[LM_NET] TARGET: (RESENT in plain text) How to handle controversial materials in the library (a.k.a. another His Dark Materials challenge) [Scanned]

[Evelyn Kremyar <kremyare@SETONCATHOLICSCHOOL.ORG>]

Wise friends and colleagues,

I feel like I have spent far too much of this school year under assault over which 
books should or should not be in the library.

Last month, a parent challenged Bob Graham's "Let's Get a Pup, Said Kate" because 
the mother in the illustrations has a  tattoo and nose ring, and he was as nasty to 
me on the phone as anyone has ever been in my close to 30 years in professional 
school and library employment. At the time, we had no selection policy (which I had 
been fighting for during the previous three years I have been here), and after 
meeting with the parent, my principal decreed that I should not check the book out 
to anyone under second grade. This left me with a dilemma: O.K. , now where do I 
shelve it? It is a picture book but I cannot shelve it in that section because 
children in K-1 will browse there. What do I say to them if they pick it up? "No, 
sweetie, you can't have that book." "Why not?" "Because . . .  it has bad things in 
it?" No, I don't even want to go there. It seemed ridiculous to shelve it with 
chapter fiction; most of my shelves in that area aren't even set high enough to 
accommodate a book of that size, and students would constantly be pulling it off 
the shelf to bring it to me and ask "Why is this book over there?," leading to yet 
another explanation conversation I don't want to have. So  - I took it out of the 
collection.  The good that came out of this is that it convinced the principal (new 
this year) that a Selection Policy and a Reconsideration Procedure is a good thing. 
I submitted one and it was approved.

Now I have a parent challenging the entire His Dark Materials series (I knew it was 
only a matter of time).  I will proceed as per the policy; the ultimate decision 
about keeping or removing books will be made by a committee comprised of the 
principal, myself, an English teacher and a Religious Education instructor. Based 
upon what I have come to know about this community, I am worried that the committee 
will think the most  "tolerant" decision will be to  keep the books in the library, 
but that they have to be on a special shelf and students can take them out only 
with written permission from a parent.

This goes against all my ethical principles as a librarian. I don't want to have a 
separate collection of "diabolical" books (should I outline the shelf in black?) 
and I don't want to become the book police. I went into this work to bring books 
and children together, not to keep them apart.  I would hate to have to remove the 
books altogether (personally, I've read them all and thought they were wonderful), 
but if it's that or "the shelf," I think I would rather remove them.  I know a 
school library (especially in a Catholic school) is not like a public library, and 
students who really want to read them could get them from our outstanding community 
 library.

Do any of you have a restricted shelf in your library? How do you manage this? Are 
you comfortable with the policy? I don't want to feel that I have to check my 
principles at the door every day when I come to work, and this is really eating at 
me. Am I being ridiculous?

I will gladly post a HIT.

Thanks so much for any wisdom and reassurance you can provide!


Evie Kremyar, Teacher Librarian
Seton Catholic School
6923 Stow Road
Hudson, Ohio 44236

kremyare@setoncatholicschool.org
"At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that 
magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better." 
Barack Obama

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