Book Reviews and the Selection of Potentially Controversial Books in Public Libraries

Serebnick, Judith

doi:10.1086/601144

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…If a library owned fewer than 50% of the titles on the list, Coley determined the librarian had engaged in self-censorship. The collection analysis methodology used by Coley was previously used to examine holdings of controversial titles in public libraries (Serebnick, 1981;Rothbauer & McKechnie, 1999) and academic libraries (Harmeyer, 1995). For this study, the research team systematically reviewed library collections of 90 Texas public high school campuses, searching for 55 selected titles (Appendix A) to examine:…”

Section: Purposementioning

confidence: 99%

Silence in the Stacks

Tudor¹,

Moore²,

Byrne³

2023

slw

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

School libraries in the United States of America have recently experienced an unprecedented number of external censorship attempts. Some censorship attempts, however, quietly occur when the school librarian engages in self-censorship, removing or refusing to purchase materials they consider to be controversial. This collection analysis study explored the extent of self-censorship in 90 Texas public high school libraries based on the exclusion of 55 controversial books in their collections, examining (1) possible relationships between a school’s characteristics and the absence of controversial books, (2) the extent to which the librarians are engaging in self-censorship, and (3) the controversial topics least likely to be included in collections. Findings suggest campus enrollment and district size were moderate to strong predictors of the number of expected books in a school library. More than half of the school libraries had the number of books one would expect based on their district size and campus enrollment. Books with transgender or LGBTQIA+ content were less likely to be found in school libraries, whereas titles featuring profanity, drinking, and drug use were most likely to appear, regardless of campus, district, and city size.

show abstract

Section: Purposementioning

confidence: 99%