A place for all ideas
COLONIE, DELMAR, and GUILDERLAND – As demands to remove books from library shelves surge across the country, local libraries remain largely untouched by these challenges. However, some area libraries have already fielded a few book challenges and are preparing in case the national mood swings into the Capital District.
According to a March 2024 American Library Association report, last year 4,240 individual titles were targeted for removal from libraries, up from 2,571 titles in 2022. This number does not even include unreported challenges. Increasingly, organized advocacy groups like Moms for Liberty, rather than individuals, are filing these complaints.
While collection challenges at local libraries have so far been few, they do occur.
Over the past year, the Bethlehem Public Library saw four challenges, one for a program – drag queen story hour this past summer – and three books. Library Director Geoffrey Kirkpatrick said this was his first program challenge, and he noticed an “uptick” in book challenges this year.
Kirkpatrick said the library takes these challenges very seriously.
“You requested my time and I am going to give you a real answer why I think the resources should stay in the library, if that’s my decision,” he said.
He said a challenge mounted by a non-Bethlehem library taxpayer would be treated less seriously.
“Removing a book out of circulation and away from availability of the public is a big deal,” Kirkpatrick said. “It is not up to the library to decide what information and reading people want. Our job is to appeal to the widest possible segment of the community, and we feel strongly that people have a right to intellectual freedom, which is our core value.”
Under Bethlehem library policy, the director’s decision may be appealed to the library’s board. Kirkpatrick said only two decisions he ever made were appealed. The board upheld his decision to go forward with the drag queen story hour last summer.
Most recently, at its March 11 meeting, the board reviewed Kirkpatrick’s decision to reject a challenge to the book “Breaking Biden” by Alex Marlow. A resident asked to remove the book because “it does not meet community standards.” The individual objected that “intellectual freedom is not advanced by false information published as non-fiction and possibly believed as truth by those who read this divisive book.”
Kirkpatrick rejected that challenge based on the book’s popularity on the New York Times best seller list, circulation volume at the library, and its presence in several public library systems across New York. He concluded that under library policy, “there is insufficient justification to warrant the book’s removal from the collection given the level of community interest demonstrated by the item’s circulation.”
“We’re not saying what’s in the book is true, but this book is largely similar to a bunch of political hatchet job books in section 973.934, and they go in many different directions,” he said, adding that the issue is “community interest.”
“Just because a book is controversial, doesn’t mean it doesn’t go in the collection,” he said.
Before the board voted unanimously to uphold Kirkpatrick’s decision,board member Charmaine Wijeyesinghe asked whether Kirkpatrick had followed the library’s review policy to make his decision to keep the book in circulation. Kirkpatrick said he followed library policy and had also ascertained that his decision was consistent with American Library Association guidance.
Guilderland Public Library’s Interim Director Nathaniel Heyer said his library had received no formal challenges, but did hear two “informal” complaints about books featured in displays in July 2023.
At Colonie’s William K. Sanford Town Library, Director Alyssa Valente said occasionally there had been a review request, but that at least in the last eight years, no requests were elevated through the appeal process to library board level.
These library directors reported that complaints come from “both sides of the aisle.”
Referring to the two informal complaints received, Heyer said one was about picture books that a couple worried would cause their children “to experience confusion about gender.” The other complaint involved “Killing the Rising Sun” by Bill O’Reilly. The book was included in a “Barbenheimer” display featuring books relating to the blockbuster movies “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.”
Heyer said the library’s board rejected those challenges because board members “reviewed our policies and found they were up to date and reflective of best practices in the public library field.”
Valente said that book challenges had been made informally at staff level about “a few different topics,” but could identify no pattern or partisanship in those requests.
All three librarians stressed that their libraries’ respective collections, in accordance with their collection policies, contain wide-ranging perspectives and topics.
“We value intellectual freedom here, which means that we have a huge variety of viewpoints represented in our print and digital collections,” Heyer said.
Kirkpatrick echoed that idea.
“People must be free to make up their own minds and decide what to think and it is not our job to tell people what to think,” he said. “People can be trusted to make up their minds about things, and we provide the resources here for people to explore and make up their own minds. … Anything that attacks the basis of a concept of a library is a dangerous idea I would fight against.”
Valente said the Colonie library will repeat a banned book display it held last October during banned book week.
“The display is for education and historical perspective,” Valente said.
All the directors interviewed for this article said the times require them to think about this topic and ensure their library policies are up to date.
“As an industry we should expect to see more [book challenges] because they have gotten a lot of press nationally,” Kirkpatrick warned, adding that Bethlehem’s library is “prepared to deal with it if we see an increase in these challenges.”
Heyer stressed the importance of staff training on library collection rules “because you never know.”
All three directors also reported no issues of patrons harassing staff about library materials like those seen in other states. Heyer said that when issues come up, the library tries to engage in education.
“Our community members are very receptive to that,” he said.
Heyer shared a quote from librarian Jo Goodwin: “A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.”