Illinois just passed a law banning the banning of books in libraries. Actually, the state can’t really do that. What it can do is withhold state funding from libraries that restrict or ban materials because of ‘partisan or doctrinal’ disapproval.
“We are not saying that every book should be in every single library,” said Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who is also the state librarian [What now?] and was the driving force behind the legislation. “What this law does is it says, let’s trust our experience and education of our librarians to decide what books should be in circulation.”
The people of Illinois who want to exercise control over what is in their local libraries have a few options open to them.
One option is to stop accepting state funding, which is the right thing to do anyway, law or no law.
Another option is to hire — or better still, elect — librarians whose views are consonant with theirs. Because ‘trusting the experience and education of our librarians’ is what has led to all the problems in the first place. The idea that their judgment isn’t partisan or doctrinal is absurd.
For better or worse, librarian and public school teacher have evolved into political positions. (The idea that they are not political is as outdated as the idea that diseases are caused by evil spirits.) It’s time we started treating them as such.
A third option — for communities who want to continue to get state funding — would be to change the way books are selected.
No library can include every book. Decisions have to be made about which books to include in a library’s collection.
If books being considered for addition to the collection aren’t banned, but merely ranked, and if rankings are created by vote of the community, then a library can have a policy that it can’t acquire (or replace) a book with a lower ranking unless it already has all the books with a higher ranking.
Sending a book to the bottom of the rankings isn’t banning it. It’s just delaying its acquisition.
And letting the community determine the rankings is just democracy. Is Alexi Giannoulias against democracy?
