
Oh. Already there?
I wonder why.
Exactly.
According to the "logic" used by this woman, if a library does not contain every book ever published, then the library is committing censorship. that's idiotic.
A book is only "banned" if it is illegal to publish it, sell it or own it.
this is what passes for logic and reason on the left.
I'm not saying I'm in favor of getting rid of every book I disagree with from every library, but let's have some rationality here. Libraries have limited money / shelf space. they have to chose between competing interests in deciding what books to stock. If their community wants book "a" rather than book "b", then it is not "censorship" or "banning" for the library to chose book "a" to stock in the library. Just b/c some smaller mumber of people would rather have book "b" in the library does not make it censorship.
Banning or censorship is the gov't passing a law that book "a" can't be published, sold or owned.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'll take these people seriously when they get behind the "South Park" guys on the Mohammed stuff.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf she is serious in her argument, what is her position on Yale censorship of books that are critical of Mohammed?
And the only banning of books you should worry about is if the government starts banning books. Period. The problem with libraries, as with all other forms of government bureaucracy, is that they are slow to respond to consumer needs and wants or don't want to consider their wants at all. The librarian above seems to relish being able to make choices about what material should be available to the public and that parents should not be able to make any input about it. The librarian's position is the one that should be troublesome, not that some parent wants to help influence what content is in the library.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am a school librarian, and I am constantly amazed at the obtuseness of other librarians on this issue.
"Banning" is just another word for judging. I have a certain budget, certain floor space, certain age group. In effect, I "ban" thousands of books every day. There is no Dr. Seuss in my high school library. There are few college textbooks in my library.
While I am the arbiter of books in the library, I answer to a superior, namely the principal. Teachers are obligated to follow a curriculum. They must submit lesson plans. They are not permitted to say certain things in a classroom.
Why is the librarian the sole arbiter of book selection? I make judgment calls every day based on my budget and the school's needs. So if I decide that a book should not be included on our library, it's an enlightened judgment by a professional, but when the principal decides it, it's a benighted decision by a trogolodye.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is so true. I used to work for a private corporate library staffed in part by MLS-holding professional librarians. Decisions about acquisitions, holdings, and discards were made according to the needs of the corporation and the constraints of its budgets. Discrimination abounded in what was and was not on our shelves--yet the notion that this somehow was an assault upon the first amendment would have been absurd. Moreover, if a partner of the corporation told the librarians to quit carrying a particular text because he didn't like the author's interpretation of business law, there would not have been any uproar that an act of censorship had taken place. Librarians are simply specialized managers of particulars kinds of resources--traditionally books, more recently information in general. There is enough for them to do in this day of information overload without also turning them into interpreters and defenders of the first amendment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's not forget about all the censoring and banning that goes on through the school and library purchasing process.
Oh sure, THEY claim they have a budget and that they CAN'T buy ALL the books they want for their collects, some books will have to go un-bought (i.e. denied presence on the book shelves depriving students, community members, and COUNTLESS others access to the book)
This is, no doubt, censorship at the institutional level!
As all right minded liberal thinkers know, budgets and a lack of funds is no barrier for the right causes. Just ask our friends in DC!
It's sad and pathetic to mask evil censorship under the guise of "not having enough money to buy every book ever published."
Even if that were the case, the end result is the same, Libraries and schools CENSOR which books are made available through their purchasing process. THEY decide which books are worthy of purchase and which should be left languishing in the publisher's warehouses....the gulags of the evil corporations that control all publishing and distribution of books... the Publishing Industry! (see, it's evil because, you know, they are an industry and have corporations.. there must be some fat cats there. I'm sure I saw one.)
It's a travesty of biblical proportions...if one can say that sort of thing. I'm confused.. should I censor what I say and not mention the bible as it may offend someone? Sure, that sort of censorship is fine...but not if someone complains about my censoring bible from my comments.. that just shows how narrow-minded they are.......
/sarcasm off
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf the big libs at ALA are so concerned about banning books, why do they endorse not buying books by conservative authors in their collections and the behavior of bookstore employees in intentionally misfiling and suppressing the same?
I guess all books are equal but some books are more equal than others....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf removing a book from a book shelf is censorship, doesn't it follow that everytime a librarian declines to purchase a book, it's also censorship? Who are they to say whether a book should be on the shelf or not?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse4 feet good 2 feet bad ...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs I teach my children -- it all comes back to economics. :) In this case, we can look at scarcity and opportunity costs. A library -- public, school, or my own haphazard collection of shelves in my living room -- has a finite amount of shelf space. Somebody, or a room full of somebodies (more accurately, busybodies), has to fill that shelf space. Each time a librarian selects a book for the shelves (or when I summon the Amazon Prime angels), he or she is indicating a relative worth of that particular book against the books NOT selected. The opportunity cost of my recent purchase of "In My Time" is the cost of the next best alternative. For my purchase, it was John Howard's autobiography that just barely lost out, not "My Life," as one of these librarians might suggest. The parents of the students of school libraries and taxpayers supporting the public libraries should absolutely have input into what books are available.
