The Debate of Self Censorship

2329 Words5 Pages

The Self-Censored School Library:
Safe Haven or Barren Philosophical Wasteland?

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them,” posited Ray Bradbury, author of the critically acclaimed Fahrenheit 451 detailing a society wrought with regular book burnings and a complete suppression of ideas. This quote exemplifies the threat that censorship poses to the reading habits of young people, a threat that is ever present in the school library. School media specialists face a challenge in cultivating a collection of materials that will entice young readers who, on average, resist reading. Add to that a librarian who self-censors, chooses not to include popular yet controversial books, and there is the potential to alienate teenage student readers altogether. Books have long been a safe environment where students are able to explore, through literature, complicated issues concerning morality and ethics with lower risk than in real life. If censorship becomes a mainstay of the school library, whether imposed by the community or by the selective librarian, there is great potential for the student body to suffer the effects.
In order to understand the effects that censorship has on students one must first consider its definition and a brief exploration of its root cause in school libraries. Defined as the “changing or the suppression or prohibition of speech or writing that is condemned as subversive of the common good,” censorship is not a new idea. Luckily, in the enlightened 21st century, there are procedures in school and public libraries that must be followed in order to request that a book be taken out of circulation. The content that draws the most ire from concerned parents and...

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...sion for an Ethical Future.” Library Student Journal 5 (January 2010): 13. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed November 7, 2013).
Plato, The Apology: An Electronic Classics Series Publication, ed. Jim Manis, trans. Benjamin Jowett. Hazelton, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, 2013. Accessed November 10, 2013. http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/plato/apology.pdf.
The Times Book of Quotations. 2000. Glasgow: Times Books.
Whelan, Debra Lau. “A Dirty Little Secret.” School Library Journal 55, no. 2 (February 2009): 27-30. Library Literature & Information Science Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed October 24, 2013).
Whelan, Debra Lau. “SLJ Self-Censorship Survey.” School Library Journal. Accessed November 10, 2013. http://www.slj.com/2009/02/collection-development/slj-self- censorship-survey/.

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