I read this CNN article about a group in Wisconsin who has been fighting with the West Bend Community Memorial Library over the group’s desire to have a long list of YA books moved to the adult section of the library. Their challenge failed, but there’s a lawsuit pending.
The news article has the predictable all-over-the-place approach to the issue but it seems that this is one of those fights that has everything including outraged parents, a beleaguered library board whose members don’t have their terms renewed, assertion of First Amendment rights, threats of book burning, and a lot of homophobic-sounding nastiness. The article, though on the web, also doesn’t seem to understand they usefulness of hyperlinks to telling a story that is playing out on the web so I have added them here
- the library’s materials selection policy (pdf) which appears to have been updated just a few weeks ago
- West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries
- blog post “there’s no such thing as a ’safe library’” from the National Coalition Against Censorship’s blog
- Wissup blog with lots of commentary about the library
- West Bend Parents for Free Speech blog (interview with Maria Hanrahan, the blog’s founder)
- City of West Bend’s website
- Information from American Libraries about the lawsuit against the city of West Bend for the books in the library being, among other things “explicitly vulgar, racial, and anti-Christian” The plaintiffs want the book Baby Be-Bop to be burned or similarly destroyed.
I really wish the library or the city had more accessible public statements about this whole ongoing mess.
Another tempest in a teapot. Those parents mounting the censorship campaign in West Bend, WI should realize that what they are doing is the best advertising there is as far as getting kids to read certain books. Moving them to the adult section and labeling them as “sexually explicit” would simply make them easier for the kids to find. The West Bend library should see a significant increase in teenage circulations this summer.
Good blog post.
[...] Book burning threat makes headline in WI dispute [...]
[...] by Rachel on July 24, 2009 Selection inspired by this in conjunction with the libraries mention in the [...]
Reminds me of the Tin Drum fight in OKC several years ago. I agree with Linda, all this does is attrack those with pruient interests.
in high school, i read baby be-bop as well as many other francesca lia block books. in fact, i recall giving a copy of baby be-bop to a friend who was struggling with his sexuality at the time. he later thanked me and said that the book helped him a lot. while any suggestion of book burning is offensive, this one hit home especially hard for me. books like these help kids deal with things they might not be comfortable talking about and it is essential that they remain available in libraries.
Sigh. It’s incredibly depressing that 221 years after the ratification of the Constitution some people still don’t understand the First Amendment.
I’m always bemused by this sort of thing. What these people don’t seem to understand is that you get the society you create. If people insist on creating endless rules and regulations, in the end you are going to end up with a very strict society.