The rising number of school districts voting to remove certain books from school libraries has been making headlines for months at this point, as works by authors ranging from Toni Morrison to Art Spiegelman are challenged and banned around the country.
According to the American Library Association, those headlines aren't just hyperbole. In 2021, they tracked a total of "729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021," targeting a total of 1,597 books.
The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, created in 1967, implements ALA policies related to intellectual freedom -- in other words, free speech and free access to libraries and the works and ideas they contain.
The OIF tracks challenges to that freedom every year, based on information found in media and from voluntary reports of censorship that people send the organization, from "communities across the U.S.," they explain on their website.
The news stories and reports don't capture every book challenge or book ban that occurs in the U.S., they say.
Challenges are defined as "documented requests to remove materials from schools or libraries," the ALA says, and "surveys indicate that 82-97% of book challenges... remain unreported and receive no media."
Here's the list for 2021, along with the reasons cited for the challenges....
To read the entire article, click HERE.
From Andrew Albanese's 4-4-22 PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY article entitled "ALA Releases Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2021":
The American Library Association kicked off National Library Week today with the release of its State of America's Libraries 2022 report, which includes its annual top 10 list of most challenged books.
In a release, ALA officials said library staff in every state faced "an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books" in 2021, with ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracking 729 challenges to library, school and university materials, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ people.
By comparison, in 2020, some 273 books were challenged or banned, according to ALA, a significant drop from the 377 challenges logged in 2019—but for an obvious reason: many libraries and schools were closed or moved online for much of the year due to the pandemic.
“The 729 challenges tracked by ALA represent the highest number of attempted book bans since we began compiling these lists 20 years ago,” said ALA president Patty Wong. “We support individual parents' choices concerning their child's reading and believe that parents should not have those choices dictated by others. Young people need to have access to a variety of books from which they can learn about different perspectives. So, despite this organized effort to ban books, libraries remain ready to do what we always have: make knowledge and ideas available so people are free to choose what to read.”
To read the entire article, click HERE.
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