Activism Meets Practicality

September 19, 2013 6:29 AM

A question for librarians (school and otherwise) - if someone donates a recently-banned book to your library, is that a help or a hindrance?

Inspired by this FPP - my instinct, when I read of an instance of book-banning in either a school or a community, is to donate a replacement copy of the book (I've been too broke to actually do it thus far, but someday).

But now I'm wondering if either that copy just gets discarded because that library can't keep it (at least until the legal bullshit winds down), or whether libraries in such instances already tend to get so many other donations that it'd be overkill. Or, whether what the library actually does in such an instance of banning is to quietly take it off the shelf, but keep it in a secret hiding place until the banning fuss dies down and then they just put it back.

I always want to help, but not if my attempt to help just makes a librarian roll their eyes when the open the mail and groan "aw shit, another copy of Catcher In The Rye for the pile". Thanks.

posted by EmpressCallipygos to Society & Culture (4 answers total)

I'd guess that a donation of cash to the library and/or a donation of cash to the ongoing legal costs and fees for the group that is fighting the banning of this book would be more productive.
posted by steinwald at 7:32 AM on September 19, 2013

I'm sitting in an intellectual freedom conference right now. The answer is, as always "It depends" with a side helping of "probably not"

If the library has a book actually banned (that is they went through the entire challenge process and decided to take a book off the shelves permanently, something that very rarely happens) giving them another copy is basically not helpful. It's not like they give the book a little ceremony and take it off the shelves, it's more like they decide that book isn't welcome in the library (or, more likely, needs to be in a more "age appropriate" location). So no, that's not helpful.

In a challenge process, the book is taken off the shelves until the challenge process--that nearly all libraries have--has run its course. It's not removed/trashed and then the library is minus one book. Put another way, if the solution to the problem was just buying the book again, libraries would do this themselves.

Appreciate your willingness to help. Often one of the better things you can do is to speak out as a patron and a citizen about why the book is useful, important and how you're happy to have it in your library (and giving the librarians a "You're doing great" pep talk unless for some reason this challenge came from them originally for some reason). Being affirmatively supportive of intellectual freedom (particularly for children) is generally a good thing. You can also donate to the Merrit Fund which provides cash support for librarians who facing hardships because of their stance on intellectual freedom.
posted by jessamyn at 7:43 AM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

It depends on the library. When I worked in a Catholic School Library there were some books that I was not allowed to make available to students (the goosebumps series was one of them, most recently, Philip Pullman). That direction came from my employer - if I had made copies available, regardless of whether I had purchased them or they had been donated, that would have been direct insubordination of my employers orders and I may have been disciplined.

I am now in a Public Library that has a more transparent policy an procedure for challenged books. If someone were to donate material that fell under Hate Crime Legislation in Canada (hate propaganda etc) we would not have to make it available, we would discard it after reporting it to police; if a material has been challenged and the Library Board has found it inadmissible under our collection policy then a donated copy would not be placed on the shelf by front line staff, again that would be going against direct orders.

It is more effective to open a dialog about the policy/pocedure with the responsible party (director, board, principal) rather than put the front line worker in the middle of a dicey situation.
posted by saucysault at 7:47 AM on September 19, 2013

Your instinct to be involved is great. But your logic is quite flawed. It's like saying, "the local school has banned PB&J sandwiches but the kids love them. Can I drop off some jars of peanut butter?" The school doesn't have PB because of the ban, not because they lack resources to get PB. Even if the lack of financial resources to buy PB is a problem for the school, it is not the direct cause of the lack of PB at school. Giving peanut butter would just cause the receptionist to have jars of peanut butter with nowhere to put it. They'd maybe give it to staff to take home, but it certainly wouldn't be given to the kids in direct opposition to the ban!

When a book is banned and actually taken off the shelf, it is often because of a very long legal or public challenge process. The book is not on the shelf because, in shorthand, it's not 'allowed' to be. How would replacing this book change the situation itself? The book isn't available to patrons because they don't have the book available. The book isn't available because it's been forcibly removed. To make the book available, the ban needs to be removed, or the library needs legal funds to not care about the ban itself.

Far better would be writing letters to local newspapers about the effects of library bans, or donating time to local libraries to help them raise funds (i.e. "Friends of the XYZ Library"), or donate other books with similar themes to local schools.

Or were you thinking that controversial books are frequently stolen from the shelves, therefore it would be good to provide copies for replacement?
posted by barnone at 11:08 AM on September 19, 2013