Open Access
Subscription Access
Criminalizing Librarianship: State Legislatures Creating Legal Jeopardies for Librarians
Abstract
US history has featured many periods of greatly enhanced efforts to ban books, such as during the Comstock era, World War I, and the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Similar to previous periods, the book banning movement that has arisen during the novel coronavirus pandemic of the 2020s has featured widespread efforts to ban many books, particularly those representing certain marginalized experiences, from schools and libraries. However, this current tidal wave of ban booking has added the new and disturbing dimension of laws being considered in state legislatures that would actually create civil and criminal penalties for librarians if banned books were available in the library. These proposed laws are part of much broader legislative efforts at the state and national levels to limit the ability of libraries to construct collections and provide services that meet the needs of their communities. Though there have been some lingering, but unfounded, concerns that librarians might be criminally liable for incorrect information in the library collection and some national security laws have created potential legal jeopardy for librarians in extremely specific circumstances, these new proposed laws are the first that would create widespread legal liabilities for librarians. This article considers the nature of these proposed laws, the larger context that has generated them, and the implications if passed into law, including the Missouri law that has gone into effect.
References
American Library Association. 2010. “First Library Bill of Rights?” http://www.ala.org/tools/first-library-bill-rights.
Bossaller, Jenny. 2016. “Access to Affordable Care through Public Libraries.” Library Quarterly 86, no. 2: 193–212.
Brown, Melissa, and Anika Exum. 2022. “‘Burn Them’: GOP Lawmaker Sparks Ire Over Tennessee School Library Book Bill.” Nashville Tennessean, April 27. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2022/04/27/jerry-sexton-burn-books-tennessee-school-library-bill-debate/9554117002/.
Campbell, Amy. 2021. “ILA Response to House Resolution.” Idaho Library Association. http://www.idaholibraries.org/Legislative-News.
Charles, Ron. 2022. “Kids’ Literature isn’t Child’s Play for Senator Cruz.” Washington Post, March 24.
Cockrell, Dale. 2019. Everybody’s Doin’ It: Sex, Music, and Dance in New York, 1840–1917. New York: Norton.
Corbin, Clark. 2022. “Librarians Worry They Could Face Criminal Penalty under Bill if Kids Obtain ‘Harmful Material,’” Longview News-Journal, March 4. https://www.news-journal.com/librarians-worry-they-could-face-criminal-penalty-under-bill-if-kids-obtain-harmful-material/article_4aa16061-7109-572b-a01a-58ccb3c1aa0b.html.
Dawson, James. 2022. “House Bills Criminalizing Librarians, Transition-related Care, Seem DOA in Senate.” Boise State Public Radio, March 9. https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/politics-government/2022-03-09/house-bills-criminalizing-librarians-transition-related-care-seem-doa-in-senate.
Douglass, Courtney L., Ursula Gorham, Renee Franklin Hill, Kelly M. Hoffman, Paul T. Jaeger, Gagan Jindal, and Beth St. Jean. 2017. “Information Access and Information Literacy Under Siege: The Potentially Devastating Impacts of the Proposed 2017 White House Budget on Already-Marginalized Populations in the United States.” First Monday 22, no. 10. https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/8088.
Dragic, Martha J. 1989. “Information Malpractice: Some Thoughts on the Potential Liability of Information Professionals.” Information Technology and Libraries 8: 265–72.
Education Week. 2022. “Nearly 300 Books Removed from Schools under Missouri’s ‘Sexually Explicit’ Materials Law.” Education Week, November 18. http://www.edweek.org.
Eggers, Dave. 2022. “Anatomy of a Book Banning.” Washington Post, June 26.
Ellis, Danika. 2021. “All 850 Books Texas Lawmaker Matt Krause Wants to Ban: An Analysis.” Book Riot, November 5. https://bookriot.com/texas-book-ban-list/.
Freedom to Read in Defense of Democracy. 2022. Indiana Library Federation Board of Directors. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.ilfonline.org/resource/resmgr/advocacy/freedom_read_statement.pdf.
