This September 19-25, 2021, the displays in public libraries for the American Library Association’s annual Banned Books Week are going to be overflowing with banned books. In addition to Ryan T. Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally, and Abigail Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage, there will be not one, not two, not three, but SIX Dr. Seuss books.

Historically the American Library Association has deemed a book “banned” if a few parents asked for it to be removed from the children’s section to another section of the library. Such a “banning” throws them into a tizzy after which they fall onto their fainting couches. Just imagine how they must feel now that book-burners managed to get the publisher of Dr. Seuss’s books to stop publishing SIX of them. Get those guy, gal, and sexually ambiguous librarians some smelling salts STAT.

What, you may be wondering, did Dr. Seuss write or draw that led to today’s book-burners—also known in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 as Firemen (Gotta burn that book next year. “Firemen” definitely hurts somebody’s feelings).

One of the allegedly offensive books is If I Ran the Zoo in which young Gerald McGrew imagines traveling the world to collect exotic never-before-seen animals from faraway places for his zoo. The drawings most intensely drawing leftist ire are one of Asian characters with yellow skin and slanted eyes wearing traditional Asian clothes and using chopsticks, and the other is a drawing of two Africans wearing loin cloths and nose rings as many members of African tribes have historically done.

There is also a drawing of Persian princes wearing Persian garb and one of a Russian soldier with a big bushy beard wearing a Russian military uniform and carrying a bird called the “Russian Palooski whose headski is redski.” But those stereotypes don’t seem to bother leftists all that much.

CNN editor-at-large Chris Cillizza said this about the decision by the publisher of Dr. Seuss’s books to cease publication of six books—a decision compelled by leftist Firemen:

While six of his books will no longer be published, the remaining three dozen or so will still be on the bookshelves. That isn’t a cancellation.

Well, the cancellation of the publication of the six books actually is a cancellation.

Should a society censor books? Is burning a book written in 1950 because of several questionable images the proper response? Who will decide which books should be burned? Who will decide which hurt feelings render book-burning necessary? Are the faux-hurt feelings of leftist adults in academia sufficient justification for book-burning?

Leftists whine endlessly about stereotyping, suggesting that stereotypes are intrinsically offensive and hurtful. In so whining, they fail to acknowledge that stereotypes emerge from and reflect real phenomena. Stereotypes do not precede and create phenomena. Humans notice differences and categorize phenomena. That’s how the human mind works.

We are expected to worship at the altar of multiculturalism, but multiculturalism is based on the reality that there are distinctives that characterize different people groups. From those differences emerge “stereotypes.” And storytelling often depends on depicting characters that represent the diverse types of groups we observe. That is to say, storytelling depends on stereotypes.

One could argue that the wildly popular television program Will and Grace and movie Black Panther are filled with stereotypes, and yet the presence of stereotypes—that is, characters that represent recognizable types—in those cases is not viewed as either insulting or degrading.

Crazy Rich Asians, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Moonstruck, Godfather, Goodfellas, Mean Girls, Boyz N the Hood, and Birdcage too are replete with stereotypes. The “types” came first.

If someone wanted to write a children’s book about a Chinese family, would it make sense to depict the family with big round blue eyes in order to avoid the “stereotype” that Chinese people have brown eyes with slanted monolids?

If we’re going to burn books based on claims that they include hurtful language directed at “authentic identities,” then we’re gonna need one colossal bonfire. Every book that describes theologically orthodox people as “homophobic” or “transphobic” for views on sexuality or marriage central to their identity as Christians needs to be burned.

Former president of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (ALA OIF), the much-revered Judith Krug, once said this in an interview:

We have gone through periods where our biggest threats have been from the left of center, where people have wanted to remove materials that did not portray, for instance, minority groups in the way that they thought minority groups should be portrayed. … If we [the ALA OIF] have an agenda, it is protection of the First Amendment.

