Libraries: Guarding Our Freedom to Read
Our guest author is Jenn Kalata, an adult services library associate at Worthington Public Libraries and treasurer for Worthington Public Libraries United, Local #6606.
I work in a small library system in Worthington, Ohio, just north of Columbus. My colleagues and I have started sharing the latest book bans from around the country as a strange sort of bonding exercise. Although our community tends to be open to all sorts of materials, we have noticed an increase in book challenges. The director and building managers are wonderful at talking to these folks and getting them to reconsider, reminding them that our collections reflect our community. One librarian put together a display specifically to highlight banned books, and it has been a hit with patrons. It is always satisfying when I can grab a book from those shelves and put them into the hands of someone looking for a good book. However, I often find myself feeling like we are avoiding the worst, given the rise of book bannings happening all over the country.
When I began working in public libraries six years ago, the culture surrounding book bans was already shifting. At first, book bans seemed to stem primarily from particularly stalwart religious or far-right groups. At the private Roman Catholic School where I grew up, for instance, the irreverent Captain Underpants books were banned. In 2023, though, there is something far more insidious and frightening about the increasing vitriol of the current bans. They are far more frequent and the scope of what is being deemed inappropriate has widened far beyond commonly challenged books such as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, or The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.