The Internet and the Seduction of the American Public Library

Intellectual Freedom Manual,
5th ed., 1996.

The Internet and the Seduction of the American Public Library

Helen Chaffee Biehle
Last updated 15 January 2000
A revision of "The Seduction of the American Public Library II"

Republished from Family Friendly Libraries. The original page is gone. The text is taken from the Internet Archive capture of 15 January 2009. A form of the essay appeared in Eagle Forum's Education Reporter in February 1996: The Seduction of the American Public Library. I have not updated the argument. One legal fact is noted in brackets: the federal obscenity finding on 2 Live Crew's album was reversed in 1992, and the performers were acquitted in 1990.

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For this reason society requires that the education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. Education is a great measurer, forms the moral character of men and morals are the basis of government. Noah Webster, 1758-1843

"We could drop your kids off at the library while you and I finish our shopping," I said to my young friend. She looked shocked. "I never let my kids go to the library alone!"

I did a double-take. I was, after all, a library lover. As a teacher for 25 years, I had gone to the library more often than I'd gone to the grocer. But I had not looked into the youth division since my grown children had used it.

My friend sputtered on. "The librarians say they have special rights, so they can't protect children any more and can't notify parents. And parents don't have any rights. If we complain they call us 'censors'. I dare you to go into the youth section over at County Library and see what's there. Some of the stuff will curl your hair."

The next morning, I opened the local paper and understood instantly what my friend was getting at. There in bold print was the story of Mrs. Cindy Friedman, her 12-year-old son and the county library. She had refused her son permission to buy 2 Live Crew's rap tape, "As Nasty As They Wanna Be," 1 as had the local record store on the legal grounds that he was underage. I remembered that this was the very tape that had been judged by a federal judge to be obscene and whose seller had been arrested, and whose performers had been arrested for an obscene performance in Florida. [Editor's note: In 1990 Judge Jose Gonzalez declared the album obscene. A Broward jury acquitted three performers of obscenity charges that October. In 1992 the Eleventh Circuit reversed the album finding in Luke Records v. Navarro; the Supreme Court declined review.] True to its title, the tape is nasty, indeed, glorifying rape, with men's voices shouting "I'm gonna break you" and "I wanna see you bleed!" over the plaintive voice of a young girl crying "No! No!" All of the lyrics on the tape are unremitting gutter profanity, and all are about violent and casual s[*]x which gleefully celebrates sadistic cruelty toward women.2 Imagine Mrs. Friedman's astonishment when she discovered that her son, on an innocent trip to the library, had not only found the offending tape in the library's collection, but had been allowed to check it out with his library card with no questions asked.

According to the Sun Messenger account3, Mrs. Friedman, with the perfectly normal reactions of a responsible parent, fell into the library's ideological trap. "If he has to be 18 to buy the tape, he should have to be 18 to take it out of the library," she said. (Zap!) "The Library Bill of Rights forbids discrimination on the basis of age," said the library head.

"The library should have a system of warning parents what kids are taking out," said Mrs. Friedman. (Zap!) "That would be CENSORSHIP. Besides, librarians cannot act in loco parentis." (Excuse me. Who said so? They had formerly been doing this, just as teachers had, for many, many years.)

What was going on here? Was there to be no apology to Mrs. Friedman for what John Leo calls the cultural equivalent of poison gas?4 I reached for the telephone. "I'd like to speak to the director of the Cuyahoga County Library system." (This is a system with 28 libraries and 440,000 patrons.) When the director answered, I questioned her current policy on children, and asked for some adult supervision in the purchasing department. She was completely calm and utterly un-apologetic. Much later, I learned that her calm came from following the detailed instructions given by the library's Intellectual Freedom Manual for handling irate taxpayers like me.5

The Library Director's first defense was diversity. "Neither you nor I might approve of  'As Nasty As They Wanna Be', she said, but we serve a very diverse population.⁶ I assumed that this was a code word for minority groups. But, not long afterward, my trust in her excuse about diversity began to evaporate as I read news accounts about the African-American parents demonstration against Rap recording and their effect on their kids. And later, the whole country began seeing news reports about Rap performers who had been arrested and charged with rape or murder.⁷

The library head's second line of defense was philosophic. "Not to buy the tape would be making a moral judgment," she said. "We can't do that." (Not make a moral judgment? Can we not judge that cruelty is wrong? Can we not agree that cruelty packaged as entertainment and given to children is morally indefensible?) I couldn't resist recommending a book to the library head: British philosopher Mary Midgley's Can't We Make Moral Judgements8 (sic). (That was in 1991. Who would have guessed that five years later a commercial retailer, WalMart, would put libraries to shame by making moral judgments? It would refuse to sell recordings with obscene lyrics and album covers. The record companies would respond by offering cleaned-up performance version. Bottom line: Parents could trust Wal-Mart.)9

