With continued undermining of the field’s professionals via right-wing volunteers developing their own review databases based on their opinion, rather than on knowledge of literacy, educational needs, and human development, it comes as little surprise to continue hearing demands that “both sides” of an event or story be made available in the library. The fact is, there are not two sides or “both sides” to every story. Suggesting so — and making materials available that purport to be such — is a fundamental disservice to the public.
This week, yet another school board suggested that in order to fulfill its mission, the library should ensure it offers books that tell “both sides” of the Holocaust. Gavin Downing, who you might remember from a long — and successful — book challenge from earlier this year, found himself once again pushing back against school leadership who thought themselves more knowledgeable about his job than him.
Hawley’s suggestion not only undermines the base of knowledge and expertise from which library workers pull but it actively engages in perpetuating misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. The role of the library is to offer material that supports education, and in school libraries especially, the material supplements course content.
Pamela Hawley, who was introduced during a meeting of the Kent School District Board as a “policy coordinator” but is listed in the school’s staff director as an executive assistant, made the comment during a meeting to discuss revising the system’s library policy following months of rancor over whether to ban LGBT books.
Gavin Downing, a high school librarian in the district, pushed back on Hawley’s statement on Twitter.
“You don’t need to give facts and misinformation the same platform, especially in a school library,” Downing said. “These things are not the same.”
No educator who is doing their job actively teaches Holocaust dispute. The Holocaust happened, and there’s no other side to it. In an era of continued antisemitism, including a warning last week from the FBI for Jewish New Jersey residents to be especially cautious when attending places of worship because of credible threats, even the suggestion that books denying this event is itself antisemitic.
There’s an oft-quoted notion that every library should have a book in it that offends you. That notion goes hand-in-hand with the philosophy by which librarians develop their collection, in that it reflects the needs and interests of the community being served. This means, for example, having a book by a talking head or a politician that may be controversial (not purchasing whatever book Fox News host published through a traditional publisher would be quiet censorship if it is something that your community has expressed interest in). It does not mean purchasing patently false information. Will Tucker-Beck-Kelly’s latest screed in book form have misinformation in it and incite dangerous thinking? It’s likely. But that book is also not going to be used for research papers, and if it is, the individual using it will face the reality that it’s far from a reliable source. They are opinion, and they live on shelves in the library among similar books. They are not presented as fact, as research, or as reliable information. (Information literacy as it relates to these kinds of books is a subject for another day.)
No shelf space, not even in the most conservative communities or schools, is allotted for actively harmful, dangerous, disingenuous, mis/dis/mal information. That is not, nor has it ever been, the purpose of a library.
Anyone suggesting “two sides” to an event like the Holocaust within the context of knowledge, education, or truth does not deserve to be anywhere near those institutions.
The Holocaust is not a matter of opinion. It was a human atrocity.
The Public Library of Steubenville and Jefferson County (OH) has received complaints about queer books in the collection and responded by reiterating the purpose of a library (this is good!). What’s less good is their decision to move some graphic novels from the teen area to the adult area. Dickinson Public Library (ND) heard from residents on the challenged book Let’s Talk About It. A decision on whether it stays is forthcoming.
