Local libraries observe Banned Books Week

By Eliza Ridgeway, Town Crier Staff Reporter

Mountain View High School librarian Ben Lundholm created a display of challenged books for Banned Books Week.

Since 1982 the American Library Association (ALA) has sponsored Banned Books Week every September with the help of public and school libraries. Posters have gone up at the Los Altos main library with the slogan, “Read banned books: it’s your freedom we’re talking about,” and at the Mountain View High School Library, challenged books on display stretch along the center of the room.

In 2004, the ALA was notified of 547 challenges to books in schools and libraries, and estimated the reports represented a quarter of the total. A challenge is when a person or group objects to a piece of reading material and attempts to have it removed or restricted. Challenges occur most often in schools and are typically unsuccessful.

“We are lucky in the school district that we have an educated parent population. That goes a long way toward being tolerant of different views and different materials,” said Barbara Waight, the former librarian of the Los Altos School District.

In her 14 years in the district, Waight never saw a book challenge reach the school board. “A lot of people that challenge books have good intentions, usually they want to protect their children, but when they do that, they don’t respect other people’s right to have access to that material,” Waight said.

“We always have a dialogue with our patrons,” said Cynthia Wilson, Adult Program Librarian at the Los Altos public library. “Challenges - questions about materials - just end in conversations.”

Community members appointed to the Joint Powers Authority, the governing body of the Santa Clara County Library Association, would have the final say in a book challenge, but Wilson had never heard of one going that far.

“Complaints usually have to do with sex,” Wilson said. “Most often, they’re just kind of shocked the book is there, and they need to say they’re shocked. But those books tend to be informational and extremely popular because there is a need for that information.”

Last week Wilson put together a display, crisscrossed with caution tape, with challenged books and information about Banned Books Week.

“The most common reaction I get to the display is curiosity as to why the books are banned. Their reaction to the answers is usually amusement,” she said.

The “Harry Potter” series, accused of promoting witchcraft and violence, among other things, was the seventh most frequently challenged book in 2004. Many challenged books are winners of the prestigious children’s literary award, the Newberry Medal, or classics like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Waight said that while school librarians try to be conservative in their selections, they also buy books to anticipate the needs of all populations in the school and include controversial themes such as race, divorce, homosexuality and death.

“If something’s going to affect a kid mentally, go ahead and read about it,” said Cindy Andrews, a library aide at Blach Intermediate School. “Be educated about it in all aspects and form your own opinion.”

Ben Lundholm, librarian at Mountain View High School, said that listening to people’s complaints with an open attitude usually resolved challenges.

“I come from a little hick town where a lot of these books would be challenged,” he said. “It made me aware of the importance that these things be out there, but it also made me more mindful of why people would object to the books.”

Lundholm said that the banned books on display have been flying off the shelves. “There are groups of students that need to see themselves in books, especially different kinds of minorities,” he said. “Some of these challenged books are the very things kids need to be reading.”

Graphic novels (stories in comic book form) are among the texts questioned in the high school library. Most often it is students who question the purchase of graphic novels instead of traditional literature.

“They can seem frivolous and kind of edgy,” Lundholm said. But since the graphic novels were added to the collection last year with the help of a special grant, overall library circulation has nearly doubled.

“Graphic works can be a gateway into reading,” Lundholm explained. Waight described a similar effect in elementary school libraries.

“Librarians often do the bait and switch,” she said. “Use graphic novels to get them interested in something and then move them on to other materials once you’ve got them hooked.”

At the public library, unrestricted Internet access has served a similar purpose. “The use of libraries has gone up exponentially since the addition of computers,” Wilson said. “And we measure that by the circulation of books.”