Banned Books Week - question

[davewitley]

Sherry wrote:

> I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this.

Actually, as far as I can tell, Sherry, Shaun and Heidi are all in 
agreement on the principles.

As so often is the case, it is the practice that is problematic and 
it is here, frankly, that I find the ALA's website somewhat 
frustrating.

As I understand it, Sherry's position is that the outcome of a 
successful 'challenge' is to *reinforce* parental rights, because 
the book is still available to children, but only via parental 
permission; that of most other list members seems to be that it 
*denies* parental (and children's) rights because the book is no 
longer available to children.

Who is right depends not on abstract principles, but on the 
realities on the ground.

It seems to me that the ALA is rather useless in telling us what 
actually happens. (One might think as librarians they might be 
rather good at making relevant information readily and clearly 
accessible.)  Their rather loose language of 'banning' doesn't 
help.  But until we have an authoritative explanation of the actual 
process and some feel for the balance of outcomes, most of this 
debate is IMO moot and, ill-informed.

I think the key questions are:

 - is 'challenge' a formal process sanctioned by law?
 - does it refer only to complete removal from shelves, or moving 
from children's to adult's sections as well?
 - is a challenge asking for complete removal leads only to a move 
to an adult section, how is that counted in terms of banning?
 - how many books are, in fact, removed from libraries annually as a 
result of this process?

David