In that same interview, Krug said something even more salient to the issue of banning the six of Dr. Seuss’s books:

[M]any years ago …  Meshach Taylor made a statement … during a panel discussion that I participated in before the opening of The Big River at the Goodman Theater. Now, The Big River is one of the stage versions of Huckleberry Finn. Meshach Taylor was playing Nigger Jim, and one of the questions that came up from the audience during this panel was, “Do you really feel that Huckleberry Finn is appropriate for young people to read? Given the name of Nigger Jim, isn’t it too embarrassing or too frightening, or doesn’t it raise specters for young people that they would be better off without?” And Meshach Taylor answered, “You don’t know how you got to where you’re at today unless you know where you came from yesterday. And if you don’t know where you came from yesterday to get to where you’re at today, you’ll never know how to go forward into tomorrow.”

Here’s an idea: Stop demanding the banning of Dr. Seuss books. Let them be published and purchased wherever books are sold. And leave all of them on library shelves right behind the drag queens reading stories to toddlers and right next to picture books about Heather’s two mommies and tutu-wearing boys. Then moms and dads can decide which books to purchase or check-out, and read to their children.

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The American Library Association (ALA) has revealed that it has not yet reached the nadir of ethical corruption. Through its Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) division, the Intellectual Freedom Committee, which promotes “continuing education programs” for children, just wrote this (you better be sitting down):

Interested in bringing Drag Queen Storytime to your library? ALSC Committee Members received tips for optimizing success from library pioneers who have already done it.  We also had the chance to meet a Drag Queen who talked about the value of offering this program, including fostering empathy, tolerance, creativity, imagination and fun.

I kid you not. Librarians who have brought in deviant entertainers to captivate the innocent imaginations of toddlers are “pioneers”? Think “brood of vipers.”

This feckless ALA statement raises questions: Should we foster in children empathy for those who choose to engage in transvestism? Should we tolerate adults who expose children to transvestism? Should we encourage children to view men who masquerade as women as “fun”?

Every year, the ALA sponsors the laughably named “Banned Books Week” (this year, Sept. 23-29, 2018) during which self-righteous, dissembling librarians foment “book-banning” paranoia. The ALA fancies itself a bastion of liberty and arch-defender of the free exchange of ideas. In reality, the ALA is most notable for being a censorious, partisan purveyor of perverse leftist ideas about sexuality. The ALA can’t seem to find an idea too perverse for children and can’t discern an age too young to be exposed to perversion.

The ALA pursues its hysteria-fomenting goal chiefly by ridiculing parents who, for example, don’t want their five-year-olds seeing books about children or anthropomorphized animals being raised by parents in homoerotic relationships. Scorn will be heaped on parents who hold the unpopular belief that homoeroticism and cross-dressing—even when presented in whitewashed, water-colored images—don’t belong in the picture books section of public libraries.

Most taxpayers have no idea how purchasing decisions in publicly subsidized libraries are made, but they should, because the policy librarians follow serves as a de facto book-banning mechanism.

Libraries use Collection Development Policies (CDP’s) to determine which books they will purchase with their limited budgets. CDP’s maintain that librarians should purchase only books that have been positively reviewed by two “professionally recognized” review journals. Guess what folks, the “professionally recognized” review journals are dominated by ideological “progressives.” Publishing companies too are dominated by ideological “progressives,” so getting books published that espouse conservative ideas (particularly on the topics of homosexuality and gender dysphoria) is nigh unto impossible.

If librarians really cared about the full and free exchange of ideas and if they really believed that “book-banning” is dangerous to society, they would direct their rage and ridicule at the powerful publishing companies, professionally-recognized review journals, and their own profession, all of which do far more “book-banning” than does a handful of powerless parents seeking to have a picture book removed (or sometimes just moved).

The American Library Association has a goddess they revere. Their goddess, now deceased, is Judith Krug, past president of the portentously named Office of Intellectual Freedom (or is it the “Ministry of Truth”?) of the American Library Association. In a 1995 interview, she said this:

We have to serve the information needs of all the community and for so long “the community” that we served was the visible community…. And so, if we didn’t see those people, then we didn’t have to include them in our service arena. The truth is, we do have to.…

