Local public libraries in Texas are fielding a flurry of book challenges from local residents

[essentialsaltes]

The push to ban books in Texas schools spreads to public libraries

When the Llano County Library shuts down for three days this week, starting Tuesday, it won’t be for the holidays.

Instead, a group of six librarians in this small Central Texas county will be conducting a “thorough review” of every children’s book in the library, at the behest of the Llano County Commissioners Court.

While book challenges are nothing new, there has been a growing number of complaints about books for libraries in recent months. And the fact that the numbers are rising after questions are being raised about school library content seems more than coincidental, according to the Texas Library Association.

As more residents began turning their sights on local libraries, the state library association set up a “peer counseling” helpline for librarians to get support from others more familiar with book challenges.

“A library may get one or two [book challenges] in two years, or some librarians have never had challenges,” Woodland said. “So this is very rare and very unusual and different from the way challenges have been brought forth in the past.”

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Garvel, who describes herself as a conservative and has a 9-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter, said she’s been very careful about what content they consume.

“My goal is really to protect the children in our community in general, not just my own children,” said Garvel, 43.

It's so beautiful to see someone so filled with maternal instinct that she will be a mother to the children of the whole state.

 

[Martinius]

Don't take the Constitutional right to Freedom of Speech (which extends to Freedom to Read) away from ME, but allow me to suppress the rights of others.

I had the pleasant opportunity some years back to have access to a Catholic seminary library. I was surprised to find a treasure trove of books that had been proscribed by the Church. Of course I read many of them. Some were decades old books, with the pockets and circulation cards still inside the cover. Imagine my amazement when on one of these condemned books I found the name and signature of someone who is now a bishop. Don't worry, I didn't report him to the Office of the Inquisition (AKA Holy Office or Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, run for a long time by a guy named Ratzinger).

Book banning...and book burning...have a long history. Unfortunately, they represent a history of intolerance of thought and expression, the suppression of new (and sometimes old) and different ideas.

 

[cow451]

Libraries in Texas? They still have those?