Banned of Brothers

If you have any familiarity with American libraries you are likely aware of an annual ritual called “Banned Book Week.” This non-event sets up a straw man of censorship that allows Biblioposers the opportunity to throw self-righteous mud pies at a fictitious target. There are so many aspects that make “Banned Book Week” a farce, but lets try to restrict ourselves to a few obvious ones.

1. True cases of codex censorship actually occurring in 21st century American public or academic libraries are virtually non-existent. That leaves only public school libraries, and if we are going to talk censorship and restrictions on freedom in that venue we can also discuss dress codes, behavior requirements, yearbook composition, and a host of other activities where students of minor age cannot do as they please.

2. The idea that impressionable youth can be protected from unsavory influences by simply removing a book from a repository is so laughably quaint in the internet age that even some ardent Christian fundamentalists can recognize the futility of the effort. That's why they home school or set up religious academies where they are free to censor all they want. Certainly the Information Scientist can understand the waste of time it takes to ban a book since his job is to steer youth to the screen rather than the printed page anyway.

3. The biggest threat to the future of the book and reading is the library itself, whose management routinely tosses out volumes based on user metrics that easily demonstrate declining circulation of just about everything except DVDs.

Really, what use is it for the Information Scientist to cry crocodile tears over the decision of a local school board to remove Catcher in the Rye from the high school library? The real issue here is kids who do not read anything at all, which is a form of censorship that is self-imposed and impossible to stop. It is time to move the books to the archives, where they will be saved from the ravages of current societal indifference.