Why Do We Even Read?: Book Censorship News, February 9, 2024

In the parental perceptions of libraries suite of surveys, 47% of parents reported that they did not believe reading opens children up to new ideas, new people, or new perspectives. If more than 2 out of 5 parents do not believe reading opens children up to new ideas, new people, and new perspectives, this begs several questions. What do parents think the purpose of reading might be — what have they, as grown adults, taken from reading, if anything? Are parents only sharing books that mirror their own experiences or even reading to or with their children at all?

Close to the same percentage of parents who do not think children’s books open readers up to new worlds and experiences also say that banning books from the school library is an appropriate way to prevent children from learning about certain topics (57%). Likewise, 46% of parents said they do not believe book bans cause harm, and for 31%, book banning is the “right way” to prevent children from seeing something inappropriate. Parents distrust their children so deeply that they would prefer the government — i.e., the school or library — to do the parenting for them by removing the books wholesale. These parents also insist that they do not co-parent with said government yet have given so much of their personal data over to tech companies that they have not only stopped thinking for themselves, they’ve stopped parenting for themselves. They’ve become so disconnected from the world outside of the bubble that they no longer possess a modicum of curiosity.

They do not know — and do not care — why we read.

These parents do not see book bans as causing harm because it benefits them. Censorship allows them to stay within the narrow confines of their own filters and recruits other people to join them in it with a handy buffet of talking points, social media accounts to follow, and “news” in a world where navigating those things on your own is not only difficult, it’s not often fully within your own control. This is precisely why we see things like the data from the school library survey that shows people who had less exposure to school libraries — they didn’t have a student in public school, didn’t report having been in one, have never met the librarian there — had a higher level of confidence that they knew how books were selected for the school library. They were fed a string of stories and because those stories continued to hit their feeds, they were more primed to see those as truth. Even by encouraging people against censorship to engage, book banners not only drive up their own profiles, but the algorithm also pushes their narratives further into the public; these are narratives not only without merit but that remove essential context.

Libraries and library workers are targets right now in the so-called “culture wars” because they buck the algorithm. Too often, they are the only spaces where people can get local news and information. They are among the only spaces where your data is not borrowed, packaged, and sold for corporate profit. Book banners, on the other hand, have become so sucked into their own feeds that they lack the capacity to traverse anything outside the spaces carefully constructed in their own images.

Books available in public and school libraries represent the entirety of a community, not just parts of it. Parents have to do the work of teaching their own children what they can or cannot access rather than have the work done for them as it is online. Where a feed presents your options for you, the library presents them to you. Libraries are not places of passive consumption but of active engagement.

Libraries and library workers provide the tools and the context for what it means to function in a diverse democratic society. They have the skills, knowledge, and expertise to help anyone — including young people — navigate nuance, experience and cultivate wonder and curiosity, and marvel at the entire expanse of human possibilities through books, films, music, programming, book displays, digital tools, and more.

Libraries and library workers, however, need to step it up when it comes not only to their own advocacy, but also to reiterate their role as institutions of civic engagement. Libraries need to stop resting on the lie of being neutral spaces. They may need to go further than that, too, and be clear that even if they are nonpartisan — and they should be — that nonpartisanship ends when the library itself is a target. As the data shows, 35% of parents not only believe library workers have a political agenda, those parents believe librarians should have an agenda. An additional 9% of parents believe that librarians do not have an agenda but should — so 44% of parents are in favor of libraries being political, and this is likely because libraries are political. Not to mention, libraries and library workers are overwhelmingly supported and trusted by parents.

The purpose of literature is, of course, to open up new worlds and introduce information and experiences. This is what libraries do and why libraries are a monumental resource and a cornerstone of democracy. They offer a whole world to their communities that does not change based on an algorithm. It’s based on providing tools, skills, and resources that benefit as many people as possible outside capitalism, which drives data collection and the resulting feeds curated for a user rather than curated by a user.

This is why librarians and educators rank at the top of most trusted professions by parents. It is not just data that supports the field. Real-life people support it, too.

*If you want to learn more about the ways in which algorithms have changed the user experience of the internet, you’ll want to pick up the just-released book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka.