Analyzing Challenges to Library Materials: An Incomplete Picture

ABSTRACT

This research project used Freedom of Information requests to obtain public records from Alabama institutions about challenges to materials in public schools and public libraries. Challenges occur when a patron objects to certain content. In this analysis, we examine the records of challenges. The research questions were as follows: How many challenges occur in public schools and libraries? What is the nature of these challenges? Are there institutional or demographic factors that are correlated to the occurrence of challenges? In this exploratory study, the number of reported challenges was surprisingly low. We investigated whether reported challenges were related to certain institutional or demographic factors, but did not find any discernible relationships. The data suggest that most challenged material is retained, but that librarians may be self-censoring to reduce controversy in their collections.

KEYWORDS:

• Censorship
• challenge
• FOIA
• Freedom of Information Act
• public libraries

Notes

1. We acknowledge that giving the institutions pseudonyms may seem odd, since these records are public information and were obtained through public records requests. However, we are concerned that some institutions may be judged for their actions (such as withdrawing an item after a challenge). Further, fear of such a response may make institutions in future work hesitant to respond to such public records requests. Thus, we want to assure institutions (both those in this project and in future projects) that they will not be “named and shamed.”

2. The following paragraphs, describing characteristics of the institutions, focuses solely on public libraries. Comparable information about public school libraries is not available.

3. We note that many libraries indicate they receive verbal complaints or informal challenges far more frequently than formal, written challenges. Thus, focusing only on formal challenges does limit our dataset. Because we limited our data to formal challenges, which few libraries reported, this means we remain less-informed about how libraries deploy their policies. However, few (if any) libraries keep track of informal complaints in addition to formal challenges and few have formal policies written to address informal complaints. Thus, we feel that focusing on formal complaints was appropriate.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shannon M. Oltmann

Shannon M. Oltmann is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include censorship, intellectual freedom, information policy, public libraries, privacy, and qualitative research methods. She has presented her research at academic conferences such as the Information Ethics Roundtable, the Annual Conference of the Association for Information Science and Technology, the iConference, and the International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry.

Chris Peterson

Chris Peterson is a Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for Civic Media. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Coalition Against Censorship and as a Fellow at the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution. He teaches courses on the cultural aspects of networked technologies at MIT. He earned his S.M. in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and his B.A. in Legal Studies from the University of Massachusetts--Amherst.

Emily J. M. Knox

Emily J. M. Knox is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include information access, intellectual freedom and censorship, information ethics, information policy, and the intersection of print culture and reading practices. Emily’s book, Book Banning in 21st Century America, was published in 2015. Emily received her Ph.D. from the doctoral program at the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information.