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Censorship in Libraries: A Retrospective Study of Banned and Challenged Books

This study surveyed the ALA’s Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books lists from the past 30 years to see if there was a change in the themes and age groups of the books that are being challenged or banned.


INTRODUCTION
According to the Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) (2019), a branch of the American Library Association (ALA), 607 library materials were targets of censorship in public, school, and university libraries in 2019, a 14% increase from the previous year. The OIF collects records on banned book challenges from libraries, schools, and media sources from across the country. These records were then used to assemble lists of the most challenged books by year and decade to inform the public about censorship issues in libraries and schools (ALA, 2016). This study surveyed the ALA's Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books lists from the past 30 years to see if there was a change in the themes and age groups that are being challenged or banned.

Problem Statement
The purpose of this study is to examine the American Library Association's Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books lists from the years 1990-2019 to see if there has been a shift in the themes and age categories that are most likely to be banned or challenged. R2. What were the numbers per audience category (adult, juvenile, or teen) of the materials banned or challenged in libraries within this timeframe? R3. How have these themes/audience categories shifted over time?

Definitions:
All definitions were retrieved from the Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science (Reitz, 2017). Banned Book: "A book, the publication and/or sale of which has been prohibited or suppressed by ecclesiastical or secular authority because its content is considered objectionable or dangerous, usually for political and/or social reasons." Bibliometrics: "The use of mathematical and statistical methods to study and identify patterns in the usage of materials and services within a library or to analyze the historical development of a specific body of literature, especially its authorship, publication, and use." Censorship: "A book, the publication and/or sale of which has been prohibited or suppressed by ecclesiastical or secular authority because its content is considered objectionable or dangerous, usually for political and/or social reasons." Challenge: "A complaint lodged by a library user acting as an individual or representing a group, concerning the inclusion of a specific item (or items) in a library collection, usually followed by a demand that the material be removed." Content Analysis: "Close analysis of a work or body of communicated information to determine its meaning and account for the effect it has on its audience." Library Bill of Rights: "A formal statement adopted by the American Library Association in 1948 and amended in 1961, 1990, and 1996, affirming the right of libraries in the United States to provide, to all members of the communities they serve, materials expressing diverse points of view and to remain free of censorship."

Delimitations
This study focused solely on the banned or challenged books listed on the ALA's Top 100 banned or challenged books lists for the years 1990-2019. Additionally, the study only used the articles Number of challenges by reasons, initiator, & institution for the years 1990-1999 and 2000-2009 to create the list of reasons why books are challenged. Only information from Amazon, Goodreads, Novelist Plus, and The StoryGraph were used to compare themes and audience groups. Books that appear on more than one list were logged in the study's notes as being on multiple lists. However, for the sake of clarity, only one record for each book or series was made in the notes.

Assumptions
This study assumed that the banned or challenged book lists used from the ALA are portrayed accurately and completely. The graphs from the ALA showing banned/challenged statistics were assumed to be accurate and up to date. The information from Amazon, Goodreads, Novelist Plus, and The StoryGraph were assumed to be accurate.

Importance of Study
Researching the books that have been reported to ALA as challenged in libraries can help give librarians insight into what themes and age groups are at risk for censorship. Knowing this information may empower librarians to fight for the right to intellectual freedom. Additionally, noticing how these targeted trends and age groups have changed over time can help librarians predict future book challenges. These predictions can also be used to prepare a strong case for materials with themes that will potentially be censored. Overall, the importance of this study is to see if there has been a shift in the themes and age groups that are most likely to be banned or challenged in libraries over the last 30 years.

Censorship Studies
As with this study, many studies focusing on censorship have used the ALA resources to lead their methodologies. A study by Akers (2012) compared the number of challenges on classical versus contemporary literature. Akers's research approach included using the ALA's banned resources guide cross-referenced with ALA's classic books list to discover that contemporary books were challenged more. Anderson also used the guide to identify classifications and subject headings of frequently banned and challenged books (2014). Anderson's methodology included cross-referencing these headings with records of large public library catalogs and concluded that Young Adult books were the most challenged. Additionally, Sheffield utilized the guide in her study to search for challenged LGBTQ+ materials in Alabama public library catalogs. She uncovered that 38% of the systems owned less than 50% of the sampled books (Sheffield, 2017).
Although this study focused on content analysis, other methodologies in censorship studies that are important to note used surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Burke examined a survey that asked participants if certain racist materials should be removed from the library (2010, p. 1). Through statistical tests of significance, he discovered that most participants were in favor of keeping the racist materials as they felt it agreed with their first amendment rights (Burke, 2010). Additionally, a study by Isajlovic-Terry and McKechnie (2012), used a focus group of children ages nine to twelve to uncover their thoughts on censorship. The researchers learned that the group thought censorship was mostly negative except in some extreme cases. Another study conducted by Steele examined a case at the Wichita Falls Public Library where a church opposed two children's books for their themes of homosexuality. Steele was able to conduct qualitative interviews with a library administrator and an active library patron who were related to the case. The city council ultimately decided to move the books into the adult collection (Steele, 2021, p. 121).
Additionally, there have been numerous evaluations in the literature regarding self-censorship. Believing selfcensorship was in play, a study by Owen (2007) analyzed the collections of New Jersey school libraries to see if they included banned and challenged Young Adult books. Owens noted a lack of these books in the collections overall. In a questionnaire, Rickman (2010) focused on asking K-12 school librarians if they participated in self-censorship practices. She learned that although the practice was uncommon, self-censorship did occur in some instances. Following this pattern, a study by Garry (2015) used a mixed methods methodology to determine if school librarians across Ohio were participating in self-censorship. The results showed that the librarians mainly selected their collection materials based on the community's values. Also using a mixed-methods approach, Dawkins (2018) conducted a survey asking school librarians if they engaged in self-censorship. The study concluded that the greatest external influences for self-censorship were school administration support and community reaction.

Studies with Similar Methodologies
Although these studies do not focus on censorship, studies that use content analysis in their methodologies have helped lead the research for this censorship study. Simmons (2015) focused her study on the perception of females in popular graphic novels over a six-year period. Her research asked questions such as what percent of graphic novels have one or more female characters, what races/ethnicities and disabilities are represented by female characters, and how these categories shifted over time. She used the Young Adult Library Services Association's Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens from 2007 to 2013 as the study's sample group, analyzing 70 titles in total. After identifying female characters, Simmons used a coding form to mark the character's race/ethnicity and disabilities as well as a tally form to count the totals for the year. The data collected was then entered into an excel spreadsheet for examination (Simmons, 2015). A later study by Wirth (2017) used a similar methodology in her analysis of librarian stereotypes in books for young readers from 2001-2015. Some of these stereotypes included librarian's gender, race, and behaviors. To create her list of sample books, Wirth searched for the terms "librarian" or "library" in the database Novelist as well as two public library catalogs. She limited these results to study's chosen timespan and the age categories zero to eight and nine to twelve years as set by Novelist. Wirth also entered her data into spreadsheets to present her results.
The studies mentioned above have helped shape the methodology of this study. Both Simmons and Wirth focused on content analysis in their research although in different areas than this study. Like Simmons, this study used a tallying method to calculate the results and put them into Excel. Also, just as Wirth used Novelist as a resource to determine book titles in a certain age group, this study also used the upgraded version Novelist Plus to determine book themes and audience recommendations. In addition, both studies looked at a sample of books over a set time and how their subjects shifted. Simmons (2015) asked with each research question "How has this percentage/representation changed over time?" while Wirth (2017) portrays her results in showing how librarian behaviors have shifted over time by checking their behaviors against the publication year of each book. This study asked similar research question to Simmons by asking "How have these themes/audience categories shifted over time?" Additionally, similarly to Wirth's study, this research also focused on the importance of a book's time period. However, while Wirth's study focused on publication years in accordance with a librarian's behaviors in books, this study focused on the decade that a book was challenged to see if different themes/audience categories were being challenged over time. Finally, both Simmons and Wirth used Excel to present their findings. This study also utilized Excel as well to present the discovered research in column tables and bar charts.

Summary
As seen in the above literature, there is no shortage of scholarly studies on the topic of censorship. Most articles found during the research have focused on specific instances, types of censorship, or certain collections. The ALA's resources have helped guide many studies examining library collections with their invaluable research. In addition, studies focused on people's opinions and direct experiences with censorship gave direct insight into the issue at hand. Self-censorship studies also helped librarians be aware of their actions when maintaining their collections. With the guidance of similar content analysis studies, this research took a more all-encompassing viewpoint than previous censorship studies to bring together these individual cases into a bigger picture, which will add to the ever-growing body of scholarly literature on censorship. This bigger picture can help trends and larger issues be seen. Knowing the issues presented in these studies before they become a problem may assist librarians in their plans to prevent censorship.

Information Sources
This content analysis focused on examining the themes and audience categories of the collection of banned and challenged books listed on the ALA's Top 100 banned and challenged books list for the past 30 years found by searching the OIF's website under the banned books week and frequently challenged books tab. The themes and audience categories were collected by searching the resources Amazon, Goodreads, Novelist Plus, and The StoryGraph for the book's title. These resources, except for Novelist Plus, are available for free online and were accessed through the proper websites accordingly. Novelist Plus is available through the Jefferson Parish Public Library. It was accessed through the library's website by using a Jefferson Parish Library card. A more detailed description of the resources used are listed below.
Amazon: One of the world's largest online retailers that sells a large collection of books. It gives book details, publisher information, and reader reviews (Amazon, 2020). Reason, Initiator, and Institution (for years 1990-1999, and 2000: two webpages with three infographics each listing the number of challenges reported to the ALA by reason, initiator, and institution. These statistics were collected by the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom (ALA, 2013a; ALA, 2013b). Banned and Challenged Books (for years 1990-1999, 2000-2019 Goodreads: a website that allows users to record books, write reviews, receive book recommendations, and interact with other readers. It also lists information about books such as publication year, genres, and more (Goodreads, n.d.)

The American Library Association's Top 100 Most
Novelist Plus: a database by EBSCOhost aimed to help librarians and readers with reader's advisory services. It also lists information on book titles such as themes, age recommendations, reading levels, and more (EBSCO Information Services, n.d.).
The StoryGraph: a website that allows users to record books they have read and select new books to read based on their topic and theme preferences. It also allows users to contribute content warnings in their reviews to help others identify potential triggers (The StoryGraph, 2021).

Procedures
Before the research began, an excel spreadsheet, called "Collection Sheet" was created to gather the results. The following categories were listed in row 1 of the spreadsheet: Book Title, Author, Publication Year, Challenge Decade, Age Recommendation, and each reason/theme a book was challenged or banned. The list of challenge reasons from the ALA's Number of challenges by reason, initiator, and institution for years 1990-1999 and 2000-2009 were used as the basis for the themes analyzed in this study. The listed reasons were as follows: Anti-Ethnic, Cultural Sensitivity, Racism, Sexism, Anti-Family, Nudity, Offensive Language, Other Offensive Item, Abortion, Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking, Gambling, Gangs, Violence, Suicide, Homosexuality, Sex Education, Sexually Explicit, Political Viewpoint, Religious Viewpoint, Occult/Satanism, Unsuited for Age Group, Inaccurate, Technical Errors, and Other Objections. These categories were left unchanged except for "Homosexuality" being replaced by "LGBTQ+" for inclusiveness and combining the categories "Other Offensive Item" and "Other Objections" for the sake of clarity.
The book titles and authors were collected from the ALA Top 100 banned and challenged lists and entered into the collection spreadsheet before the research began. Duplicate titles were listed as being on multiple challenge lists, but their themes and audience recommendations were only marked once in the results. Although the ALA's lists give the decade the books were banned/challenged, the resources used to search the titles do not specify the year each theme or age recommendation was banned/challenged. Additionally, assuming the information from the used resources are current and accurate, all banned/ challenged themes and audience recommendations should be included regardless of the year the dispute took place.
At the start of the research, a search for the book's title was conducted in Amazon, Goodreads, Novelist Plus, and the StoryGraph. If the book was located, the publication year, challenge decade, and audience recommendations (juvenile, teen, adult) were taken from the record. If two or more age recommendations were marked for a single book, both recommendations were recorded in a mixed category (juvenile/teen or teen/adult). Themes were analyzed by genre labels, theme tags, content warnings, and user reviews. If a theme corresponded to one of the listed reasons, a "1" was put in the proper book's row and theme's column. If a book had multiple challenge themes, each theme was given a "1." At the end of the research, the results for the themes overall were tallied by using the sum function in excel. The results were recorded under the themes in a row named "Theme Totals." The age recommendations overall were sorted into alphabetical order and tallied by counting. The results were recorded in a separate spreadsheet called "Audience Recommendations." To see if there was a shift of themes and age recommendations over time, the results for each individual decade were also collected in separate sheets, called "Results 1990-1999," "Results 2000-2009," and "Results 2010-2019." The results for themes and audience recommendations for each decade were tallied in the same way as the overall results. The results of the collected data were presented in column tables and bar charts. The selection of books from the ALA top 100 banned and challenged list was chosen as the study's sample because the ALA is a reputable source in the library community as the OIF receives reports of these books from schools, libraries, and media resources from across the country (OIF, 2013, para. 1). Since this study only focuses on the top 100 banned and challenged books from the ALA over the last 30 years, it is not generalizable.

Limitations
This study only scratched a small surface of books that were banned or challenged because many challenges go unreported. Despite this fact, the ALA's banned and challenged book lists are some of the most accurate and complete records available. Additionally, since this study only used the resources Amazon, Goodreads, Novelist Plus, and The StoryGraph as well as the ALA resources on banned and challenged books, there was a chance to miss banned/challenged reasons from other resources. Finally, utilizing user reviews has the potential for user errors but also gives a myriad of unique perspectives from those who have read the book.

R1. From the books listed on the American Library Association's Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books list from 1990-2019, what themes were most frequently banned or challenged in libraries?
The original sample of books included 81 duplicate book titles. With the removal of duplicate book titles, 219 banned and challenged books were analyzed in this study, which can be seen in Table 1 in Appendix A. As seen in Infographic 1 (following page), Violence (43%), Sexually Explicit Content (36%), and Offensive Language (23%) were the most commonly banned or challenged themes of the twenty-three themes analyzed. The themes of violence and sexually explicit content are significantly more common than other themes. The least common themes included Gambling (0%), Anti-Family (0.5%), and Technical Errors (0.5%).

R2. What were the numbers per audience category (adult, juvenile, or teen) of the materials banned or challenged in libraries within this timeframe?
As seen in Figure 1 (below), teens were the most challenged audience category of the materials banned or challenged in libraries within this timeframe with eighty books (37%) being banned/challenged. Additionally, the teen audience category was regularly listed with both the juvenile and adult age groups.
Considering the teen books that were mixed with other audience categories, ninety-nine teen books (45%) were banned or challenged. The adult and juvenile categories were tied at sixty books (27%) each. However, considering these groups mixed with other audience categories, the adult category was challenged more with seventy-one books (32%) challenged compared to juvenile's sixty-eight books (31%).

