So what would you do? Imagine that you are the head of a public library. The city council tells you that a certain book can no longer be checked out or possessed by the library. It is banned. Would you agree with this ban and leave it alone? Or would you fight back and try to get the book back on the shelves? Are librarians are responsible for making all information accessible to all people, or do some things just not belong in libraries? More specifically, was Ms. Knief right in the way she handled the banning of The Grapes of Wrath? Or should she have done more to fight it? Books will always get banned, and librarians must continually find ways to deal with this censorship. So how should they deal with it?

The Grapes of Wrath

Many books have been banned over the years from schools, libraries, or other public places. This could be because they are deemed as inappropriate, anti-American, or just because they tell a story that certain people don't want told. An interesting example of this occurred in the late 1930s in California's Kern County Public Libraries. The Grapes of Wrath is a John Steinbeck novel that tells the story of the Joad family. The Joads fight drought during the dust bowl in Oklahoma, and are forced to move to California where they must deal with low wages and poor treatment from the California farmer who employ them. Soon after The Grapes of Wrath was published, it was banned from Kern County's Free Library. No book had ever been banned from this library system, so this act was both unprecedented and controversial (Lingo 351).

One of the most interesting things about this situation is the actions, or lack of actions, that the head of the Kern County Free Library took. Librarian Gretchen Knief complied with the ban of the book by the county's board of supervisors. She did make some copies of the book available and kept secret the actual number of books that the library had, but she did nothing to fight the ban, nor did she speak at any of the following board meetings in which the ban was challenged (366). She continued to comply and did very little to fight the ban until it was finally lifted in 1941 (372).



Lingo, Marci. Forbidden fruit: The banning of The Grapes of Wrath in the Kern County Free Library. Libraries & Culture, 38(4), 351-377.

Sarah Palin Accused of Censorship

It is very easy and popular to critize political figures, but this story seems to have some credibility. In short, Sarah Palin, while Mayor of Wasilla, pressured the city's librarian to censor a book. After that encounter, Mayor Palin terminated the librarian. In the end, the town supported the librarian and the Mayor had to back down. ABC found it credible enough for an investigation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZII0GjcJMus

ALA Freedom to Read Statement

Follow this link to the Freedom to Read Statement at the American Library Association site:

http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/statementspols/ftrstatement/freedomreadstatement.cfm