Ask the Comics Librarians: Censorship & Challenges

Stick to your policy and trust your instincts. If you don’t have a collection development policy, or the one you have is out of date, create a new one! In most cases, if something was purchased according to policy, it can be defended and retained.

I agree, having a good policy is key! I know that the Office of Intellectual Freedom offers resources on constructing policies. Quite a few libraries also have their challenge/reconsideration policies available on their websites.

I think it is also important to have your front line staff (even non-librarians) be familiar with your library’s collection development policy and maybe even have some talking points for them if a patron ever comes to them with a challenge or complaint. You don’t want staff who a patron is interacting with at the circulation, reference, or children’s desk to be giving out incorrect information about how you library selects materials, because that could lead to the patron being more compelled to submit a formal challenge. I think a lot of formal challenges can be avoided by making patrons aware of our policy and selection process up front. 

One of the main issues with graphic novels is that they are frequently not reviewed by the “standard review sources” like Booklist or Publisher’s Weekly. If you rely on review sources in your policy you should include other more comics focused sources. No Flying No Tights is a great start. The site Comic Book Roundup is great for this as well.

The School Library Journal also has a Good Comics for Kids blog that may be worth following for reviews specifically for children’s comics. I’d also like to point out that No Flying, No Tights links to additional review sources on the Comics 101 page.

The biggest difference between challenges to graphic novels and challenges to other texts is that graphic novels include images, and challengers are frequently objecting to these images outside of the context of graphic novels as a whole. It’s important to make sure that the language of your collection development policy is broad enough that it covers materials outside of traditional text based materials. I think a statement about collecting materials based on their artistic merit as well as their literary merit could go a long way in protecting graphic novels in your collection.

Requiring the challenger to be a member or stakeholder in your library is an excellent first step to curtailing these sorts of copy and paste complaints. Don’t remove books without the proper procedures being followed, and stick to your own rules. In an ideal world you have an administration or board who will back you up. Additionally, when handling requests I search the web for the book and see if the same complaint has popped up elsewhere (ALA, Amazon, Goodreads, etc) and that informs my decision. If you can show a coordinated campaign that can help your case, since the challenge isn’t originating locally.

The Office of Intellectual Freedom from ALA should be one of your first stops. Report, report, report. Even if you don’t need assistance, or your defence fails. The Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable is also developing a guide for handling challenges to comics (coming soon!) and the Roundtable itself is a good resource for assistance. Also consider contacting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund or the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) if necessary. 

Potentially! I mentioned a bunch of national groups in the last question, but you can find local chapters of many of those groups. There are also typically local parent groups who are anti-censorship in addition to the challengers, and if you are aware of them reach out to them!

See if your state library organization has an intellectual freedom committee or section. They may have resources that they can share with you. Also your state organization will probably be thankful that you made them aware of a challenge happening in the state.

The guide/toolkit from GNCRT is going to be a big help for these situations, and I wish it had existed when I first started getting challenges. Just having links to the various help groups and advice for librarians all in one place will be a big help.c

You’ve mentioned the GNCRT resources a couple of times, Shawn! I’m really excited to see these!  Can you say what the resources are going to cover, or are things still being kept under wraps? Any word on a release date?

There is a committee creating a guide or toolkit to assist library staff with challenges to comics specifically. We’ve met a few times and are creating a survey to specifically target what library workers want to know, but the guide hasn’t been created yet. It’s a work in progress, and something will be presented at Annual this summer!

I haven’t personally seen this in my library system or in my children’s school so I can’t speak to specific examples or steps. All I can say is don’t do it! If the book is in your library, it needs to be accessible. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I agree that it shouldn’t be done. I do think it can be easier to resist pressure to censor the collection or make uncontroversial purchases if you’re under leadership that supports you and values your expertise. So much of an institution’s behavior comes from the top, and working to change the conversation and policies at your institution could help. Also remember that you and your library can get outside support from organizations such as the Office of Intellectual Freedom in the face of challenges. It can be easy to forget you have outside support when you’re dealing with an intensely stressful situation!

We’ve started to see more libraries commit to social justice and diverse collections, and I think setting goals like this can help reframe your approach to collection development.  Make sure you have a clear goal of developing a well-rounded and diverse collection and promote it for the audience for which it is intended; use reviews and other materials to support your decision. The NFNT staff has put together some lists and has a sorting function that allow you to drill down to specific groups. 

I can’t think of any specific instances of soft censorship that I’ve witnessed or participated in per say, but I know that I’ve definitely thought twice about buying certain materials because I didn’t want to deal with the possible pushback if I did add them to my collection. And I think we all do it in small ways because we all have our own biases. So I think an important part of stopping soft censorship is checking in with your own biases and asking yourself, “Am I not selecting this material because I don’t agree with it or feel it’s too controversial or because it is not a good fit for my collection?”