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By Beth Ann Rosica
“Last month, this point was made quite clear in an article in The Free Press, entitled ‘The Truth About Banned Books.’ The author, James Fishback, surveyed the library catalogs for thirty-five of the largest public school districts in eight red and six blue states. “What I discovered isn’t so much a problem of banned books. It’s that kids are often exposed to only one side of the story.”
Fishback’s research showed that the vast majority of districts had significantly more liberal leaning books than conservative leaning books. He opined, ‘should libraries carry books that peddle progressive ideas? Absolutely, but only if they carry books that advocate for conservative ones too, so our young minds can benefit from the full spectrum of opinions. Unfortunately, in the school districts I surveyed, this isn’t the case.’
Given the amount of debate on this topic locally and the impact on local school board elections, I decided to use Fishback’s methodology to analyze library holdings in twelve districts across the suburban collar counties.”
Why It Matters. “While many of us would like to stop talking about library books and focus on the real task at hand, addressing learning loss, the progressives can’t seem to let it go. Some of them insisted on being sworn in on a stack of so-called ‘banned books.’ Please ignore the fact that these books are available at the local public library and Amazon.
The point that I assume these newly elected officials were trying to make is that these books were under scrutiny for being located in a public school library. Never mind that school libraries have limited space and librarians must make decisions about what to procure, maintain, and discard from the collection on a regular basis. Someone is making a choice every day about what’s available in the library, and it can’t be every book ever published.”
Quotable. “The next time you hear someone talking about book bans, ask them if Woke Racism or Capitalism and Freedom are in their school library.”
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