Foerstel, Herbert N. 2004. Refuge of a Scoundrel: The PATRIOT Act in Libraries. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
Gellar, Evelyn. 1984. Forbidden Books in American Public Libraries, 1876–1939: A Study in Cultural Change. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Gowen, Annie. 2022a. “Censorship Battle Finds New Front in the Library.” Washington Post, April 18.
Gowen, Annie. 2022b. “Residents File Lawsuit Against Texas County for Pulling Books, Firing Librarian.” Washington Post, April 26.
Healey, Paul D. 1995. “Chicken Little at the Reference Desk: The Myth of Librarian Liability.” Law Library Journal 87: 515–33.
Healey, Paul D. 2008. Professional Liability Issues for Librarians and Information Professionals. New York: Neal-Schumann.
Higgins, Chris, and Sarah LeBlanc. 2021. “Iowa Senator Calls for Felony Penalty for Distribution of ‘Obscene’ Materials in Schools.” Des Moines Register, November 19. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/education/2021/11/20/book-ban-debate-iowa-senator-calls-for-felony-penalty-obscene-materials-schools/8667630002/.
Horowitz, Joseph. 2022. Dvorak’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music. New York: Norton.
Horrigan, John B. 2016. “Americans’ Attitudes Toward Public Libraries.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, September 9. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/09/09/americans-attitudes-toward-public-libraries/.
House Bill 666. 2022. Idaho 2022 Legislation. https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2022/legislation/h0666/.
Hlywak, Stephanie. 2022. “Large Majorities of Voters Oppose Book Bans and Have Confidence in Libraries.” ALA News and Press Center, March 24. https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2022/03/large-majorities-voters-oppose-book-bans-and-have-confidence-libraries.
Jaeger, Paul T., John Carlo Bertot, and Ursula Gorham. 2013. “Wake Up the Nation: Public Libraries, Policy-Making, and Political Discourse.” Library Quarterly 83, no. 1: 61–72.
Jaeger, Paul T., John Carlo Bertot, and Charles R. McClure. 2003. “The Impact of the USA PATRIOT Act on Collection and Analysis of Personal Information under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.” Government Information Quarterly 20, no. 3: 295–314.
Jaeger, Paul T., John Carlo Bertot, and Charles R. McClure. 2004. “The Effects of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in Public Libraries and its Implications for Research: A Statistical, Policy, and Legal Analysis.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 55, no. 13: 1131–39.
Jaeger, Paul T., and Gary Burnett. 2005. “Information Access and Exchange among Small Worlds in a Democratic Society: The Role of Policy in Redefining Information Behavior in the Post-9/11 United States.” Library Quarterly 75, no. 4: 464–95.
Jaeger, Paul T., Ursula Gorham, Lindsay C. Sarin, and John Carlo Bertot. 2013. “Democracy, Neutrality, and Value Demonstration in the Age of Austerity.” Library Quarterly 83, no. 4: 368–82.
Jaeger, Paul T., and Karen M. Kettnich. 2020. “Libraries and Librarians Onscreen and in Library Quarterly, Part 1, Or, Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood and LQ.” Library Quarterly 90, no. 3: 249–63.
Jaeger, Paul T., Jonathan Lazar, Ursula Gorham, and Natalie G. Taylor. 2023. Foundations of Information Law. Chicago: ALA Editions/Neal-Schuman.
Jaeger, Paul T., Charles R. McClure, John Carlo Bertot, and Lesley A. Langa. 2005. “CIPA: Decisions, Implementation, and Impacts.” Public Libraries 44, no. 2: 105–9.
Jaeger, Paul T., Lindsay C. Sarin. 2016a. “The Politically Engaged Public Library: Admitting and Embracing the Political Nature of Libraries and their Goals.” Public Library Quarterly 35: 325–30.
Jaeger, Paul T., and Lindsay C. Sarin. 2016b. “All Librarianship is Political: Educate Accordingly.” Political Librarian 2, no. 1: 17–27.
Jaeger, Paul T., Lindsay C. Sarin, Ursula Gorham, and John Carlo Bertot. 2013. “Libraries, Policy, and Politics in a Democracy: The Four Historical Epochs.” Library Quarterly 83, no. 2: 166–81.
Jaeger, Paul T., and Natalie G. Taylor. 2019. Foundations of Information Policy. Chicago: ALA Editions/Neal-Schuman.
Jaeger, Paul T. and Natalie Greene Taylor. 2021. “Arsenals of Lifelong Information Literacy: Educating Users to Navigate Political and Current Events Information in World of Ever-Evolving Misinformation.” Library Quarterly 91, no. 1: 19–31.
Jaeger, Paul T., Erin Zerhusen, Ursula Gorham, Renee Franklin Hill, Natalie Greene Taylor, and Lindsay C. Sarin. 2017. “Waking Up to Advocacy in a New Political Reality for Libraries.” Library Quarterly 87, no. 4: 350–68.
KCUR. 2022. “Librarians Recall ‘Surreal’ Police Visits Over Books.” KCUR, September 23. http://www.kcur.org.
Kendi, Ibrahim X. 2019. How to Be an Antiracist. New York: One World.
Knuth, Rebecca. 2003. Libricide: The Regime-Sponsored Destruction of Books and Libraries in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Lincove, D. A. 1994. “Propaganda and the American Public Library from the 1930s to the Eve of World War II.” RQ 33: 510–23.
Lovitt, Ariana. 2022. “Hoosier Educators Fear Restrictive Bills Could Return in 2023 Session.” The Statehouse File, June 2. https://www.thestatehousefile.com/politics/hoosier-educators-fear-restrictive-bills-could-return-in-2023-session/article_2cffc15e-e2bf-11ec-8048-0bb7bccd65b3.html.
Mangrum, Meghan. 2022. “Most Tennesseans Oppose Book Banning, Despite Recent Laws, New Poll Finds.” Nashville Tennessean, May 11. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2022/05/11/poll-most-tennesseans-oppose-banning-books-despite-recent-laws/9719272002/.
Miller v. California. 1973. 413 US 15.
Minow, Mary, and Tomas A. Lipinski. 2003. The Librarian’s Legal Answer Book. Chicago: ALA Editions/Neal Shuman.
Missouri Library Association (2022). “Advocacy.” https://www.molib.org/category/advocacy.
Natason, Hannah. 2022. “Schools Try to Quietly Shelve Book Disputes.” Washington Post, March 23.
National Public Radio. 2022. “Missouri Schools are Taking Books Off of Shelves.” National Public Radio, August 26. http://www.npr.org.
Office of Intellectual Freedom, 2022. “Beyond Book Banning: Efforts to Criminally Charge Librarians.” March 8. http://www.oif.ala.org.
Richardson, Ian. 2022. “Iowans Widely Oppose Criminal Penalties, Lawsuits over ‘Obscene’ Books in Schools, Poll Finds.” Des Moines Register, April 16. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2022/03/16/iowa-poll-book-banning-schools-most-iowans-oppose-lawsuits-criminal-penalties/7038140001/.
Robbins, Louise S. 2000. The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
St. Louis Today. 2022. “School Librarians in Missouri Pull Books.” St. Louis Today, August 12. http://www.stltoday.com.
Stockard, Sam. 2022. “Representative Says He Would Burn Books Deemed Inappropriate by State.” Tennessee Lookout, April 27. https://tennesseelookout.com/2022/04/27/representative-says-he-would-burn-books-deemed-inappropriate-by-state/.
Taylor, Joan Bessman. 2013. “Locating the Library in the Nonlibrary Censorship of the 1950s: Ideological Negotiations in the Professional Record.” In Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America, edited by Christine Pawley and Louise S. Robbins, 168–84. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Taylor, Natalie G., and Paul T. Jaeger. 2022. Foundations of Information Literacy. Chicago: ALA Editions/Neal Shuman.
Wiegand, Wayne A. 1989. An Active Instrument for Propaganda: The American Public Library during World War I. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Wiegand, Wayne A. 2016. “‘Baseless Hysteria?’ ALA’s Opposition to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.” American Libraries, May 31. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2016/05/31/baseless-hysteria-patriot-act/.
Work, Jill A. 2016. “Legislating Librarianship.” Political Librarian 2, no. 2: 10–16.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5860/jifp.v8i1.7869
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
© 2023 OIF