We never served the gay community. Now, we didn’t serve the gay community, because there weren’t materials to serve them. You can’t buy materials if they’re not there. But part of our responsibility is to identify what we need and then to begin to ask for it. Another thing we have to be real careful about is that even though the materials that come out initially aren’t wonderful, it’s still incumbent upon us to have that voice represented in the collection. This was exactly what happened in the early days of the women’s movement, and as the black community became more visible and began to demand more materials that fulfilled their particular information needs. We can’t sit back and say, “Well, they’re not the high-quality materials I’m used to buying.” They’re probably not, but if they are the only thing available, then I believe we have to get them into the library. (emphasis added)

I wonder if librarians heed Krug’s words when it comes to resources that espouse conservative views on homosexuality and gender dysphoria. Are the anti-book-banning soldiers fighting to fill the gaping lacuna in their picture books and Young Adult (YA) literature collections on these topics? Are they fulfilling their responsibility to fill that hole if necessary with materials that are less than “wonderful”—which is to say, with materials that their “professionally recognized review journals” may not review positively or at all?

Here are some children’s book ideas that librarians could request to fill gaps in their collections. These are not book ideas I want to see in libraries. Rather, they’re topics ALA members would request if they were truly committed to the principles they espouse:

• Books for children and teens that challenge “progressive” beliefs about homosexuality and gender dysphoria—you know, pro-heterosexuality/pro-heteronormativity/pro-cisgender books

• YA novels about teens who feel sadness and resentment about being intentionally deprived of a mother or father and who seek to find their missing biological parents

• Dark, angsty novels about teens who are damaged by the promiscuity of their “gay” “fathers” who hold sexual monogamy in disdain

• Novels about young adults who are consumed by a sense of loss and bitterness that their parents allowed them during the entirety of their childhood to cross-dress, change their names, and take chemicals to prevent puberty followed by cross-sex hormones, thus irreversibly altering their psycho-social development and deforming their bodies

• Novels about young girls who suffer grievously because their fathers adopted female personas

• Novels about teens who suffer because of the harrowing fights and serial relationships of their lesbian mothers

• A picture book that shows the joy a baby bird experiences when, after the tragic West Nile virus deaths of her two beloved daddies, she’s finally adopted by a daddy and mommy? (For those “progressives” who struggle with analogies and reading comprehension, please note, the joy the baby bird experiences is not about her daddies’ deaths but about her adoption by a father and a mother.)

I listed several of these story ideas four years ago in an article that so enraged “progressives” that some  homosexuality-affirming websites, including Huffington Post, took me to the woodshed. In doing so, they (not surprisingly) misrepresented my thesis. I was wondering whether librarians would request and include stories in their book collections with which some children may identify but that convey ideas “progressives” don’t like. I was suggesting that “progressives” engage in a more absolute form of “book-banning” than the kind of which they accuse conservatives.

The anger of “progressives” on these websites demonstrated that they are far more, shall we say, “passionate” in their opposition to books they don’t like—including even book ideas—than are conservatives. “Progressives” become enraged in the presence of a story idea—including book ideas that haven’t even a hint of hatred.

Their anger confirmed my point. When conservative parents challenge an occasional book, “progressives” ridicule them (which includes librarians ridiculing their own patrons). When I merely describe hypothetical storylines, “progressives” go ballistic. How dare I even propose a story that suggests some child somewhere may want a mother and a father or that a teen may not like the promiscuity of her fathers or the emotional and relational instability of his mothers. If this is how homosexuals respond to a story idea, imagine if such a story were published and purchased and displayed in a library? If that were to happen, librarians better be ready for the jackbooted, anti-censorship change-agents who will storm-troop in demanding that some book-banning take place pronto. They might even sue.

While conservatives are forced to subsidize multiple homosexuality-affirming picture books and drag queen story hours, “progressives” aren’t forced to subsidize any resources that dissent from partisan, “progressive” dogma on sexuality.

And the ALA claims to be all about intellectual freedom.  Yeah, right. And the emperor’s new clothes are fabulous.

The ALA is plunging deep into the “drag” cesspool, pulling children down with them.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck
and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
(Luke 17:2)

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/The-ALA-Plunges-Deeper-into-the-Drag-Cesspool-1.mp3

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Never poke a sleeping bear or the ideology of “tolerant” librarians. IFI’s recent article by John Biver about a controversy brewing in West Chicago over a picture book for young children that positively portrays the “pride” parades that pollute city streets throughout the country every June has unleashed the fury of freedom-lovin’ librarians across the nation.

