I’ve never been a fan of the American Library Association’s “Banned Books Week,” because the Association outrageously fudges the facts about such. The vast majority of the comparative handful of cases they cite are actually situations in which books were challenged*, not banned. By that I mean, as an example, that a patron might have felt a book should be restricted so that kids could take it out, and made such a request. Even if the library choices to ignore the request, which is what overwhelmingly happens, this would be counted as a ‘banning’ incident for their statistics.
[*The current piece of literature I have before me, in fact, actually uses the phrases “Books Challenged or Banned,” but only in small print, and is meant only to be seen by library workers. All the stuff for the public solely uses the word ‘banned.’]Some of these cases are no doubt frivolous, but others are pretty reasonable (i.e., some public libraries don’t restrict what movies a kid can check out, so a parent might request that children be restricted from checking out ‘R’ rated materials). But even in the former cases, it’s deceitful to lump books being challenged in with books being banned. The latter word is obviously a lot more inflammatory, and there’s little doubt the intent here is to make the problem seem far worse than it actually is.
So why would the ALA do this? First, of course, there’s the fact that this allows them to pretend that they are standing up to The Man, and Thuggish Conservatives, and other boggymen, and reap the attendent self-satisfaction while at the same time defending Cuba for locking up people who loan out books because the latter aren’t, you know, certified librarians.
Second, and more satisfying for those looking to avoid a purely political motive, Banned Books Week is an ever-growing cash cow for the ALA, who this year paid for a four-page, four-color wraparound ad placed over the cover of the August 2007 issue of American Libraries magazine.
What caught my eye was the headline, which hilariously reads “CELEBRATE BANNED BOOKS WEEK!” Why we should ‘celebrate’ a week commemorating (supposed) incidents of books being banned escaped me. On the other hand, though, it’s apparently a good opportunity to spend more of the taxpayer’s money than ever convincing him that this problem is a lot bigger than it actually is. To aid in this goal, the ALA now sells Pirate-themed (how trendy) posters and such, featuring headlines like “Get Hooked on a Banned Book” and “Set Sail on the Ship O’ the Banned.” You can tell how serious this problem is by this solumn treatment of it.
You can buy posters aimed at every age demographic for $12 a pop. A “resource guide” sells for $39. T-shirts with the Pirate art go for $20, and then there are buttons, bracelets, book bags (proclaiming “I read banned books”–wow, what an enlighted person this must be!), and the inevitable bookmarks.
Obviously banning books is bad (duh), but if it were really a problem, they wouldn’t need to exaggerate the statistics so outrageously. I kind of wish we could focus on real problems and concrete solutions rather than misdirect attention from them with piffle like this.
