Protect the Freedom to Read: Support Your Local Library
By Victoria Fortune
My daughter recently began her first adult job and, realizing how expensive books are, decided it was high time she got a card at the local library. In school, going to the library meant working on some assignment, but now it’s about accessing whatever she wants to read. As I pointed out the resources and services available, she gazed around marveling at the stacks. “I’ve never really thought about it, but it’s amazing that anyone can come in and read all these books for free!”
It is amazing when you think about it. Our public library system has always been a great equalizer, providing every citizen from any walk of life the means to gain knowledge and thus opportunity. Libraries were, and still are, a vital resource, especially to those without the means to purchase books. Some of our most illustrious citizens, including Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Richard Wright and Oprah Winfrey, have credited libraries for paving their way to success. Carnegie donated a large chunk of his fortune to founding more than 1800 libraries in the U.S. At his request, they were all engraved with an image of a rising sun and the words “Let there be light.”
But public libraries are under attack like never before. According to a Washington Post article, the American Library Association’s annual report on book censorship, “revealed that it had tracked 729 attempts to remove library, school and university materials in 2021, leading to 1,597 book challenges or removals.” That is four times higher than usual, “the highest number recorded since the association began tracking the phenomenon 20 years ago.” The most alarming statistic is that 37% of these challenges occurred not in schools but in public libraries. This isn’t about protecting children; it’s about limiting what adults can read.
One case in Llano County Texas offers an egregious example of how the censorship movement is being led by small groups of vocal citizens attempting to inflict their views on the wider community: A single resident, a 54-year-old woman described as a church volunteer, lodged a complaint with the judge who heads the Llano County governing board, objecting to 60 books in the library. When the members of the library board pushed back, the judge unilaterally dismissed the entire board and installed the complainant as the new chair, filling the board with other like-minded, pious Republicans (some of whom did not even have a library card) while denying a seat to a Democratic applicant with a master’s in library science
The new board began removing books they claimed contained “pornographic filth.” Most were about transgender teens, sex education and race, including Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, which are clearly not pornographic. When the librarian objected to the books’ removal, she was fired for insubordination. When concerned citizens attempted to attend library board meetings to voice their objections, the meetings were closed to the public. A group of citizens is now fighting back with a lawsuit challenging the board’s violation of their First Amendment rights.
Far from being insubordinate, the librarian was fulfilling her duty to prevent censorship. As trained professionals, librarians are guided by The Library Bill of Rights, a code of ethics that establishes their mission and the purpose of public libraries. It states:
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
The ALA’s Freedom to Read statement, first endorsed in 1953 in response to groups seeking to remove, censor, or label books, emphasizes the librarian’s responsibility for making "available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those which are unorthodox or unpopular with the majority." The statement is a stirring reminder that our First Amendment rights are critical to making America great. It reads:
Every silencing of heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and leaves it less able to deal with stress. . . .
No society of free men can flourish which draws up lists of writers to whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say. . . .
It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachment upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large. . . .
No group has the right to take the law into its own hands, and to impose its own concepts of politics or morality upon other members of a democratic society.
People who are spearheading efforts to ban books from libraries clearly have no regard for any of these principles. It is a chilling to think how far they will go to impose their views on others. The judge in Llano County wrote in one email, “The board also needs to recognize that the county is not mandated by law to provide a public library." If the library board loses in court, the next step could be closing down libraries completely.
Is censorship occurring in your local library? The ALA report found that 98 percent of the more than 1,500 book bans it tracked took place when administrators acted covertly or outside of the normal processes schools have set up to handle book challenges. The same is true in public libraries. Only the intervention of concerned citizens can stop this assault on First Amendment rights.
If you haven’t been to your local library in a while, now is a good time to pay a visit. Find out if any books are being challenged in your system, and whether official review processes are being followed. Express your support for your librarians and their efforts to combat censorship. This article by a former librarian suggests other ways to show your support and protect our public libraries. They are one of democracy’s most valuable resources.
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