Assistant Professor Emily Knox has written a chapter in the newly published book, Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America, edited by Christine Pawley and Louise S. Robbins and published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Using the heated 2009 challenge at the West Bend (Wisconsin) Community Memorial Library as a case study, Knox analyzes letters and newspaper accounts to explore the reasons why people choose to challenge library materials. Challengers at West Bend asked the library to remove a link from its website of recommended gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender titles for young adults as well as provided the library with a list of thirty-seven books they wanted to be removed from the collection.
Knox contends that the West Bend challengers perceived the library as an institution with great power and influence over children, and that it had a “duty to protect children and prevent them from coming across explicit material by labeling and classifying it appropriately.” However, she also notes that in so doing, the challengers are putting forward their personal definition of the library’s role in the community and trying to control its operation.
“The West Bend challenge case began just as I was starting the second year of my doctoral program,” said Knox. “That summer, the librarians at West Bend Community Memorial Library gave a talk at the ALA Annual Conference. I knew that I wanted to study challengers but wasn’t quite sure which methods to use, and because it was so accessible, this case ultimately became the basis of a pilot study for my dissertation. The librarians generously posted every single news article on the case on their website, so the data was fairly easy to find.”
This fall, Knox is working on a second article about the West Bend case for Library Trends.
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