The library head's third defense was the Library Bill of Rights, "You need to read this," she said. "It states clearly that we can't keep materials from children on the basis of age. You can find a copy of it in the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual."¹⁰ I hung up the receiver and drove like a demon to the nearest library. I was determined to find out what had caused this doleful change in a formerly beloved institution. Sure enough, buried in the chapters of that ALA paperback manual is the entire history of who changed our libraries, how and when.¹¹

The library with which most Americans over the age of thirty grew up was the creation of people like William Fletcher and Arthur Bostwick, who, writing at the turn of the century, encouraged librarians to accept responsibility for the library's moral influence in the community.12 And this is the heart of the change: today the ALA resoundingly rejects this responsibility as naive and

old-fashioned. Its official statements ridicule and ostracize librarians who do not comply with this rejection and library schools teach the new doctrine. The acceptance of moral responsibility for children in the library is now called "unprofessional;" making a responsible moral judgment about materials purchased for the library is called "elitist," and the librarian who is brave enough to do either is labeled a "censor."13

Look first at the philosophic change: For its entire history, until the 1960's, the philosophy which undergirded the American public library was the same as that which informed the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, and made the free speech clause possible. James Madison's thinking sprang from the English Enlightenment with its emphasis on human reason. However, the dignity of the individual and the attribution to him/her of rights was based on a theistic idea which Madison took for granted: that persons were created by God, who was the source of human rights. Madison's ideals were influenced by the late l7th century British thinker, John Locke, who took a tolerant view of religion and whose philosophic writings balanced freedom with responsibility.14

Libraries, before the 1960's, had great local autonomy. Librarians were free to make moral judgments and were thus free to acquire the best available materials for their library collections. There were separate collections for children and adults, and, until the 1960's, the American library shared common values with its public.

Today, the ALA's handsome brochures invariably quote the First Amendment and picture the Founding Fathers, as though current ALA policies are based on their philosophies and would meet with their approval! In fact, if today's library policies owe anything to the Enlightenment, it is to the French version and its hostility to organized religion.15 The ideas of 19th century British thinker, John Stuart Mill, with his emphasis on self-expression and doubts about the wisdom of helping others, can be seen in library policies based solely on the library's rights. Yet even Mill believed that children needed protection against themselves and that freedom should stop short of harm to others.16

The two men whose philosophies are most clearly evident in todays library policies are Friedrich Nietsche and Jean Paul Sartre. The 19th century nihilist Nietsche, preached that there is no common good to which we are all responsible.17 (This neatly removes libraries from responsibility to their communities.) And, the 20th century French philosopher, Sartre, taught that all values are relative. (Thus, our library director could conveniently say, "We can't make moral judgments.") At the same time, Sartre held absolute freedom to be the highest "good," rejecting all authority and all rules governing human conduct.18 (Based on this, the ALA can take the position that libraries should not block hard-core p[*]ornography, even from children, at its Internet sites.)

The moral tone of today's public library is a casualty of the culture wars which began in the 1960's. During the social turmoil of that period, Judith Krug, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and the Library School of the University of Chicago, was in 1967, appointed director of the ALA's new Office of Intellectual Freedom, a position which she still. holds today.19 A true child of the Sixties, Ms. Krug appears to have rejected the library's trusted role as the repository of civilization, seeing it instead as an engine of social change.20 She has worked tirelessly to make it so, forging, for example, strong links with the American Civil Liberties Union, on whose board she served for three years while carrying on her job as head of the OIF. She has been very successful in promulgating the ACLU's views within the country's libraries, and the ACLU has honored her with awards.21

The policies of the ACLU are based on a philosophical nihilism which sees the freedom of the autonomous self as the highest good, and all censorship as evil. This has not changed since its founding by Roger Baldwin at the turn of the century. According to George Grant's 1989 study, the ACLU believes that children should have the same rights as adults, that p[*]rnography should be protected by the Constitution, and that the tiniest limitation of any expression will lead automatically to totalitarian repression.22 The current president, Nadine Strossen, is the author of Defending P[*]rnography: Free Speech, S[*]x and the Fight for Women's Rights.23

Judith Krug is also director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, which she herself describes as an activist group.24 Like the ACLU, its attorneys stand ready to sue in library censorship cases. Its attitude toward the enforcement of obscenity laws has done an about-face under Ms. Krug's tutelage. In the 1950's, a committee of the ALA and Book Publishers Council had published a list of seven propositions on the freedom to read. No. 4 said "present laws dealing with obscenity should be strictly enforced."25 But in 1972, after the Supreme Court rulings and after the OIF came on board at ALA, a new committee revised the list and threw out the part about obscenity laws.26 FTR's board of trustees included for a time in the early 1990's, the film critic for Penthouse Magazine, whose book, Sense & Censorship: Vanity of Bonfires was published by the FTR and argues that p[*]rnography is harmless and should be protected by the First Amendment.27

It is apparently from these groups that the ALA has absorbed the philosophy that children do not need protection from socially destructive materials. Consistent with this view, in 1967, Ms. Krug's right-hand man, Ervin Gaines, suggested in a national ALA meeting that the word "age" be added to the Library Bill of Rights, so that any child of any age could access adult material in libraries.28 By 1972, the ALA council had approved Article 5 "A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background or views."29

This one word has led to hundreds of conflicts between communities (especially parents) and their libraries. But instead of deleting the word "age" from Article 5, the ALA has developed strategies for doing battle with the public.

