GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) — Over the past several years, the calls for certain books to be pulled from library shelves, or moved to other areas of the library, have skyrocketed.
Every public library in Michigan has its own policy and a procedure they follow to address those requests.
But a new law has been proposed in Lansing that would make a statewide uniform set of rules while at the same time protecting the First Amendment constitutional rights of readers.
“The First Amendment is a fundamental right to educate ourselves, to learn about history, to support our interests, and to see windows into worlds that we might not have access to.”
And for readers like Traverse Area District Library Director Michelle Howard, those windows into worlds can often be accessed by turning pages. Books are knowledge to her, so all the books here are pretty important.
“I think that pursuit of knowledge is just so fundamental to our American society that librarians take it really seriously when someone asks to remove a book,” Michelle said.
While it doesn’t happen often here, that someone asks that something they find offensive, problematic, or immoral gets pulled from the shelves, it’s becoming more common across the state.
“So, across the board, maybe 300 challenges nationally for the last 15 or 20 years,” Michigan Library Association Executive Director Deborah Mikula said. “And all of a sudden, in 2021, it skyrocketed to more than almost 2,000 books that were being challenged. Last year, it was 4,000, almost 5,000 books that are being challenged.”
Michigan has 397 public library systems and each of them has a policy and procedure for handling those challenges.
“[In Traverse City] a person fills out the paperwork that attests that they’ve read the whole book or watched the whole movie, and then they have to explain what they feel is the reason it should be removed,” Michelle said.
Here, a committee is then formed which reviews the book and makes a recommendation, which can be appealed to the library board. But every public library can have its own procedures, different rules, policies and processes at different locations created issues.
“The best course of action for us was to draft some statewide legislation,” Deborah said.
This may be that best course of action: Two bills proposed in Lansing that would create a standard statewide process for challenging a book’s presence in your local library.
“By incorporating that and coming up with some standardized library policy, we’re able to one, protect a citizen’s right to receive and express diverse opinions and ideas without censorship,” Deborah said. “And two, to maybe put to rest some of the baseless challenges that we’re seeing.”
The legislation would require a complainant to have read the book, file paperwork explaining their concerns, and they have to live near the library where they are making the request.
The decision would still be made locally, just as they are now at the Traverse City Library.
If passed into law, little would change with their procedures.
But another potential, and perhaps more substantial change statewide, is that these would protect books from being banned for the same reason that people can’t be discriminated against.
“Religion, race, color, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, height, weight, familial status or marital status,” Deborah said.
Libraries say they are open to concerns being expressed about books, and often consider whether a title is in the right section.
They say they are sensitive to the community they serve, but at the same time, stress that not every book may be of interest or importance to everyone. But it might be to someone.
“I think there’s this idea that if a library has a book that it endorses that line of thinking. And so when you talk about having a wide range of materials, it doesn’t mean that the library endorses the ideas in that book, but it does mean that someone wants to read about it,” Michelle said. “Sometimes people would like to read things that they disagree with and so We provide that opportunity to explore ideas safely in a format that is been vetted edited and then they can come to their own conclusions.”
While the proposed legislation is moving through Lansing, librarians still actively encourage parents to be involved in what their young kids read.
Traverse Area District Library has information readily available for any parent on the best way to navigate that. If you have questions or concerns, they say the best thing to do is to actually have a conversation with your local librarian.
This post was originally published on here