R3. How have these themes/age categories shifted over time?
Infographics 2, 3, and 4 (next page) show the most frequently banned/challenged book themes over the years 1990-1990, 2000-2009, and 2010-2019 respectively. Following suit with the first research question, violence (21% from 1990s list, 23% from 2000s list, 21% from 2010s list) and sexually explicit content (15% from 1990s list, 16% from 2000s list, 18% from 2010s list) have remained the top two most banned/challenged themes over the past 30 years. However, while offensive language (14%) was consistent with the overall research as being the third most challenged theme from 2000-2009, other offensive items/themes (10%) was the most challenged from 1990-1999 while drugs/alcohol/smoking (11%) was the most challenged from 2010-2019. The least common themes for 1990-1999 were anti-ethnic, anti-family, gambling, and political viewpoint (0%). For 2000-2009, gambling, political viewpoint, and technical errors were the least common themes (0%). The years 2010-2019 had the largest group of least common themes and included anti-family, abortion, gambling, gangs, and technical errors (0%). A side-by-side comparison of each decade's banned and challenged themes were listed in Infographic 5 (next page).  1990-1990, 2000-2009, and 2010- Figure 5 on the following page.  Regarding the second research question, "What were the numbers per audience category (adult, juvenile, or teen) of the materials banned or challenged in libraries within this timeframe?," it was concluded that teens were the most banned/challenged audience category over the 30-year timespan. This conclusion seems to line up with previous studies. As seen in the literature review, Anderson (2014)  Regarding the first half of the third research question, "How have these themes shifted over time?," it does not seem like most of the themes/audience categories observed have shifted significantly, with most staying within ten points of each other over the observed timeframe. However, there was a significant increase in bans/challenges of LGBTQ+ material was seen during this study. Bans and challenges on LGBTQ+ themes more than doubled from the 1990s and 2000s list to the 2010s list. This shift could be due to the rising popularity and publication of LGBTQ+ themed books. Sheffield's (2017) and Steele's (2021) recent studies on LGBTQ+ materials suggest that this theme is gaining popularity. From this study, it is suggested that these themes be taken into careful consideration to not only avoid censorship but tailor the collection to patrons' specific needs.

Infographic 2. Most Frequently Banned/Challenged
Regarding the second half of the third research question, "How have these age categories shifted over time?," it also does not seem like there were any significant shifts over the studied timeframe.
Although the statistics could be seen as sporadic with their fluctuations over the years, the numbers stayed fairly consistent over time. The most significant jump in age categories was from the teen audience category in the 1990s list (14%) to the 2000s list (18%). This number did end up decreasing from the 2000s list to the 2010s list (15%) though. Even with the jumps, as stated above, teens remained the top category challenged over time when considering it mixed with other audience categories. Again, it is recommended to take special care of this audience category when managing this collection.
Considering that both themes and audience categories did not shift significantly over time, it could be inferred that the lists had many similar themes and audience categories because of the large number of duplicate books. As stated above, of the 219 books used in this study, 81 of these books were extra copies. Additionally, the number of titles from the 1990's list that carried over to the 2000's list was 48, meaning almost half of the previously challenged books were carried over into the next decade. Additionally, from 1990-2009, 32 books were carried over to the 2010s list. Although the number of duplicate books did decrease over the years, this observation could indicate that similar banned/challenged themes and audience categories will continue to be the targets of censorship well into the future.

CONCLUSION
Although this study was just one of many studies focusing on censorship and intellectual freedom, there is room for further research into this topic. There was a lack of current information on banned and challenged books. A noteworthy example of this was ALA's statistics for the Number of challenges by reasons, initiator, & institution only goes through 2009 (ALA, 2013b). A more recent study of banned and challenged books at the national level could be beneficial for librarians to see current trends that are being challenged. Additionally, there could be more studies on banned and challenged books at the regional, state, and community levels. Even though knowing the most challenged trends at the national level can be valuable, having more refined studies on banned and challenged books can help librarians discover the needs and values of their communities. Overall, although censorship and challenged books already have valuable studies, there is always room for continuing research on this ever-changing topic.