Come to California -- where we have 80% of our school libraries without librarians. Where we have half the public libraries of the national average. We know how to deny access to books. And it ain't one at a time.

Protecting each other, right in the center
a few pages glow a long time.
The cover goes first, then the outer leaves
curling away, then spine and a scattering.
Truth, brittle and faint, burns easily,
its fire as hot as the fire lies make--
flame doesn't care. You can usually find
a few charred words in the ashes.

And some books ought to burn, trying for character
but just faking it. More disturbing
than book ashes are whole libraries that no one
got around to writing -- desolate
towns, miles of unthought-in cities,
and the terrorized countryside where wild dogs
own anything that moves. If a book
isn't written, no one needs to burn it--
ignorance can dance in the absence of fire.

So I've burned books. And there are many
I haven't even written, and nobody has.

William Stafford
An Oregon Message
© 1987, NY, Harper and Row

Truth is, as public libraries, how many of us subscribe to Hustler and Penthouse? They would certainly get used. Whenever we choose one material and choose not to purchase another, we are indulging in a form of censorship.

On the other hand, I don't know where Muncy came up with the idea that censorship is only "prior restraint on publication." Stopping the flow of information the way that China, Iran, and Cuba have with the able assistance of companies like Cisco is definitely censorship.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/22/cisco-internal-memo.html

And one last note on Pullman: I wouldn't blame any library for not carrying his works. It took me two tries to get through the Golden Compass and I really wish I hadn't bothered. Not unlike Dan Brown, Pullman is much better at marketing through controversy than at actually crafting prose worth reading.

The citizens who pay the taxes that support the schools and libraries surely have a right to express their opinions and seek redress of their grievances. That's in the Constitution, ALA. To count every complaint, and act like the sum reflects a vast tide of repression, when the great majority of these are by ALA's own admission dismissed makes the self-congratulatory drama all the more misplaced.

Note: those citizens bringing these complaints do vote on school and public library millages. If you alienate enough potential users by patronizing and sanctimonious dismissal of their concerns, don't be surprised if they vote you down in the future.

I must admit that the mentioned WSJ article made me angry for the most part, but the impression I got from it with regards to the above sentiment was less about the actual banning of books, and more about the fact that, when it comes down to it, the librarians are the ones who choose what books come in to the library.

While they may be influenced by patron preferences, in the end it is the librarians who order the books and not all of those books are necessarily going to fit the reading preferences of the majority. In a good public library, there should be a reasonable distribution of books of both types. What's the good of having a point of view if it's never challenged?

I feel like those who focus on trying to get books banned from the public library should instead ask if the library can order a book that reflects their point of view to go alongside it.