The first strategy was to "interpret" Article 5 for libraries and to pressure them into obeying the will of ALA headquarters. During the anti-draft riots of the 1960's, Congress had lowered the voting age to 18. College students had pressed for more personal and s[*]xual rights, denying that colleges any longer had the right to act in loco parentis (in place of the parent). The ALA then moved to deny that librarians, who had been acting in loco parentis for children in the library for quite 100 years, any longer had that right In the case of the colleges, students were rejecting established authority. But in the library's case, we are confronted with the strange spectacle of established authority rejecting its own responsibility to children and their parents.

Article 5 of the Library Bill of Rights does not actually mention in loco parentis, but the Intellectual Freedom Manual lays down the new rules.30 Many libraries, used to a tradition of local control, continued separate card files for children and continued to act as authority figures responsible to the community. In response, the Office of Intellectual Freedom drafted an "Interpretation of Free Access to Minors" and sent it to librarians all across the country. (It was this statement that cut off the partnership between parents and librarians and caused what parents see as a betrayal of their trust.)

The Statement labels as "unprofessional," any librarians who continue to notify or act for the parents. Librarians who do not follow the ALA line are accused of being "in violation of Article 5 of the Library Bill of Rights."31 I asked Ms. Krug if librarians were legally bound to follow the Statement of Interpretation. "no," she said. "It's a philosophical statement. But 55,000 librarians adhere to it."32

The OIF's second strategy for social change was the preaching of a new attitude toward censorship, a strategy which has been wildly successful. According to Ms. Krug and James Harvey, prior to the 1930's, there were few library articles about intellectual freedom and many that did appear "supported censorship and only quibbled over the degree and nature of it.33

Admittedly, it was the Carnegie Libraries which first misdefined the word "censorship" in 1924. They had a "system under which only books approved in a certain manner may be placed on Carnegie Library shelves and that amounts to censorship and it is so intended."35 In the 1970's, the ALA picked up this expanded definition and ran with it, until today, censorship can even mean the use of discernment in the purchase of materials for the library. In the ALA's lexicon, the word is absolute. "There is no good censorship" the ALA's cut-in-stone motto.36

The battle against censorship as defined by the ALA continues through the bi-monthly publication of the "Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom,"37 edited by Ms. Krug. It always lists, by state, all challenges to public and school libraries. We have already noted the importance of the ALA Intellectual Freedom Manual, edited by Ms. Krug and updated every couple of years. The 1996 edition expands the section covering censorship to 59 pages entitled "Before the Censor Comes." It contains Gordon Conable's troubling chapter in which he targets every single person in the community as a potential "censor." His list includes "Parents, either singly or in groups... protected minority groups ... patriotic groups ... emotionally unstable individuals."38 No one escapes suspicion - not even library trustees or staff. Mr. Conable's chapter helps us to see how parents like Mrs. Friedman, who complain about destructive materials being given to their children in the library, are caught in the censorship net, and why they are stonewalled by library officials. For although Mr. Conable's 1996 revision admits that these parents are exercising their free-speech rights, he adds that when librarians or their governing bodies respond by removing or restricting material, they are the censors.39 With advice like this from the top of the ALA, it is no wonder librarians and library boards are afraid to respond affirmatively to parents' concerns.

In spite of Mr. Conable's admission of parents' rights, the campaign against public "censors" continues unabated. Part of the strategy is an annual Banned Books Week. The OIF distributes hundreds of posters and resource kits;"40 and People For The American Way publishes their annual list of "Banned Books." The list was recently exposed as being made up largely of material which has been challenged (usually by parents) but almost never banned. In 1997, in fact, not a single book was banned in the entire country. (One p[*]rnographic audiotape, given to a child in Ohio, was.)41 Clearly, the OIF's imagined First Amendment crisis does not exist. Since the expose, the Banned Books list has added the word "challenged," but the headline, "Banned" remains the same, and challengers are tainted by association. In other strategies, the "Intellectual Freedom Newsletter" calls for "Freedom fighters" to report library challenges to the OIF office, and the Intellectual Freedom Roundtable presents annual awards to groups and individuals who have successfully fought "censorship" in their libraries.42

Yet the ALA must surely know that parental complaints about libraries have multiplied into a national chorus. Indeed, a grass-roots organization, Family Friendly Libraries, formed in 1995 to help parents and librarians, especially those troubled by policies imposed by the ALA bureaucracy, to work together.42b

