Brent Bozell thinks the ALA's stance against censorship is a front for censoring the right. He has a critique at Townhall.com of the American Library Association's annual survey on challenged books. In his view, librarians are two-faced because they defend having a book about two male penguins caring for chick (pro-homosexual! Anti-family!) while the GLBT Round Table of the ALA reported libraries don't offer enough access to books of interest to the GLBT community but had books like "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality."

So far as I can tell, the GLBT Round Table wasn't advocating libraries should get rid books they personally found offensive, but were saying there should be better access to books that showed a different side of the story. Oh, and they're making lists of books that are GLBT-friendly, which Bozell considers censorship.

Public and school libraries are often asked to remove books from libraries. Curiously enough, I haven't heard of a request to remove books like The Bell Curve or Unfit for Command. No, it's most often books that sully children's proper understanding of sexuality (like a picture book about two male penguins raising a chick, the most-challenged book in the past two years), or religion (The Golden Compass for being anti-God). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is also frequently challenged because of its 19^th century language about race.

more after the flip...

Libraries have defended people's right to read widely and encounter multiple perspectives since at least 1948, when the Library Bill of Rights was adopted by the ALA board. It has been amended a few times since. The current document is this: 

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use. 

The trouble is that some people feel having books on a wide range of views is wrong because it exposes children to wrong ideas. There aren't many challenges from the left because they generally don't think exposure to wrong ideas is unhealthy. So usually the attacks say "librarians are liberal and stuck-up and defend evil books and won't teach the controversy, er, won't debate the issues." Bozell says "the ALA doesn't favor open discussion and debate with parents -- which is what the ‘challenges' represent."

No, actually, the challenges represent an attempt to remove books from libraries for ideological reasons. Librarians are perfectly willing to debate and discuss the issues, and they do it often.

What they will not do is honor the right of any group - right or left - to simply say "this book should not be available on principle." That's because libraries' principle reason for being is to serve all members of the community with information that approaches ideas from many different angles.

Sometimes a challenge is a local issue, but often it's based on second-hand knowledge provided by organizations that have an axe to grind. (That was one of the issues before the Supreme Court in the landmark Island Trees v. Pico decision; the parents who wanted books removed from a school library didn't actually examine the books, they got a list from a conservative organization.) Writers like Bozell encourage the public to think librarians are censors but making the utterly specious claim that they don't buy books that reflect a political spectrum. Libraries would concur with the Supreme Court. "The action before us does not involve the acquisition of books. Respondents have not sought to compel their school Board to add to the school library shelves any books that students desire to read. Rather, the only action challenged in this case is the removal from school libraries of books originally placed there by the school authorities, or without objection from them."

There's no evidence presented in Bozell's opinion piece that libraries systematically refuse to add books to their collections based on ideology. (Has he been to library lately?) He leaps from the idea that a GLBT library group, that wants to promote access to books supportive of GLBT issues and to promote awareness of anti-gay stereotypes, to the unfounded claim that they want to prevent access to books that represent his perspective.   

This is what libraries believe: "Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation."