Reviewing the 'Literary Changes' BTN High Video – Censorship

For the topic of censorship, I chose to review a resource intended for use by young people, which was a Behind the News High (BTN High) video entitled Literary Changes – Sensible or Censorship presented by Cale Matthews (2023).  Upon beginning the task, I realised that my understanding of censorship was somewhat lacking, so I did some research to discover the types of issues relating to censorship that may be relevant to my professional life as a teen librarian. I took to the Charles Sturt University Library to read some articles and make some notes, then I watched the BTN High video again with my newfound knowledge.

Understanding the issue of censorship and how to discuss it with young people is important to my professional practice as I may have young people asking about book bannings and why some people challenge certain books. This particular video was quite a soft entry into the topic of censorship, focusing on changes made to older books by Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming to bring them more in line with our modern values.

Literary Changes – Sensible or Censorship echoed many of the sentiments that I found throughout my research on the topic, particularly the view that we need not ‘protect’ children through their reading materials, because they are not passive and unthinking in their reading. They have the ability to understand that values have changed over time.

When looking at the topic of censorship as it relates to book bannings, the most commonly challenged books are those written by Black authors addressing racism, along with those that affirm the experiences and lives of queer individuals and families (Pickering, 2023, p. 34; Sokol, 2022, p. 34). Many of these challenges are in the interests of ‘protecting’ children however, a lack of exposure to reading materials from a variety of perspectives prohibits young people from developing an awareness of the experience of others (Rumberger, 2019, p. para. 25). Clark-Hunt and Creel (2024, p. 193) assert that while not every book is for every child, some children may be going through a tough time or experiencing something new and reading to explore and understand their own lives and feelings may be the safest and healthiest thing for them.

One of the gaps I have discovered in my knowledge is how my workplace deals with challenges to items in the library. A collection development policy is a great tool to use when defending what materials we have as part of our collection (Clark-Hunt & Creel, 2024, p. 192) and ours at Cessnock City Library is freely available online. However, I don’t know what to do if we receive a request to remove an item from our collection, so I will be exploring that at work. I didn’t think that would be something we would face in Australia but the recent news of Cumberland City Council banning books featuring same-sex parents (Cassidy & Rose, 2024) shows that we, as librarians, need to be ready to protect not only our right to freedom of information, but to protect the rights of our library users to see themselves represented in the library.

 

References

Cassidy, C., & Rose, T. (2024, May 7). Sydney council bans same-sex parenting books from libraries for ‘safety of our children’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/07/sydney-council-bans-same-sex-parenting-books-from-libraries-for-safety-of-our-children

Clark-Hunt, L. K., & Creel, S. (2024). Interviews with public librarians on their experiences in cases of censorship. Public Library Quarterly (New York, N.Y.), 43(2), 179-201. https://doi.org/10.1080/01616846.2023.2243201

Matthews, C. (2023, March 7). Literary changes - sensible or censorship? [Video]. ABC btn. https://www.abc.net.au/btn/high/literary-changes/102064324

Pickering, G. (2023). "Harmful to minors": How book bans hurt adolescent development. The Serials Librarian, 84(1-4), 32-45. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2023.2245843

Rumberger, A. (2019). The elementary school library: Tensions between access and censorship. Contemporary issues in early childhood, 20(4), 409-421. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949119888491

Sokol, M. (2022). The power of story: Using personal anecdotes to counter challenges. Children & Libraries, 20(2), 34-35. https://doi.org/10.5860/cal.20.2.34