Here’s what lesbian Gayle E. Pitman, author of This Day in June and professor of gender studies and psychology at Sacramento City College, said when asked what her book is “REALLY about”:

I LOVE this question! This Day in June is really about being who you are, and not apologizing for it. When I wrote this story, I wanted Pride to be featured as realistically as possible. I wanted to see drag queens, guys in leather, rainbows, political signs, the Dykes on Bikes—everything you would see at Pride. I didn’t want any of it to be watered-down or sugarcoated. Lots of people have asked me, “Do you think that’s appropriate for children?” And my answer always is—YES. There’s something very powerful about allowing something to be portrayed authentically, because it teaches children in an indirect way to be as authentic as they can. It’s also important to recognize that children respond to Pride very differently than adults do. When adults see people wearing leather, they make certain associations to that. Children see people wearing leather and think they’re just wearing a costume, or playing dress-up. What I love most about This Day in June is that the illustrations are age-appropriate AND authentic at the same time.

Pitman’s picture book also depicts the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Catholic-hating drag queens who call themselves “queer nuns.” They include “Sister Anni Coque l’Doo, “Sister Guard N O’Pansies”, and “Sister Hera Sees Candy.”

What precisely is “authenticity” to Pitman and “progressive” librarians? Is “authenticity” acting on all powerful, persistent, unchosen desires? If so, is a society in which everyone is “authentic” a society conducive to moral order and human flourishing? And if a parade that features dykes on bikes, drag queens, and guys in leather is “age-appropriate,” what isn’t? What criteria do “progressives” in libraries and public schools use to determine age-appropriateness?

Pitman is not done yet. She has just released another gem for our little ones: When You Look Out the Window. It’s a picture book about infamous lesbians Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin who became lovers in 1950 and co-founded the country’s first lesbian political organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, in 1955.

John Biver’s article unleashed a torrent of librarian wrath from sea to shining sea. From all across this great land in which our forefathers spilled their blood to secure freedom for homosexuals to destroy marriage, rob children of their birthrights, and march through our streets in leather thongs, librarians are descending on IFI’s Facebook page to leave “non-judgmental” comments and reviews like these:

Meghan Cirrhito (librarian, feminist), Long Island, New York: “Advocates hate. Do not recommend or support this group.”

Deborah M Monn Bifulk (librarian), Saint Paul, MN: “Hate is not a family value. Rejecting the myriad of families that exist outside heterosexual unions is bigotry, plain and simple.”

Dawn Betts-Green (“radical militant lesbrarian”), Tallahassee, FL: “As a Pagan queer person, I don’t want to see all of the viscious [sic], hateful religious books, but guess what, they exist on the shelves of many libraries for hateful people just like you.”

Ingrid Conley-Abrams  (director-at-large of the Leftist American Library Association’s  GLBT Round Table, and a children’s librarian who has called for librarians everywhere to leave bad reviews of IFI on our Facebook page), New York City: “You are entitled to your beliefs. I do, however, find them hateful…. I won’t spend my time catering to your homophobic fantasies….”

Fobazi Ettarh, Philadelphia: “They spread ignorance and bigotry in the name of Jesus. He would be ashamed of these people.”

Leftists get apoplectic when conservatives talk about Jesus, but when Leftists do, it’s a whole different and way better ball of wax. So, since Ettarh did bring up religion, I have some questions, like, how does expressing theologically orthodox views on sexuality and marriage constitute spreading ignorance and bigotry? Why would Jesus be ashamed of those who accept his definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman? Was she referring to the Jesus in whose name and by whose authority the Apostle Paul wrote the following:

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

In a revealing blog post in which Ettarh discusses the ideology of “intersectionality” in which race, sex, class,” “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity” compete for top spot on the hierarchy of oppression, Ms. Ettarh says this:

A common value taught in library school is the importance of the librarian as an objective and neutral professional. As public servants, librarians must serve all communities equally regardless of moral values and political views. The librarian’s primary role is that of a facilitator in the public’s access to information and knowledge.

