Happy Banned Books Week
Happy Banned Books Week
For now, the problem of book banning happens elsewhere, but the Sonoma County library system stands ready to meet the challenge
This week the Sonoma County Library sent out a press release about Banned Books Week (October 1 to 7), which made us wonder: Is book banning something the Sebastopol Library (or the broader Sonoma County Library system) struggles with?
The answer is, Not so much. But that doesn’t mean the library isn’t prepared.
About Banned Books Week
First established in the 1980s, Banned Books Week is a celebration of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even if those ideas are unorthodox or unpopular. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.
The American Library Association documented 1,269 demands to censor books at U.S. public schools and libraries in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago.
Most targeted books nationally were for a teen audience and were by or about LGBTQ+ people or people of color, including “Gender Queer,” by Santa Rosa author Maia Kobabe, the most challenged book nationwide since 2021. (See the list of the most banned books here.)
Complaints are rare in Sonoma County
“Book banning is a really big issue that's happening nationwide, and we are trying to raise awareness about it in the community even though we have been fortunate in not having very many challenges at all here locally,” said Sonoma County Library’s Collection Services Division Manager Jaime Anderson.
According to Anderson, there’s been only one official challenge to a book in the last few years—in 2019— and that ended amicably in a reclassification. The book, a graphic novel called Rabbids Vol. 1 Bwaaaaaaaaaah! by Thitaume, contained a few drawings of scantily clad women that the complainant thought were too provocative for children. It was shelved in the children’s section and, in the end, the library agreed and moved the book to the teen section.
That was the only complaint made through official library channels. Anderson said that casual complaints occasionally bubble up in comments to staff or on patron comment forms.
“We had one other complaint that rose to my level where the person didn't pursue the formal Request for Reconsideration process, but the complaint was, ‘Why do you have this particular periodical subscription on your magazine shelves?’ It had to do with guns. And they said, ‘You know, we have a gun problem in this country, and we have an epidemic of violence in our schools and so forth. And I don't want to walk into my local public library and see this kind of material.’ It was in our adult collection, right? It's not like it's sitting in the children's room or anything. But they felt like that was not an appropriate use of taxpayer money. We said, ‘Thank you so much for your feedback. Here's a little bit of information about our collection, our development philosophy and approach and policy and, you know, we're serving everyone— all viewpoints, all people. We explained that and provided them with a copy of our Request for Reconsideration form, but they never filled out that form and returned it, so we didn't kick off our review process.”
Got a complaint about something in the library?
What should you do if you have a concern about something you find in the library? While we are tempted to say “Mind your own business,” we concede that there is a possibility that one might conceivably run across something in the stacks that really shouldn’t be there.
“If someone objects to something being included in our collection, they are first of all encouraged to speak with a staff person,” Anderson said. “That way, we can listen to their concern and have a conversation with them about, you know, we're a public library and those are the types of things that we would be purchasing. And then, after a conversation, if they are not satisfied, the staff would offer them this form called the ‘Request for Reconsideration of Library Resources’ form.”
The form asks a number of questions like, What brought this resource to your attention? Have you examined the entire resource? What concerns you about the resource? It also asks for their full contact information so the library can get back to them.
“If they fill that out and return it, it comes to my attention as a collection services division manager. And then what I would do is convene a small committee of about three librarians to take a look at whatever resources they had the concern about. If it's a book, we would read it. We would look at the reviews. We would look at how the publisher categorizes it and markets it, a variety of factors like that. And then the review committee would take a look at their concern, take a look at the resource itself, and after they've evaluated it, they provide a recommendation and a decision to me about whether to retain the item in the collection or not. (In some cases, like in the previous example, we can move it from point A to point B within our collection.)”
“The person with the concern would get a written response within 30 days,” Anderson said. “If the request is being denied, the patron has two administrative appeals that they could go through. The first one would be they could appeal to our library director. If they were not satisfied with that, the last appeal would be to our governing board which is the Sonoma County Library Commission. And they would make the final, final decision. The buck stops with them.”
Protection against mass banning efforts
Anderson says that although Sonoma County Library hasn’t had trouble with book banning efforts in the past, that doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t face them in the future.
“Even though we're not currently experiencing particular challenges with this, what we're seeing and hearing from other libraries across the nation is that there are particular people or organizations that are targeting school libraries or public libraries. They tend to be a small number of people, but when they make these sorts of challenges, they often provide like a long laundry list of titles that they have concerns about.”
“One of the things that I'm trying to do is just really strengthen the intellectual freedom section within our policy, to make it very clear that we welcome concerns and input about our collection, and here's our form. And if you have a concern about something please fill out one form per title.”
“I'm also trying to revise our policy so that it's clear that you have to be a resident of Sonoma County and a library card holder to make a Request for Reconsideration, because we have seen with some of the other libraries that have had these difficulties that people from outside of the community, from outside of the state, are challenging things even when they don't even use that particular library.”
“I’m just trying to kind of shore up our policy so that if and when the day comes that some group might latch on to us for whatever reason, we're ready,” she said.
Finally—and this brings us back to Banned Book Week—she said the library is trying to raise awareness about the importance of free expression and the freedom to read.
“We’re just trying to raise awareness in general with the community that we support the freedom to read. We have a diverse collection. We're really proud of the diverse authors and viewpoints that are reflected in our collection. We feel like there's something for everyone. And that's the way it should be. Everybody has the right to determine what they want to read for themselves or for their children, but not for others. It doesn't go beyond that.”