1 month ago
Book Riot
Something that needs to be understood about the reality of book bans right now is this: teaching other people about what is truly going on — beyond the singular headlines — is crucial, and it’s going to mean you need to get uncomfortable. Whether you’re a book lover or parent who is sharing stories or work in libraries or schools where your patrons and parents may not understand the scope of censorship right now, doing the work means getting uncomfortable. It means “getting political.” It means not taking neutrality as a stance. It means really learning how to talk about book bans.
So how do you do it? Let’s break this down into two different, though related, avenues. The first is educating friends or family, the people in your life for whom you don’t work on their behalf. The second is patrons or customers, the people in your life who you might serve in your role as a librarian or educator. These ideas are meant to be jumping off points. Tailor and adapt as appropriate.
The safety of and love for kids is more important than your comfort as an adult.
A couple of notes before the bullet points: you’re going to need to give up neutrality. Neutrality is inappropriate in the library or in any space. If your goal is to save your institutions, to protect your patrons, and to be the place for accurate information, your job is to make that available. You cannot support the First Amendment rights of all without “getting political.” Book banners do not give a single damn about “getting political” — it’s what they hope defenders will keep not bothering to do.
The second thing of note is that successfully educating patrons will require identifying your power users and tapping into them. These will be your regulars, your Friends group members, donors, and those you know who care deeply about their local library. If you don’t know who your power users are, then your work is in identifying them.
Recall that “parents rights” goes two ways: parents have to parent their young people, too. This means relocating materials or removing it all together suggests they have not and are not doing their job but are instead expecting the organization to do so.
Make your book challenge/materials reconsideration policies easily available and accessible…as soon as you’ve ensured it is as up-to-date as possible. Keeping this form and information accessible tells patrons their rights, as much as it makes clear you have nothing to hide. Create a resource on your website to talk about book bans. This can be a barebones page that talks about the legislation protecting the right to read for all, and if you’re in a community struggling with book bans, then keep it updated with news about local attempts. You can define local as more regional, too. Offering a “what’s happening in Illinois” page can give links to stories of book bans and censorship wins across the state. It can and should also include information on the groups behind these bans — they don’t make themselves hidden and neither should you. There are enough folks sharing resources across the internet that pulling this page together and keeping it updated will require minimal work. Wondering what to name the page? Something as straightforward as “Worried About Censorship?” would do. If your library is dealing with a book challenge, make sure your power users know that they need to attend the board meeting and/or submit a letter in support of the book. As noted in the previous section, use the data, research, and statistics to back up the need for the library to include materials for all. Create visuals. One of the most powerful ways to articular book bans is through easy graphical representation. Something like this is easy to do and gets the point across very clearly. Post these on your website and social media, as well as right at the reference desks. Keep making displays. In the fall, I wrote about how to make good banned books displays. Keep making them, and keep making displays that integrate queer books and books by and about people of color. Continue to include information patrons can use to educate themselves on those books and the right-wing panic around them. Develop some bookmarks about censorship that can be left at the checkout desk. Put them inside the books hitting censor radars. Tap your power users and encourage them to write to your local papers and local government about how the needs of the community are being well met by the library. Encourage these same power users — as well as new individuals you meet during your programs or events — to write a letter to the library/school board that says they loved the event/program/books available in the library. They don’t need to say more than that. Feel free to encourage them to name specific programs or book titles (e.g. “it was so great to see the library’s LGBTQ+ display for Pride Month”), but they don’t need to do anything lengthy or involved to get those messages on the public record. Better yet, create an easy-to-fill form on your website that sends those emails directly to your board and encourage patrons to fill them out. You can periodically include the direct link on fliers or other materials patrons receive from you, such as your newsletter or even due date reminders (if your system allows you to customize this, take advantage of it!). Host candidate forums. The public library should be a place where all candidates within a field are given the opportunity to talk with the public. Imagine if your patrons knew they could come ask potential library board members about their goals and vision for the library…right at the library. How does this help stop book bans, you wonder? It’s an opportunity to ask those very questions of candidates. If you run a banned books club — or any book club, if you’re able — regularly include discussions of contemporary realities of book bans. Reading the banned books is good but that does not create action. Make your banned book clubs centers of action and movement, not just consumption. Remember your power users make great board representation. When there are openings, encourage your power users to run. Certainly, encourage them to vote, too, if they cannot run themselves.Finally, data for everyone to have in their back pocket when talking about book bans is this: numbers showing how book bans are actively driving young people away from libraries and reading.
You can't "just go to a bookstore" and buy your right to exist in your community. The stakes aren't who gets to read The Handmaid's Tale. The stakes are who belongs in society.
— Alex London (@ca_london) February 14, 2023
