[LM_NET] HIT - long - part 3 - book challenge responses and short summary

[Amy Ball <amyoball03@YAHOO.COM>]

Hi,

First of all, thank you to everyone.  All of your
comments are extremely valuable and I appreciate all
the thoughtful responses and very interesting stories.

Common threads (after the first one, no particular
order):  trust your professional judgment, know your
audience, pick your fights, be careful about setting
precedents, have written selection and reconsideration
policies in place, learn your collection, follow
procedure, have a plan, recognize that this will
happen.

More replies:

Our school district policy allows us to make that
determination, especially if it was a book never read,
but was based on a review.  I can see both arguments,
but having been through several book challenges that
went to committee (and was on district level
committee's) my feeling is that if I'm going to go
through the stomach aches (yes, I personalize and live
on TUMS during those times) then I make sure that it
is age appropriate and something.  It's a hard one to
pick.

I personally think you have every right to weed your
library of inaccurate, obsolete and inappropriate
books.  It's going to happen so it's good that you are
preparing for it.

My opinion is that it is simply common sense to take a
book off the shelves that is inappropriate (in my
professional judgment) for my school. Common sense is
the important phrase here. In addition, often what
might be appropriate for one community in some other
place may not be appropriate for the children in my
community regardless of what reviews say. I think it's
important to take into consideration community values.
I have ordered books from reviews then not put them on
the shelves after I read them or after someone else
pointed out a good reason that they were
inappropriate.

We all make mistakes in selection and it would be
burdensome and unnecessary to go through the challenge
process. That's part of what your district will be
paying you to do. It's called weeding. Good luck when
you get your first job!

I would never pull a book-it will just start a
snowball effect. If a challenge occurs you will have
to stand tall and strong but until that time, don't
stress about it.  Unless you know that the school has
had challenge problems before you probably won't have
anything to worry about.  I've taught in the same
school for 10 years and have only had one person
complain about a book and it was handled by our
headmaster. 

There are very few librarians who walk into a job in
which they have to start up the library's collection. 
Do check to see what the book  challenge procedures
are and if there aren't any, draw some up  
immediately.  Also check for collection development
guidelines.  As   soon   as you can--get familiar with
your collection and weed if necessary.

If, after looking at the book, your first reaction is
"This is not appropriate for this school" I'd pull it
immediately. School population ages change frequently,
but the collection doesn't always get changed. Your
school may have started out as a 5-8 middle school,
and is now a K-4 elementary school, but didn't make
that change all at once. Grades were added and dropped
one at a time, and some of those books purchased for
the advanced 8th graders are still on the shelves. Are
they appropriate? No. Should they be pulled? Yes. You
may not have the time to look at every book before
opening day, and if someone brings a book to your
attention you should deal with it. If the book is in
good condition, and favorably reviewed, send it to an
appropriate school in the district. No taxpayer
dollars were wasted.
<on my soapbox>
Sometimes we get so hung up on "censorship" that we
fail to look at the people we are serving. We are not
here to make every possible viewpoint available in
every library - we are to serve our students and their
families. That means considering their views on
various issues. Example: suppose you are the librarian
in a 5-8 middle school in a very religious community.
Would you fight for a fiction book that presents
abortion as a good choice for a middle school girl who
is pregnant? I wouldn't, because the probability of
that happening in that community is pretty low. Such a
book really isn't appropriate for students in that
school. I probably wouldn't necessarily weed it just
because of content, but if someone objected to it I
wouldn't fight for it. I'm assuming that the fictional
library here has good factual information.
<off my soapbox>
Hope this answers your question.

You will be the professional in charge of the
collection.  So if by using your best professional
judgement and professional tools, you determine that a
book is not appropriate for the collection you pull
it.  This is not much different than weeding.  You may
also find that there is a particular book that might
be better in a professional collection for staff to
use, or moved to a higher grade level.  Being human,
we do make some errors in selection and those need to
be rectified.

There will always be people who think they should
"help" you with your job.
What I do is this: I say, "I'm sorry this book wasn't
what you wanted.  I will personally go through it
myself.  Thanks for showing it to me.  Can I help you
find another book to read?" Then I go through it
myself later.
Sometimes I return it to the shelf, other times I may
cut a picture out which is not appropriate for Jr.
High students or I may even white out something.  Or I
may donate the book at a local high school or even to
the public library community sale.  I have never had a
committee help me with this as I believe one book out
of 14,000 in our collection really does not deserve
that amount of attention.

I would always follow the steps of the challenge
policy if your school has one. If it doesn't have one
get one immediately. You don't want to be the person
who is solely responsible for all of the materials in
your library. If you withdraw one book that you agree
should be withdrawn then what happens when the next
challenge comes and you try to make that person go
thru a lengthy process?


Amy Ball, USC MLIS student
Charleston, SC
amyoball03@yahoo.com


        
                
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