A Louisana woman went on a book-banning spree at St. Tammany Parish Library, with her efforts and those of 14 others succeeding in pulling 172 books from the library’s shelves. The incident demonstrates how the efforts of just a few individuals can succeed in wasting resources in public libraries and preventing hundreds of thousands of residents from accessing library resources.
Book banning and book challenges have reached record highs in recent years, coming largely from conservative politicians, political organizations, and parents. Several states have succeeded in passing legislation banning “sexually explicit” books from school libraries, which often means any book with any reference to sex, even if educational, is banned—though it’s applied particularly strictly to books with LGBTQ+ content. Meanwhile, some residents are inundating local libraries with complaints and challenges and, in some cases, even attempting to get libraries shut down if they don’t agree to their book-banning demands. Unfortunately, many libraries are left with no good options for dealing with these attacks from book banners.
Most libraries have to abide by state legislation or issue some response to challenges they receive from residents. However, it’s increasingly difficult to do so when legislation bans something as broad and ill-defined as “sexual content” or when a single library is slammed with hundreds of complaints. Often, they have no choice but to pull materials until they can find the time and resources to review hundreds of books and complaints. What is happening at St. Tammany Parish Library demonstrates just how badly excessive complaints and unreasonable demands impact libraries.
A few residents challenge nearly 200 books in Louisana library
On its website, St. Tammany Parish Library explains that residents of the parish can fill out a “Statement of Concern About Library Resources” form if they are concerned by any material the library offers. Any book that receives a Statement of Concern is pulled from the shelf and meticulously reviewed by a library committee. While under review, books can only be accessed if specifically requested at the circulation desk.
On its website, users can view all of the Statements of Concern that the library has received, as well as a list of all books currently under review. The list shows that in November and December of 2022, the library was hit by a barrage of Statements of Concern, resulting in a backlog of 172 books pulled from shelves and in need of review. While the library strives to deal with complaints in 45 days, due to the sheer number of complaints, many of these books have been under review for almost a year now. Meanwhile, while browsing through the Statements of Concern filed for each book, one can see that the vast majority of the complaints were filed by one person—a woman by the name of Connie Phillips went on a book-banning spree and filed over 100 of the complaints herself, on behalf of the “St. Tammany Parish Library Accountability Project.” 14 other individuals were responsible for the remaining complaints.
On Reddit, users created an infographic breaking down the situation. Essentially, 15 people succeeded in pulling at least 172 books off of shelves at the library, which serves a parish with a population of 269,388. The infographic estimates that at least $72,000 worth of library funds were wasted processing the complaints, based on information provided at public library board meetings, and that it will take nearly a decade for the library to finish reviewing every complaint at its current pace.
The complaints were largely regarding sexual material or books on gender, though some also mentioned profanity and race discussion. A lot of the books that were targeted were adult novels that were placed in adult sections, separate from children’s and YA books. However, this wasn’t enough for the book banners, who are demanding that all adult books (including YA books they want to be labeled as adult books) be moved to a separate section with restricted access. This way, minors wouldn’t be allowed in sections with these adult books, and adults would likely have to ask a library worker to access them. Considering that libraries seek to eliminate rather than implement barriers to access, this suggestion is very problematic and unnecessary.
While libraries like Tammany St. Parish Library are simply trying to do their due diligence in processing book complaints, they may be forced to rethink their procedures due to a few outliers like Phillips taking advantage of the process and using it to try to ruin libraries for hundreds of thousands of people.
(featured image: ajt/Getty Images)
