Ex Post Facto Self-Censorship: When School Librarians Choose to Censor

Vocabulary matters. When we, as school librarians, discuss intellectual freedom, the discussion primarily centers on the issue of selection versus self-censorship. The earliest discussions of the issue of self-censorship came from a 1953 article by Lester Asheim in the Wilson Library Bulletin. In it, he discussed the idea that when librarians are involved in creating library collections, they are going through a process of selection as no single collection can contain everything that is published. As a result, librarians must be careful to select but not censor.

One of the issues when discussing self-censorship is the narrow definition in the research literature of the terms censorship and self-censorship. Self-censorship is defined as the decision by a librarian to exclude material in a collection prior to purchase due to either external or internal factors. Ken Dillon and Claire Louise Williams refer to self-censorship as "a secret practice [that is] the least obvious but arguably most powerful and pervasive form of censorship which is informal, private, and originates with the decision maker" (1994, 11). Censorship occurs when material is removed from a collection after purchase and usually refers to external forces, such as requests from parents or members of the school community.

During the course of conducting forty-nine interviews with school librarians in North and South Carolina for my dissertation, I asked each librarian to tell me about a time when someone questioned an item in their collection. I really expected them to talk about their experience in going through a challenge for materials or how they were able to convince a person to drop the challenge. However, the interviews revealed that many librarians were choosing to remove materials from their own school library collections. I wasn't prepared for this, and I didn't have the vocabulary to describe it. The behaviors didn't fit with self-censoring behaviors (censoring prior to purchase) or censorship (attempts to remove materials by outside forces). So, I gave the phenomenon a name and a definition: They were engaging in ex post facto self-censorship, which I defined as the decision by a school librarian to remove materials after purchase from their own collection without going through a reconsideration process.

Specifically, what behaviors might be characterized as ex post facto self-censorship? I found five in particular through my interviews: weeding, redacting, transferring, labelling, and restricting. Weeding is something that all school librarians do and which has a legitimate and important function in collection development. It allows librarians to remove items from the collection for a variety of reasons including wear and tear, outdated content, and lack of circulation. However, the term weeding becomes ex post facto censorship when used to describe the decision to remove content from the collection because the librarian had a concern that the content might be objectionable and as a result might face a challenge. This "weeding" might occur immediately after purchase when the librarian has an opportunity to more closely examine the material in question, or it might happen at a later time when the questionable content is brought to the librarian's attention by students or faculty. Instead of choosing to go through a formal reconsideration of the material with review by a committee, the librarian chooses to "weed" the material.

Redacting is another form of ex post facto self-censorship. This refers to the decision by school librarians to mark out objectionable language or images from materials in their collections. It could mean using a black marker or even using scissors to remove pictures. The choice to redact becomes a decision to censor certain terms or images that might be deemed age inappropriate. However, this decision subverts the basic idea that we should judge a book as a whole.

Transferring was an alternative to weeding for some of the elementary and middle school librarians I interviewed. Rather than face a challenge on material that might be considered age inappropriate, they chose to transfer the item to a school that served older children. Therefore, they could avoid a challenge based on mature content.

Middle school librarians, in particular, engaged in either labeling or restricting access to content. Some librarians chose to stick a "YA" label on some materials. While "YA" labels are somewhat neutral, they may serve as a barrier to access for some students, especially if the "YA" books are then placed on separate shelves away from other materials.

Finally, restricting access was another way the librarians chose to avoid challenges. Restrictions can not only take the form of separate shelving, but they can also take the form of removing items from the circulating collection and placing them in the professional development section of the library. This way, the items in question have not really been removed from circulation; however, in reality they are no longer readily accessible to all students. Additionally, some librarians required permission forms for students to check out YA materials if they were not in a certain grade.

What all of these forms of ex post facto self-censorship have in common is the decision by a school librarian to effectively remove an item from circulation in order to avoid a challenge. And often, the decision to engage in this type of self-censorship occurred even without someone (student, staff, or parent) actually questioning the content. Rather, it was the fear of facing a challenge that often motivated the decision. In almost every instance where an interviewee discussed this, it was with full awareness of the presence of a reconsideration policy or procedures that were in place.

Sometimes it really is necessary to remove an item from your collection after purchase. An item may not have been what you expected based on its description, and you might not have had an opportunity to examine it fully prior to purchase. However, following reconsideration procedures even in those cases sets the precedent that all decisions to remove materials from the collection must follow the policy that is in place. If you choose not to follow the policy in some instances, it becomes much more difficult to insist on using the formal reconsideration process when you have a challenge.

So, why do some librarians subvert the process? Facing a challenge is both stressful and time consuming. But when we have policies and procedures in place, we need to use them. I believe that one reason librarians choose to subvert the process is because we feel unprepared to become the vocal defender of our own collections. To avoid this, we must set ourselves up for success when faced with a challenge. There are some specific steps that every school librarian can follow:

1. Know your selection and reconsideration policies and procedures. Review them on a regular basis to determine if they need updating.
2. Make sure your school's administrators are aware of the policies and procedures.
3. Discuss the Library Bill of Rights with your administration and talk about how to handle oral versus formal complaints or challenges.
4. Have a standing committee in place in your school that provides support in collection development and might also serve as the reconsideration committee.
5. Gather outside support from ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), your state association's intellectual freedom committee, and from within your district.

What do you do if your school or district does not have a selection and reconsideration policy? Write one! The OIF is developing an updated "Selection & Reconsideration Policy Tool Kit for Public, School, and Academic Libraries." Many library and information science textbooks have guidelines for writing selection policies. You don't have to start from scratch. Find one that you like, and work from that foundation.

In my career as a school librarian, I found that the key component in avoiding a challenge was not to avoid it by censoring. Instead, I chose to engage my school community in discussions about intellectual freedom, access, and the best educational practices. When a parent or faculty member asked, "Why is this book in the school library?" I always responded by discussing the Library Bill of Rights and meeting the needs of all of my students. Parents in particular responded positively when I thanked them for their involvement in their child's reading life and discussed with them how to handle material with which they might be uncomfortable. These conversations became the most critical factor in defending the right to read.

Resources for Further Information

ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom - http://www.ala.org/offices/oif

ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom Resources for School Libraries - http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom

ALA's Questions and Answers on Labeling and Rating Systems - http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/qa-labeling

Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights - http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations

Adams, Helen. Ensuring Intellectual Freedom and Access to Information in the School Library Media Program. Libraries Unlimited, 2008.

Mardis, Marcia A. The Collection Program in Schools: Concepts and Practices (6th ed). Libraries Unlimited, 2016.

Works Cited

Asheim, Lester. "Not Censorship but Selection." Wilson Library Bulletin 28 (1953): 63-67.

Dillon, Ken, and Claire Louise Williams. "Censorship, Children, and School Libraries in Australia: Issues of Concern." Emergency Librarian 22, no. 2 (Nov-Dec 1994): 8–14.