Individual parents as a last resort, frequently call for warning labels on books and audio and videotapes, a system which has worked well in the private sector. The ALA refuses, pointing to their 45-year resistance, long pre-dating Ms. Krug's arrival at ALA., The ALA's 1951 Statement on Labeling, with its denial of any communist ties, was made in response to political pressures.43 The 1981 Statement deletes the sentence on communism, but repeats the 1951 assertion that "Labeling is an attempt to prejudice the reader and as such is the censor's tool."44 Today, with children's access absolute and acquisition standards gone, libraries are pressured by parents to label morally offensive works, especially for children. The ALA is adamantly opposed. I have heard Mr. Conable declare that labeling takes away our First Amendment rights.45

"Before The Censor Comes" contains, besides Mr. Conable's chapter, one by Carol Nielsen, in which she discusses "Pressure Groups" and their leaders. Ironically, only Christian groups are listed, because, she says, she can find no "liberal" or "left-wing" group with as much "financial backing, huge membership ... political organization ... and an agenda that includes the censorship of information."46 In reality, there are many left-wing groups who fit this profile: the ACLU, People for the American Way, and the Gay Liberation Caucus, for example. All are generously funded and politically organized; except for GLC, have large memberships, and all attempt to censor information with which they disagree. The ACLU, for example, is devoted to censoring religious information out of the public square entirely.47 (To Ms. Nielsen's credit, she admits that religious groups have a First Amendment right to express their opinions.48)

It is a fact that most of the material about which parents complain would never have been found in the library before the 1970's. And, had the Internet been in existence, the ALA would have found the idea of access to p[*]rnography in the library to be simply out of the question. The enormous change in attitudes toward the selection of materials for the library is vividly illustrated in the ALA's own literature. For example, Arthur Bostwick, President of ALA in 1908, said in his inauguration speech:

"Books that distinctly commend what is wrong, that teach how to sin and how pleasant sin is ... are increasingly popular, tempting ... the publishers to produce, the bookseller to exploit ... Thank heaven they do not tempt the librarian."49

In his 1929 book, The American Public Library, he says "Nobody can buy every title that is published, and we should discriminate by picking out what is best ..."50

In 1956 the Division of Public Libraries of the ALA Coordinating Committee published guidelines for materials selection which were taught by library schools. At first glance, the following guideline looks like a statement by today's ALA:

"The collection must contain various opinions which apply to ... controversial questions... including unpopular and unorthodox positions... Selection must resist efforts of groups to deny access to materials in the name of political, morals or religious beliefs."51

But then, we remember the context. Library collections were still separate for children and adults. The Supreme Court had not yet let down the bars against indecent material. Libraries still. had great freedom from the heavy hand of the ALA. In that context, the statement fits comfortably with the Committee's other important guidelines for materials selection:

"The library continually seeks the best ... Materials acquired should meet high standards of quality in content, expression and format ... Factual accuracy ... significance of subject, sincerity and responsibility of opinion must be considered."52

(Madonna or 2 Live Crew in the library? Not under these guidelines!) Now fast-forward to 1996 and Mr. Conable, speaking for the ALA in the Intellectual Freedom Manual. He says librarians should not "narrowly limit collection scope on the basis of purely subjective factors such as "quality" or "popularity," which require outside endorsement in the form of reviews or recommended lists ... or which are written in a way to justify the exclusion of controversial material ..." "If material remains unordered, un-catalogued or un-circulated, ... censorship has occurred "53 (Emphasis added.) Here, the use of any kind of responsible judgment is equated with censorship, thus making it impossible for a librarian to build excellence into a collection.

It was almost inevitable that standards of quality would decline after the, 1973 Supreme Court's ruling in Miller v. California brought to the market literary works which would not previously have been allowed in the U.S. Today, the Intellectual Freedom Manual advises librarians never to remove material that is challenged because it is obscene, until ordered to do so by a court of law.54 This presupposes a legal battle, and libraries have much greater access to free legal assistance (ACLU and FTR) than do most private citizens.

Tax-supported libraries allow children access today to material so destructive that before the Internet, Ted Bundy could only get it from adult bookstores off-limits to children.55 In libraries, ironically, nothing is off-limits to children. Yet libraries are currently immune to obscenity and "harm to minors" laws. The seriousness of this situation is brought home by the fact that were a librarian to provide some of the material in question to a child on the street outside the library, that adult could be subject to arrest.

In their 1997 ruling, the Supreme Court "enjoins the government from enforcing ... prohibitions (which) relate to 'indecent communications,' but expressly preserves the government's right to investigate and prosecute obscenity or child p[*]rnography activities prohibited..." by the Federal Communications Decency Act."56 This confusing ruling in a case brought by the ACLU (with the ALA) discouraged parents like those in Medina, Ohio who had spent hundreds of hours fighting to block online p[*]rnography in their library.57 And it emboldened predators.

