The American Library Association has issued it's yearly report for National Library Week.
ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.
“The 729 challenges tracked by ALA represent the highest number of attempted book bans since we began compiling these lists 20 years ago,” said ALA President Patricia “Patty” Wong.
The Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2021 are:
A lie. Honestly, its a lie. Not yours, its a lie of the librarians. Challenged by whom? They tracked "tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals." Notice "challenged" or "removed," in fact, the ALA has repeatedly had to admit that virtually none of these outside challenges result in any of the books actually being removed. Whereas, the librarians themselves are constantly removing volumes - of their own choice - to clear space for new books. They systematically and without fanfare remove volumes they determine are offensive - based on their own standards.
How many librarians, members of the ALA, refused to acquire books they disapproved of or even refused donations of those books? How many passed over books that were totally appropriate for a library because they personally disagreed with the content or depictions of people in those books? I guaranty that it was far more than 729 librarians and impacted far more than 1600 books and I guaranty that they didn't count those in their list of "most challenged."
This is nothing but a list of how often "outsiders" disagree with the librarians as to what should be in the library. But librarians have no special insight or validity on this matter when it comes to substance. They do have more time and focus and access to professional resources, but that can be used to cover deliberate bias as easily as to reduce it. As the list demonstrates, they've overwhelmingly selected certain books that offend many communities morals solely on the basis that they serve certain political goals (of the librarians) in overwhelming enough numbers to cause those complaints. They are literal activists that are whining that their activist choices are not respected. They don't tend to donate much to politics, but when they do its usually at a ratio of several hundred to 1 in favor of the Democrats.
In fact, they spent half of the press release you cited just tooting their own horns about how trusted they are by communities and how trusted they should be. But when you use trust to act in ways that those relying on you oppose, it's really an abuse of trust and over time it will cost that trust. As a group they strongly deviate from the opinions of the population at large, and the more they exploit trust to push their own agendas to the exclusion of the agendas of the communities they serve the less they should be trusted.
The list could just as easily been called the list of volumes that we have tried to push on the communities that we work for because of our own political purposes but to which they have objected. Less catchy.
