Banning Books

Banning Books

At the beginning of the movie Footloose the character that Ren is shocked to discover that “Slaughterhouse-Five” is banned from the local library after he makes the commentary that it was a good book.
Banning books has been a controversial subject featuring a broad spectrum of literature that has been questioned.
From “Harry Potter” to “Mein Kampf” people have found reasons to have books taken off the shelves.
One of the big reasons that seems to be the most prevalent concerning banning books was voiced by Brett Bowman who said “yea I would ban some books because I feel there are some things that underage kids shouldn’t be exposed to early in life”.
Others like Kristina Nichols leaned more towards the middle on whether or not books should be banned and said that for her, “it depends on the book, it’s not that big of a deal for me”.
There are some people that don’t agree with banning books at all like Jessi Crossen who said “I don’t get the point of banning a book, if you don’t want to read it then you won’t but if you do you will”.
At times other opinions are voiced that no book should be banned but do agree with the idea of a type of rating system where an individual has to be a certain age or older to check out books so that inappropriate material won’t fall into the hands of children who might not understand what they are reading.
Daniel Crossen, Jessi Crossen’s husband, said “books no matter what it is, is precious, each book has a bit of truth in it and when you ban a book you are basically banning whatever slightest truth it may contain from other readers and your banning that insight that readers might receive”. Daniel Crossen went on to say and give the example “like Mein Kampf it may have some interesting use to it that might help with your insight of the world.”
As far as age restrictions went Daniel Crossen agreed and said, “an age restriction should be put on it so people who won’t understand how to decipher the reality from the falsehood won’t be able to check the book out”.
At the Logan Library, Kara Huggard, an employee who works at the reference desk said “we actually try very hard not to ban books”.
At the Logan Library if an individual has a complaint about a book, something that Huggard says doesn’t happen very often, they can fill out a form that asks them eight specific questions about why they are requesting a reconsideration of it.
The individual with the complaint can return the reconsideration form and return it to the library explaining why the material is not suitable for the audience that it is being geared to or for the library in general.
For the most part, Huggard said, they leave the censoring of what children read up to the parents, but the library itself will allow anyone no matter what their age to check out whatever books they bring up to the counter.
In the Utah State University Library, much like the Logan Library, books are rarely if ever banned there and those that have questionable material are usually found in certain sections of the library where they are less likely to be accidentally found by unsuspecting readers.
Kathy Schockmel, the Art Book supervisor, said that once a student opened up a magazine and was shocked and appalled by the images with in it and complained to the library demanding that the magazine be removed; the magazine wasn’t removed nor the subscription cancelled but it and material like it are now found in the Art Book Room.
The Logan Library and USU’s library both hold to “The Freedom to Read Statement”, a statement that was originally issued in May 1953 by the American Library Association and Association of American Publishers Council can be found on the ALA website www.ala.org.
In the statement the ALA and AAP took a stand and said that people had the right to read whatever they want.
In the first proposition the statement reads, “It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority”.