Parents are not the only ones concerned about the Court's decision. Groups who supported the Communications Decency Act, such as the National Law Center and Enough is Enough (a women's anti-p[*]rnography group) met with opponents of the Act, such as the ALA and Microsoft Corporation, for serious discussions in December, 1997. The conference, called Online Summit: Focus on Children," was held in Washington, D.C. In the face of growing concerns, the ALA's hard-line zealotry looks increasingly obstructionist. The fact is, new, very sophisticated, yet modestly priced, software is available which blocks p[*]rnography only. Some is already in use in responsible libraries in Boston and Orlando and in Loudoun County, Virginia."59 Yet in June, 1997 Judith Krug, speaking for the ALA, stubbornly insisted, "Blocking material leads to censorship. That goes for p[*]rnography and bestiality, too. If you don't like it, don't look at it."60

This is the ALA, behaving as if p[*]rnography were protected by the Constitution. (This same confusion is rampant in Hollywood. The movie, "The People vs. Larry Flynt " portrays him as a First Amendment hero, but never shows the pages of his unsavory "Hustler" magazine which depicts women in various stages of horrible mutilation.)

The environment in which we live is polluted by the link between p[*]rnography and rape or pedophilia. The woman or child stalked by a rapist may have followed Ms. Krug's advice and never have looked on p[*]rnography, but the evidence is overwhelming that the rapist has. In a less physical way, p[*]rnography's cruelty infects the aesthetic and moral realm for all. of us, Judge Bork has pointed out in a telling chapter on censorship in Slouching Towards Gomorrah"61

The problems are complex, as are the solutions, none of which will satisfy everyone. But the tide is turning. Today, not every left-liberal thinker agrees with the ALA, the ACLU and their extreme position on censorship. Astonishingly, one important skeptic was the late Ervin Gaines, Ms. Krug's former lieutenant, who in 1967, had made the resolution which resulted in children's unlimited access to libraries' adult materials. By 1985, as Director of the Cleveland Public Library, he wrote a letter to Ms. Krug in which he refused to allow her elaborate censorship display to be shown at CPL:

"You know that I have not been enchanted with ALA's endless repetition of censorship themes for the last quarter of a century, and I anticipate nothing instructive in what you have assembled."

Norman Podhoretz tells us that Morris Ernst was one of the earliest and most important First Amendment spokesmen to have second thoughts. It was he who had argued before the Supreme Court the case which legitimized James Joyce's Ulysses and its use of a four-letter word. As early as 1970, he declared sadly,

"I deeply resent the idea that ... the most tawdry magazine ... should be able to compete in the marketplace with no constraints."

He added that he was "repelled by the present display of s[*]x and sadism on the streets and sodomy on the stage..."63 Norman Podhoretz, former Editor-At-Large of "Commentary" magazine, was well-known for writing and speaking against censorship. But, in a brilliant April, 1997 article for the magazine he states:

"Little did I ever expect that I would wind up on the edge of endorsing the censorship of p[*]rnography, and never in my wildest conservative dreams did I entertain the thought that we might have been better off if a masterpiece like Lolita had never been published ... there is no escape from the guilt everyone surely feels over doing so little in general to ,protect the children of this country from the poisons in the air ... Should we not be willing to take measures that would offer protection against the pollution of the moral and cultural environment? ... If we cannot have Lolita without Larry Flynt or for that matter the Marquis de Sade, perhaps we should refuse the whole package deal."64

Everyone accepts, for the good of the community, mild limits on freedom in other areas we must have a license to drive; we stop at red lights; we do not even fish without a license. Reasonable limits to intellectual freedom for the good of the community should frighten no one, for these limits were once observed in this country with a correspondingly better quality of life, including the safety of children.

Our quarrel with ALA is over their belief in Sartre's absolute freedom of the individual. This kind of freedom rejects responsibility and is blind to consequences. On the other hand, those., who reject the ALA philosophy believe in the "freedom to do as one ought." This classic definition of freedom involves responsibility and weighs consequences to the community, especially its children. Only this kind of freedom is appropriate in a truly civilized society.

End notes:

1. Benedictis, A. (July 25, 1991) 'Bad Rap', in "The Sun Messenger". Cleveland,

2. Lacaya, R. (June 25,1990) 'The Rap Against a Rap Group', "Time" Magazine, New York, p. 18.

3. 2 Live Crew. (1988) "As Nasty As They Warm Be", Luke, (Atlantic Dist.)

4. Leo, J. (March 27,1996) 'The Leading Cultural Polluter', in "U.S. News and World Report" New York. p.

5. Office for Intellectual Freedom (1989) 'Procedures for Handling Complaints' in Intellectual Freedom Manual, American Library Association, Chicago.

6. Telephone interview with Claudia Muller, Executive Director of Cuyahoga County Public Libraries, Parma, Ohio, September 1991.

