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As many of you know, I am in law school as well as teaching school library media courses. This past summer I did a 10 week legal internship with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. Regardless of your feelings for the ACLU in general, one of the library-related things they do is to prepare a Banned Books report each year, tracking the books that have been challenged or banned in the preceding school year. Part of my job this summer was to compile that report. We send Freedom of Information Act requests to every school district in the state requesting information about all book challenges, then compile them into a statistical report. This year's results were very interesting: Challenges were up this year over last by 100%. Books banned (removed from the library) were also up 100%. Books were challenged for the expected language and sexual content reasons, but some interesting ones appeared as well. A picture book about a cross-country train ride was challenged because one of the picture showed a town, where townspeople waved at the passing train, and someone in the local jail was waving from the window. The objector felt that since jail is not an appropriate place to be, it shouldn't be depicted in a book for children. A large number of challenged books were obviously inappropriately selected. When you see a Chris Crutcher book challenged in a primary school, you have to wonder what the librarian who selected the book was thinking. When one of the comments to another obviously inappropriate book indicated that AR status weighed in on the decision to remove the book, the lightbulb went on! The book was selected for the library because 1) the book had an AR test, and 2) the reading level of the book is within the range of grades served by the campus. Obviously the selector had no knowledge of YA literature, hadn't read any reviews of the book, and wasn't aware that there is a type of book known as high interest-low vocabulary. It was selected solely from the AR list. And what is even more compelling, many of these books were selected by clerks who replaced librarians on campuses. That has prompted me to expand my research into who selected these specific books, and why. I hope this will lead to a post-graduate fellowship in which I can develop advocacy materials to help administrators understand that legal challenges to materials will result if unqualified persons are doing book selection. Carol Simpson, Ed.D. Assoc. Professor (mod. svc.) School of Library & Information Sciences University of North Texas PO Box 311068 307 S. Avenue B, Suite 205 Denton, TX 76203 940-565-3776 (voice) 940-565-3101 (fax) carol_simpson@unt.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL 3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation. * LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ * LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/ * EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/ * LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html * LM_NET Wiki: http://lmnet.wikispaces.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------