One of the hardest parts I have found about studying for my LIS degree, surprisingly, isn’t some of the course work, it’s that I currently don’t work within the sector. As a change of career decision, I was ignorant of how important it would be to work in the industry, and how out of touch on certain topics I sometimes feel because I don’t. While the search for my first position is ongoing, I feel fortunate that the team I work with are happy to discuss what I’m currently learning and are more than willing to add some of their own opinions and experiences as well. The main topic that always comes up when I mention that I’m studying a LIS degree is books – what they’ve read recently, their favorite genres, authors, and characters. Regardless of the subject, books are a topic that everyone is excited to discuss. Through these discussions I noticed one underpinning theme that everyone brought up: I wish there were more characters like me in the books I read growing up. I work with a fairly diverse team of individuals who range from neuro-diverse, including autism and ADHD, to members of the LGBTQ+ community, and this led me to thinking how book challenges, censorship, and book banning impact our younger readers.
At first, I thought this would be an easy topic to write about, but the more I looked into it, the more I realized that there were so many issues below the surface that I just didn’t know about. Over the years I had heard about those big challenges like the Harry Potter books, and works by Dr. Suess, however, it was a little shocking to read that according to the American Library Association (ALA) among their top 10 most challenged books over the past few years have been books which featured queer or LGBTQ+ characters and themes, or racially diverse characters and authors. It was also shocking to learn that the number of challenged books has grown exponentially over the last few years. While as a soon to be information professional I am aware of the potential harm of including books with radical or extreme views in a collection, I can’t help but think that we need to ensure that our collections reflect the varied and diverse backgrounds of our users.
Another, and slightly more concerning thing that I found while researching for this post, and which troubled me greatly, was how librarians are being targeted, bullied, and even having threats of violence leveled at them, all for doing their job – providing access to books and information. I never thought that I would see articles detailing librarians quitting due to stress, or to pursue a less dangerous profession. I would never have considered being a librarian as dangerous, maybe stressful at times like most jobs, but not hazardous to my health. While this type and level of harassment hasn’t been seen in Australia yet, I am worried about an escalation that will see me forced to choose between my career or my health. I think about the librarians in my past that guided me on my reading journey, or pointed me in the direction of a new book, and who helped inspire me to pursue this career path, and it makes me wonder what I would be doing now if they had been forced to choose between their career and their health. Would I be the bookworm I am now, focused on finding a job in a library and providing new patrons the opportunity to pick up a book and start reading? I have a feeling I would be a very different person if not for my past librarians.
When I decided to write a post on this subject I knew that it could be a little controversial, that there are staunch supporters on both sides of the argument, and this became apparent the more I read and researched it. After reading some librarian’s stories on how they were pursued and harassed after voicing their opinion, I have been a little hesitant to publish this post. I acknowledge that there are many arguments dealing with both the pros and cons on what books and topics we should challenge, and I am still just a student. But, for me, I keep thinking about how excited one of my team members mentioned she was when she was able to find a book with a queer main protagonist, and how another found that graphic novels helped them to slow their mind and concentrate enough to finish the whole book (it was one of the first books they were able to finish). By challenging and censoring, or banning and canceling books, it seems to me as though we are just depriving our young readers of being able to find their identity, and giving them a voice to say “it’s ok for me to be the way I am because that character is just like me.”
Some of the articles and pages I consulted for this post are below:
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10
https://www.codastory.com/rewriting-history/war-on-librarians-united-states/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/06/09/rise-book-bans-explained/
Categories: Information Professionals, Professional Life, reflections
HLS 