7. Sims, C. (November 28, 1993) 'Gangster Rappers: The Lives, the-Lyrics', "New York Times".

8. Midgley, M. (1991) Can 't We Make Moral Judgements? (sic) St. Martin's Press, New York.

9. Thomas C. (November 15,1996) 'Wal-Mart Censors the Cultural Dictators', in "Plain Dealer", Cleveland.

10. OIF (1992) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 4th edition, ALA, Chicago, p. 3.

11. ALA governance: One delegate from each state, one from each library division and 100 delegates at-large totals 176 members, representing 55,000 librarians. Quorum is 75; 39 votes, a majority.

12. Pletcher, W. (1894) Public Libraries in America, Roberts Bros., and Bostwick, A. PhD, (1929) The American Public Library, D. Appleton and Co., New York.

13. Office for Intellectual Freedom, (1989,1992,1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual. Also separate, one-sheet, double-aided 'Statements of Interpretation' distributed to all librarians.

14. John Locke on religion and society, in Edwards, D. (1983) Christian England Vol.II, Fant Paperback Books, London, pp. 393-397.

15. Clark, K. (1970) Civilisation (sic), Harper and Row, New York, p. 262.

16. Midgley, M. (1991) Cant We Make Moral Judgements?, St. Martin's Press, New York, pp. 35,38.

17. Ibid. p. 92.

18. Ibid. p. 98.

19. Fact sheet, 'Judith Krug' (n. d.). Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association, Chicago.

20. Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual , American Library Association, Chicago, p. xx.

21. Fact sheet, 'Judith Krug' (n.d.) Office of Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association, Chicago.

22. Grant, G. (1989) Trial and Error : the American Civil Liberties Union and Its Impact On Your Family, Wolgemuth and Hyatt, Brentwood, TN pp. 45, 81, 92-93.

23. Strossen, N.,(1995) Defending P[*]rnography: Free Speech, S[*]x and the Fight for Women's Rights, Scribner's, New York.

24. Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, p. xxv.

25. Ibid (1996)p. 138.

26. Ibid (1996) pp. 141-142,146.

27. Pally, M. (1991) Sense and Censorship :Vanity of the Bonfires, Freedom to Read Foundation, Chicago.

28. Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, p. 87.

29. Ibid, p.91.

30. Ibid, P. 91.

31. Office for Intellectual Freedom, (adopted 1972; amended 1981, 1991 'Free Access to Libraries for Minors'.

32. Telephone interview by the author with Judith Krug, Fall, 1991 or Spring, 1992.

33. Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, p.xxi.

34. Ibid, p. 9.

35. Ibid, p xxi.

36. Office for Intellectual Freedom (1991) Statement of Interpretation: 'The Universal Right to Free Expression'. ALA, Chicago. One page, double-sided.

37. Krug, J., Editor. Bi-monthly "Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom", Intellectual Freedom Committee, ALA, Chicago.

38. Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, pp. 263-267.

39. Ibid, p.266.

40. Ibid, p. 337.

41. Minnery, T. (November, 1997) 'No Banned Books? Make Some Up!', in "Citizen", Colorado Springs, P.22.

42. Office for Intellectual Freedom (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th Edition, American Library Association, p. xxxii.

43. Ibid, p. 115.

44. Ibid. p. 117.

45. Conable, G., (May, 1992) Speech at Cuyahoga County Library headquarters, Parma, Ohio.

46. Office for Intellectual Freedom, (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, P. 245.

47. ACLU Policy Guide, cited by Grant, G. (1989) The American Civil Liberties Union and Its Impact On Your Family, Wolgemuth and Hyatt, Brentwood, TN, pp.

48. Office for Intellectual Freedom, (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, American Library Association, Chicago, p. 253.

49. Ibid, p. xxii.

50. Bostwick, A. (1929) The American Public Library, D. Appleton and Co., New York, p. 154.

51. Coordinating Committee on Library Standards (1956) Public Library Service to America, American Library Association, (manuscript copy, courtesy University of Maryland Library) P.51.

52. Ibid, p.49.

53. Office of Intellectual Freedom, (1996) Intellectual Freedom Manual, 5th edition, American Library Association, Chicago, p.267.

54. Ibid, p. 138.

55. Jones, E. M. (July/August, 1997) 'What's the Difference Between a Public Library and an X-Rated Book Store?' In "Culture Wars", South Bend, IN, p. 13.

56. #368-3308 Reno et al. v. ACLU et al. (including ALA).

57. Interviews with Julie Wojtala and Michelle Yezerski, officers of Citizens for the Protection of Children Medina, OH, April, 1997.

58. Harmon, A. (December 1, 1997) 'Ideological Foes Meet on Web Decency' in "New York Times" p. C 1.

59. Weinberg, S. ( October, 1997) 'One Public Library That Is Not an Adult Book Store', in "Culture Wars" pp. 18- 19.

60. Ibid, p. 17.

61. Bork. R.H. (1996) Slouching Towards Gomorrah. HarperCollins, New York pp. 140-153.

62. Letter from Dr. Ervin Gaines to Judith Krug, (1985) Ervin Gaines Archives, Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio.

