BANNED BOOKS WEEK

This week is banned books week for ALA. There were 405 books that were challenged last year. But, according to a news reporter, none were actually banned.

On a listserv that I'm on, we occasionally discuss the values of the ALA philosophy and how the Christian is able to work that into his own philosophy. My institution does not believe in censorship, either (among other core values). However, it will not allow and neither will I pornography, i.e. anything that is purposely promoting sexual perversion. This does allow us to have in our collection books that have been written on sex (for example) - from a physiological, biological, and social point of views as well as spiritual - i.e. Christian. It also allows books on Renaissance art that are 'revealing,' shall we say, as well books on drawing that are designed to teach aspects of art including drawing the human body.

At the same time, we all 'censor' what we purchase all the time. This was a point that I raised in Library School. When it comes right down to it, technically, what you don't buy, you have censored. Whatever your library is, determines what you buy as it also determines the criteria for purchasing. Since we are an academic library we are primarily focused on training young people for a life of service from a biblical worldview whether it is preaching in a church, or hammering nails on a construction site. We have a narrow focus of the majors we offer. We do not teach forestry, or hog raising, or carpentry, or how to manage an airline business so we do not purchase books that have anything to do with fields as they are not a part of our curriculum. So do we censor? Yes, all the time. Do we prohibit points of view just because we don't agree with them. Absolutely not. In fact we look for them so that opposing points of view can be studied.

No academic institution is 'worth it's salt' if it does not allow intellectual freedom. Recently three sources were listed on the above mentioned listserv that deal with this very subject:

Dahl, Katherine. “Intellectual Freedom Stands of American Bible College Libraries: Taken or not Taken.” Paper presented at the Association of College and Research Libraries session of the annual meeting of the Illinois Library Association, May 1988. ERIC, ED 307878. 16 pp.

Hippenhammer, Craighton. “Patron Objections to Library Materials: A Survey of Christian College Libraries.” Parts 1 and 2. The Christian Librarian [U.S.A.] 37 (November 1993): 12-17; 37 (February 1994): 40-47. [Results are summarized in
Craighton Hippenhammer, “Intellectual Freedom in Christian College Libraries,” Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom 43 (March 1994): 41+.]

Smith, Gregory A. “Intellectual Freedom and the Bible College Library.” Christian Higher Education 3 (July 2004): 241-59.

One of the listserv subscribers mentioned that ALA actually does a rather fair job of bringing ideas to the table for discussion. It is not perfect but it is a good source to get us thinking and even good as a source (among many) to incorporate in our policies. Those of us who hold to the Christian faith and its values and make it a part of our lives would all agree that ALA does take an extreme liberal left view. But I will also have to add that there is so much divergence within even the evangelical Christian community that it would be difficult to come up with comparable Bill of Rights that could be agreed upon.

Another subscriber, Greg Smith, stated "About the LBR [Library Bill of Rights]: James R. Johnson authored a significant Christian critique of the then-current version in 1990. The essay, which bears the title 'A Christian Approach to Intellectual Freedom in Libraries,' was reprinted in my anthology, 'Christian Librarianship: Essays on the Integration of Faith and Profession' (McFarland, 2002).

One of my book’s reviewers described this essay as follows: 'Meticulously researched and exhaustively documented, James R. Johnson’s accompanying essay outlining a Christian approach to intellectual freedom in libraries is perhaps even more valuable because it boldly proposes a distinctively Christian approach to intellectual freedom. Most libraries in the United States draw upon the American Library Association’s (ALA) Library Bill of Rights as they create policy and procedure related to intellectual freedom. Johnson, however, argues that ALA’s conception of intellectual freedom is defective because it relies upon autonomous individualism, a relativistic view of the truth, and antireligious bias. This ALA policy is ultimately untenable because it attempts to impose an extreme ideological position on intellectual freedom for all libraries. The importance of Johnson’s piece cannot be understated. It is a weighty and well-reasoned alternative to the 'radical liberal approach' (153) of the ALA Bill of Rights.' "

[Citation: Rosen, Scott. Rev. of Christian Librarianship: Essays on the Integration of Faith and Profession, ed. Gregory A. Smith. Christian Scholar’s Review 32 (2003): 465-67. The quote came from p. 466 of the book review.]

This is not a perfect world and never will be. Banned books should never be just because of opposing points of view. But we should also filter anything we do in our society through our values. It doesn't take rocket science to know what is commonly agreed upon to be degrading to our society. There are cultures from antiquity, Christian and otherwise, who have always had their standards for their society. This is not really unique to the Christian faith in origin or practice.

Maybe what those of us in the profession of librarianship need to do is re-evaluate our terminology and how we use it. There is no conclusion here as this is a discussion that will take us well into the future.