Librarian Sabrina Jesram arranges a book display during Banned Books Week at a public library branch in New York City on September 23, 2022.
Ted Shavery/Associated Press/Associated Press
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Ted Shavery/AP/Associated Press
“Book ban” is one of the headline terms frequently used by news outlets, including NPR, to cover stories about the surge in book challenges across the United States.
The American Library Association launched the annual Banned Books Week in 1982. States have introduced or passed laws known as book bans. At the same time, many people who campaign to remove books from school libraries don’t like the term “banned books.”
The practice of censoring books has been around for centuries. But what does banning books mean today? The answer depends on who you ask. Here are some definitions from people who have struggled with this issue:
Kathy MeehanPEN America Free to Read Program Director (speaking at an April video press conference): “We define a book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content that results in a previously accessible book being completely removed from availability. Where student or book access is limited or reduced, PEN may be somewhat unique, in contrast to ALA. [American Library Association] and a few others, since we do include books that were removed pending review as bans. We include this because we know books are being reviewed. Books can be removed for weeks, months, or even over a year as long as students no longer have access to them, as we have seen in some cases.
Note: The American Enterprise Institute disputes PEN America’s definition. A study conducted by AEI for the Educational Freedom Institute examined PEN America’s “Banned Books Index” from 2021 to 2022 and found that “74% of books listed as banned” were listed in the same region as PEN America said. Books were banned.
Emily Drabinski, President of the American Library Association: “A ‘book ban’ is when a book is removed from a library because someone believes it is harmful or dangerous. A ‘challenge’ is when someone raises an objection to a library material, program, or service. Reconsideration is the library’s formal process for determining whether a book meets the library’s selection criteria. We reserve a Book Ban for… a book that meets this criteria (when it has been removed from the collection entirely). … You often find these books challenged and then put through a review process, sometimes ultimately being taken down and banned, and sometimes re-listed. I think sometimes our policymakers and a lot of people who are active in the pro-censorship movement, they don’t fully understand or appreciate the fact that many Americans, a lot of people, don’t have access to books in any other way other than through their libraries , through their school, public or academic library.“
Joe Thiel, A self-described “concerned grandparent and parent living in Eldersburg, Maryland”: “I think [the term book ban is] It is intended to be inflammatory and obfuscate the constructive conversations that should be taking place about age-appropriate content. It could be a dog whistle used to stoke outrage against those who oppose restrictions on sexually explicit material in public school libraries. …You know, you can’t really ban any material now because you have the Internet, you have PDFs. Therefore, the term banned books has become almost obsolete.
Mustafa Akyol, Senior Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, ” Islam is not extreme (Banned in Malaysia in 2017): “When [a book] It is prohibited and cannot be used, so it is not legal to sell it. This is what banning books means. …I was arrested at Kuala Lumpur International Airport…I was detained by the Malaysian religious police for 18 hours and then released…The bookstore couldn’t sell it [Islam Without Extremes] in Malaysia. My book is not available… there may be some regimes that would even go after people who have copies of this book… I don’t think there is a real book ban in the US. When a book is banned, authorities are effectively saying that the book is illegal. … Sometimes people use hyperbolic language to express their thoughts on a particular issue, and this can be a problem. This divisive rhetoric makes everything worse. So you can’t reasonably agree on some reasonable common ground, and everyone becomes increasingly tough and angry with each other. This in itself becomes a major problem in democracies, rather than just people having different opinions about something.
Mona Bryant, Coordinator, Master of Arts in School Librarianship, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD: “To me, ‘forbidden’ means that the book is not on the shelves. But I can certainly see different flavors of the word, and here’s why Discussions about ideas are always so informative… There have been times when I have had some questions about the material and these moments have turned into great opportunities for discussion between me and the parents, so we both learned to respect each other’s opinions. The opinions of others are not a bad skill.
This story was edited by Broadcast and Digital Megan Collins Sullivan.