63. Podhoretz, N. (April, 1997) 'Lolita, My Mother-in-Law, the Marquis de Sade. and Larry Flynt', in "Commentary", p. 33.

64. Ibid, p. 35.

Source: Family Friendly Libraries, last updated 15 January 2000, archived 15 January 2009.

Note: Words with letters elided like s[*]x are needed to defy the censors, ironically, and are the only changes to the original.

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Legal Defense for SLAPP Suits Against Free Speech

A New Way ALA Misleads Parents: The National Trainer Who Wrote as the Local Director

Peter Bromberg:
EveryLibrary Board of Directors
Director of the SCLSNJ

This is another method by which the American Library Association (ALA) and its political partner EveryLibrary mislead parents and elected officials. It is not a false job title. It is a national advocacy officer, trained to switch language by audience, writing as if he were only the county library director. Further, he uses his own technique to manipulate the public in an effort to excuse local librarians for promoting Chicago ALA's own political goals that harm children.

On Sept. 1, 2026, New Jersey Hills published an opinion column by Peter Bromberg, identified only as director of the Somerset County Library System of New Jersey (SCLSNJ). The piece is titled “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America.” It quotes Ronald Reagan and James Madison. It calls libraries “strong supporters of parents and families.” It says libraries “curate age-appropriate zones and displays.” It tells readers that if a title offends, they are “free to reach for something else.”¹

That is the local byline. It is not the whole record.

Bromberg became SCLSNJ director on Aug. 1, 2025. For the four years immediately before that he was Associate Director of EveryLibrary, the national 501(c)(4) that organizes against book challenges and trains library boards in political messaging. On May 30, 2025, announcing the Somerset job, he wrote that he looked forward to “continued service on the EveryLibrary Board of Directors.” EveryLibrary’s board page still lists him. His own résumé lists the associate-director post as May 2021–June 2025 and the board seat as 2014–present. When SCLSNJ hired him, MyCentralJersey reported the EveryLibrary job. The system’s official staff bio does not. Neither did the column.²

EveryLibrary is not a book club. It is the national political-action shop for libraries. Its companion 501(c)(3), the EveryLibrary Institute, publishes training for the same fight. Bromberg was the named presenter for the Institute’s webinar “Advocacy in a Polarized World,” that teaches Arnold Kling’s Three Languages of Politics and how to “intentionally use language” across the spectrum. In 2021 he gave the Utah Library Association the talk “Advocating Effectively Across the Political Spectrum.” In September 2023 Niche Academy listed him, then still with EveryLibrary, on a webinar that walked the same framework and a “27-9-3” message formula: 27 words, 9 seconds, three points, mapped to the audience.³

The worksheet for that method is not a rumor. A 2023 EveryLibrary Institute handout, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook, includes a page headed “The Three Languages of Politics,” filed under “Intellectual Freedom and Book Challenges.” The page tells staff that progressives, libertarians, and conservatives each have a default moral language, then gives the assignment:

• Progressives: frame the library in “equity, social justice, a leveling of the playing field… and equal treatment for all.”
• Libertarians: frame it in “liberty, self-determination, and support for those that are motivated to help themselves.”
• Conservatives: frame it in “preservation of tradition, local community history, help with assimilating new arrivals, and traditional American values.”⁴

A related EveryLibrary presentation the same spring supplied fill-in sentences for the conservative ear: the Constitution, the First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, the Founding Fathers, and “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution.” Another line: “We should never usurp the role of parents.”⁵

Read the Somerset column against that page. Bromberg did not write in the progressive dialect. He wrote in the other two.

• “Freedom. Liberty. Justice. For all.”
• “Self-determination, intellectual freedom, and liberty for all.”
• “Forge our own destinies without government overreach.”
• USA250. Reagan. Carnegie. Roosevelt. Madison.
• America versus “authoritarian regimes where state officials strictly dictate what citizens read, think, and believe.”
• “Strong supporters of parents and families.”
• “The parent’s role to set and enforce boundaries.”
• “Family values.”
• If a book offends, “we are free to reach for something else.”

That is the conservative and libertarian tip list, aimed at a Somerset Hills paper, in the same week the same paper group was covering a Pride-program petition and a local official urging towns to question library programs.⁶

The column never quotes the rule the script is built to protect.

Article V of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights says a person’s right to use a library “should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” ALA’s official interpretation, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors,” is plainer: the right to use a library means “free access to all services, materials, and facilities and unrestricted use of everything the library offers.” Restrictions based solely on age, apparent maturity, educational level, or legal status “violate Article V.” ALA “opposes any efforts to restrict access based on age.”⁷

A children’s room is furniture. Under that interpretation it is not a lock. “Age-appropriate zones and displays” is what the playbook would call conservative language. “Unrestricted use of everything the library offers” is the written professional rule. Only one of those sentences appeared in the newspaper.