However, librarianship is inherently political. Even activities in which librarians are specifically trained to maintain “neutrality,” such as collection development, are intrinsically political…. [M]ost libraries… actively cause harm in the name of neutrality by giving voice to hate speech when neutrality is interpreted as giving equal voice to “both sides.”

Ettarh has admitted that librarians are not and—in her view—should not be neutral. Their work should be informed by their politics. Commitments to neutrality or “giving equal voice” should not be allowed to trump “progressive” politics. And when Ettarh refers to “hate speech,” remember who is permitted to define “hate.” “Progressives” like Ettarh get to define it—or rather redefine it. “Hate” has been redefined to mean “moral assumptions on sexuality and marriage with which Leftists disagree.”

Before “progressives” took control of all major cultural institutions, moral disapproval of volitional behavior was not thought to constitute hatred of persons. And even today, “progressives” don’t apply that principle consistently to their own moral assumptions. They don’t believe their moral disapproval of volitional behavior means they hate those who disagree and who act in accordance with their beliefs.

Leftists now make this fallacious argument:

1.) Conservative moral assumptions about homosexual behavior, the nature of marriage, and the (science-denying) “trans” ideology are “hateful” (meaning Leftists believe they’re wrong).

2.) Hatred may lead to violence.

3.) Therefore, hatred is violence.

4.) And, therefore, expressions of conservative moral assumptions about sexuality and marriage must be censored.

Very tricksy and dangerous rhetorical game.

As I wrote several years ago, libraries use Collection Development Policies (CDP’s) to determine which books they will purchase with their limited budgets. CDP’s hold that librarians should purchase only books that have been positively reviewed by two “professionally recognized” review journals. Well, guess what folks, the “professionally recognized” review journals are dominated by ideological “progressives.” Publishing companies and the field of library science too are dominated by ideological “progressives,” so getting books published that espouse conservative ideas (particularly on the topic of sexuality) is nigh unto impossible.

If librarians really cared about the full and free exchange and availability of ideas and if they really believed that “book-banning” is dangerous to society, they would direct their rage and ridicule at the powerful publishing companies, professionally-recognized review journals, and their own profession, all of which do far more de facto book-banning than does a handful of powerless parents seeking to have a picture book moved.

“Progressives” used to revere the now-deceased Judith Krug, past president of the portentously named Office of Intellectual Freedom (or is it the “Ministry of Truth”?) of the American Library Association. In a 1995 interview, she famously said this:

We have to serve the information needs of all the community and for so long “the community” that we served was the visible community…. And so, if we didn’t see those people, then we didn’t have to include them in our service arena. The truth is, we do have to.…

“We never served the gay community. Now, we didn’t serve the gay community, because there weren’t materials to serve them. You can’t buy materials if they’re not there. But part of our responsibility is to identify what we need and then to begin to ask for it. Another thing we have to be real careful about is that even though the materials that come out initially aren’t wonderful, it’s still incumbent upon us to have that voice represented in the collection…. We can’t sit back and say, “Well, they’re not the high-quality materials I’m used to buying.” They’re probably not, but if they are the only thing available, then I believe we have to get them into the library.”[emphasis added]

I wonder if Leftist librarians will “demand more” conservative “materials” related to sexuality, marriage, and the “trans” ideology in order to serve the increasingly invisible community of conservatives.

Yeah, right.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Tolerant-Totalitarian-Librarians-Really-Hate-IFI.mp3

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On Tuesday, John Keilman wrote a lighthearted editorial on last week’s annual dishonest campaign by the American Library Association (ALA) laughably named “Banned Books Week.”

His personal story was revelatory. Keilman shared that when he was young, pulp novels with “absolutely no redeeming value” beckoned with an irresistible force. He describes what so powerfully attracted him: their “lurid” titles and the cover art which depicted the hero with “his arm around a busty woman, blasting a hole through some underworld stooge.”

But then after explicitly stating the sexual and violent language and imagery that served as “catnip to a preteen” boy, he almost-deftly switches his argument.