What do we expect, though, from the same crowd that solves economic scarcity problems with equal success.
One final thought: what Elinor Glyn reads is her mothers business.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOf course there is the other side of the coin as Teflon93 points out.
Check your collection of "conservative" books against the collection of your local libraries. Do they carry "Heather has Two Mommies," but not "The Black Book of Communism," for example?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, does Huck Finn makes the list when Libs re-write the book to eliminate "THE N WORD"?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNotice how the Left can never present a worldview that does not feature some craven, unnamed villain who, without the Left's righteous intervention (and outrage!) would trample the good people's access to truth and authenticity?
When they can't find such villains they simply invent them. Because without scapegoats, they got nothin. They do it as ritual. Witch-burning lite.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs my Pappy used to say, "Quit your crying or I'll give you something to really cry about."
I'm no fan of book burning - even Korans. However, seeing how hysterical the likes of Elaine Magliaro get about books simply being removed from the shelves? It might be worth it to just get some marshmallows and watch the heads explode.
Leftists get so annoying when their agendas are reduced to garden variety whining. Time to find a different, worthwhile cause, lady.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI cannot help but chuckle whenever librarians wrap themselves in the Constitution and don the mantle of free speech protectors. These are the same people who will ban books at the drop of a hat if a librarian or some other liberal authority deems them "racist, sexist, homophobic," ad nauseum.
As an example, a couple of years ago I read an article in the ALA's in-house journal in which a librarian at the Lowell, Massachussetts public library argued that all books in "her" library published before 1970 should be purged because they were tainted by racism, sexism, homophobia and a few other alleged isms and phobias. Interestingly enough, the journal ran the librarian's comments straight, without irony, let alone animadversion. Apparently the free speech absolutists at the ALA saw nothing wrong with the librarian's views.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAny book pulled from the shelves IS censorship. It is the State, in the form of the public library, limiting my access to information. It is the State saying that this particular work is imcompatible with X standard--often a community standard.
But those standards don't apply in government. Government is not permitted to limit my freedom of speech. This censorship does exactly that.
If you think a book is age-inappropriate, take it away from your child. That's YOUR responsibility--not the states. And, if I don't think a book is inappropriate for my child--you should not be allowed to restrict my child's access to that book.
The ALA is largely a bunch of leftist blitherers whose only purpose in highlighting BBW(big beautiful women?-isn't that something that's often accessed on those unfettered internets?) is to make people on the right look oppressive when they speak out against it. And every year so many of us do just that.
I don't want the State limiting what I can read. Every 'parental challenge' allows the state that much more power--power that will not be used to protect any children from 'inappropriate books'. Look at the quiet bans, the REAL bans and you'll see what you're empowering. Yale's ban on criticism of Muhammed--the perennial Huck Finn ban(now addressed with adulterated texts)--how many more are there? While quasi nanny staters on the right worry that their adolescent might google some illicit nudity, the left is removing viewpoints that contradict it's stances.
Put everything that's published in every library--if you don't like it, don't read/watch/listen to it--and if you don't want your kids to see it then YOU stop them--don't let Uncle Sam do it--'cos Uncle Sam morphs all too easily into Big Brother.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Put everything that's published in every library . ."
Great--now who's going to pay for your fantasy? If it is the taxpayers, then you will have to excuse your fellow taxpayers if (1) they don't want to allocate public funds to indulge your fantasy and (2) they would like to have a say in how their taxpayer dollars that are allocated to libraries get spent.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"It is the State, in the form of the public library, limiting my access to information. It is the State saying that this particular work is imcompatible with X standard--often a community standard."
So, who the heck sets a standard in a community? A roving band of vigilantes? It would be the local municipal government. You know - the folks you vote into office every so often to do things like ... run the public libraries. And, they are answerable to their constituents. So, when a constituent says, "This book is inappropriate for children" they should really examine whether that is true. That's the point to our style of government.
(Oh, and a "semantic" note, since we're playing that game: the state is not entering into this picture, only the municipality. If you use "state" to mean any government at any level, then you are using it as a libertarian/anarchist hobgoblin, and I say fie on you.)
(OK, seriously, Chaka? "b**gieman" is a bad word that should be filtered?!? C'mon now.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse[If you want to call it “censorship” to pull a book from a library that’s unsuitable for kids or that doesn’t deserve shelf-space compared to a better book, fine call it censorship. But if that’s the case, then there’s nothing unwholesome, dangerous or sinister about censorship whatsoever.]
Yes, pulling a book from a library because it is "unsuitable for kids" (always for THE CHILDREN, isn't it?) falls under the aegis of "censorship".
Parents may determine what is appropriate or suitable for their own children by monitoring what they actually read; they should not be encouraged to determine what reading material is "unsuitable" for the children of others -- making that determination for everybody else seems, well, unwholesome, dangerous and sinister.
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