After describing the features that actually appealed to him, he then spends the rest of the article suggesting that what motivated him to sneakily read these novels was parental disapproval. From that strained but common argument he posits, perhaps disingenuously, that since kids are attracted to books that parents prohibit, if we just prohibit good books, kids will be attracted to them. Yes, Keilman believes that all parents need do is furrow their censorious brows at Moby Dick and before they know it, little Betty will be hidden under her covers with a flashlight reading about Ahab’s battle with the great fish.

Here are some of the issues surrounding “Banned Books Week” that Keilman ignored:

• Most parents are not requesting that a book be banned. Most parents are requesting one of three things: 1. that a book be moved to an adult section of the library, 2. that a library not use its limited resources to purchase a particular book, or 3. that a publicly funded school not select a particular book to be taught.Parents are not requesting that publishing companies be prohibited from publishing particular book titles, that parents be prohibited from purchasing them, or that Amazon stop selling them.
• Books that are never purchased can’t be “banned.” So, for example, when school and community libraries refuse to purchase or request books that espouse conservative assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality, there’s no opportunity for “progressives” to “ban” books. Their censorship is achieved prior to the purchase of books; it’s far more comprehensive; and it’s much more cunning in that librarians have created the de facto censorship protocol, euphemistically named “Collection Development Policies” (CDPs), that effectively bans books they don’t like (i.e., conservative books) with nary a controversial word messily spilling out into the public square. If CDPs resulted in no books being purchased that espouse liberal assumptions about homosexuality, you can bet your bottom dollar that ALA members and diversity devotees everywhere would throw a wobbly even Rumpelstiltskin would admire.

Here’s an interesting exercise for Mr. Keilman and anyone who cares about both intellectual diversity and how their taxes are spent: Search your local high school’s or community’s library catalogue from the comfort of your home using the search terms “sexual orientation,” “lesbian,” “gay,” and “homosexuality.” Count up how many resources espouse liberal assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality (scores and scores) versus how many affirm conservative assumptions (close to nil).

Then try to get your library to fill the gaping hole in its book collection by ordering some of these:

• A Queer Thing Happened to America by Michael L. Brown
• Divorcing Marriage edited by Daniel Cere and Douglas Farrow
• The Gay Gospel by Joe Dallas
• The Bible and Homosexual Practice by Robert A.J. Gagnon
• The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, & Morals ed. by Robert P. George and Jean Bethke Elshtain
• Light in the Closet by Arthur Goldberg
• Ex-Gays?: A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation by Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse
• The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian
• Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.
• Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage by Peter Sprigg
• Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting by Glenn T. Stanton and Dr. Bill Maier
• The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today by Alan Sears and Craig Osten
• Same-Sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk by Matthew D. Staver
• Out from Under by Dawn Stefanowicz
• Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone by Frank Turek
• Homosexuality and American Public Life edited by Christopher Wolfe
• Same-Sex Matters: The Challenge of Homosexuality edited by Christopher Wolfe
• Out of a Far Country by Christopher Yuan

If your library refuses to order any of these books citing Collection Development Policies as their reason, remind them of these words from the former head of the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, Judith Krug:

We have to serve the information needs of all the community and for so long “the community” that we served was the visible community…. And so, if we didn’t see those people, then we didn’t have to include them in our service arena. The truth is, we do have to.

…

We never served the gay community. Now, we didn’t serve the gay community because there weren’t materials to serve them. You can’t buy materials if they’re not there. But part of our responsibility is to identify what we need and then to begin to ask for it. Another thing we have to be real careful about is that even though the materials that come out initially aren’t wonderful, it’s still incumbent upon us to have that voice represented in the collection. This was exactly what happened in the early days of the women’s movement, and as the black community became more visible and began to demand more materials that fulfilled their particular information needs. We can’t sit back and say, “Well, they’re not the high-quality materials I’m used to buying.” They’re probably not, but if they are the only thing available, then I believe we have to get them into the library. [emphasis added]

According to Krug, intellectual diversity is of such paramount importance that it trumps even quality of material. And if resources are scarce, Krug believes it is the obligation of librarians to ask for them.

In remembering the books that so tantalized him as a boy, Keilman offered one other illuminating reflection: “If they never make the most-challenged list, it’s probably because no respectable school library would stock them in the first place.”

To read more on IFI’s response to “Banned Books Week” (and the Tribune), click HERE.