Parents and elected officials are the intended audience for the first sentence. They are not told about the second. They are also not told that the author spent four years as the national group’s associate director, remains on its board, and taught librarians how to switch dialects by audience so the access policy still wins.

Using different words for different listeners is ordinary rhetoric. Hospitals do it. Campaigns do it. The problem is the combination: a national advocacy officer, writing as a local director, in a live materials fight, in the dialect his shop published for conservatives, while leaving the shop and the age rule off the page.

The authorities the column skipped are the ones that actually speak to minors. In United States v. American Library Association (2003), Justice Kennedy wrote that “the interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree.” President Eisenhower, at Dartmouth in 1953, told students not to join the book burners, then added the clause library essays usually drop and ALA's own 2025 movie "The Librarians" actually dropped: use the library “as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.”⁸

Madison on knowledge is not an answer to age. The playbook does not ask directors to answer age. It asks them to talk liberty and family until the question of age goes away.

Somerset County’s Library Commission sets policy for SCLSNJ. It can ask its director, in public, three questions that do not require a theory of anyone’s soul:

1. Does SCLSNJ adopt ALA’s Library Bill of Rights and the Minors interpretation as collection policy?
2. If a parent asks that a child’s card not check out adult or s[*]xually explicit titles, will the system honor that limit?
3. Why did a column on “liberty for all,” published during a local program fight, omit the author’s EveryLibrary board seat and the Institute’s published conservative-language tips?

Those are records questions. The playbook page, the résumé, the LinkedIn post, and the byline are already public. The only thing missing from the newspaper was the second half of the sentence.

Parents who only read the byline were not given the shop, the script, or the age rule. That omission is the method. 

So this is a new way ALA misleads parents and politicians: 1) the national trainer who wrote as the local director to 2) attempt to manipulate local people into affirming Chicago ALA’s anything-goes for children policies, 3) using the very means by which he trains people to manipulate others.

The Three Languages of Politics

---

Notes:

1. Peter Bromberg, “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America,” New Jersey Hills / Bernardsville News, Sept. 1, 2026, https://www.newjerseyhills.com/bernardsville_news/opinion/columns/liberty-for-all-public-libraries-and-the-promise-of-america/article_0cc5e4e4-ff48-44d3-a095-fbf5befe4dc5.html.

2. Somerset County Library System of New Jersey, “Peter J. Bromberg,” staff biography, https://sclsnj.org/about-us/staff/peter-bromberg; Peter Bromberg, résumé, https://peterbromberg.com/resume/; Peter Bromberg, LinkedIn post, May 30, 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peterjbromberg_after-nearly-4-years-at-everylibrary-i-activity-7334307222258143233-Vt7C; EveryLibrary, “Board of Directors,” https://www.everylibrary.org/board-directors; Cheryl Makin, “Somerset County Library System has a new director,” MyCentralJersey.com, June 30, 2025, https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/2025/06/30/somerset-county-library-system-has-a-new-director/84259228007/.

3. EveryLibrary Institute, “FREE WEBINAR: Advocacy in a polarized world,” presenter Peter Bromberg, Associate Director, EveryLibrary, https://www.everylibraryinstitute.org/advocacyinpolarizedworld; Peter Bromberg, “Advocating Effectively Across the Political Spectrum,” Utah Library Association Annual Conference, May 21, 2021; Peter Bromberg, “Future-Proofing the Library,” Niche Academy webinar, Sept. 6, 2023, https://www.nicheacademy.com/hubfs/Future-Proof%20Your%20Library%20(Niche%202023)%20(1).pdf. Bromberg’s résumé also lists the NJLA Public Policy Forum keynote “Libraries are Political (And So Can You!),” Livingston, N.J., Nov. 14, 2025.

4. EveryLibrary Institute, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook (file dated April 1, 2023), p. 4, “The Three Languages of Politics,” circulating as https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hvATAuYlYrTv7rHfEDNr7bz2qb8BEWjB/view. Parallel text appears in “Real World Policy and Messaging,” June 2023, Wisconsin Public Library Consortium packet, https://www.wplc.org/files/5a115d098/Real-world-policy-and-messaging-June-2023.pdf. Arnold Kling, The Three Languages of Politics (Cato Institute).

5. John Chrastka, EveryLibrary, “Answering Censorship Challenges: EveryLibrary’s Fight for the First Initiative,” Towson University, April 27, 2023, https://towson.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=71758347 (conservative sample: Constitution, Founding Fathers, “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution”; “We should never usurp the role of parents”).

6. New Jersey Hills package teaser published with the Bromberg column: “Pride v. Prejudice? Petition to Keep County Library Branch Starts as Sweeney Urges Other Towns to Question Programs.” Peapack-Gladstone is a SCLSNJ member community.

7. American Library Association, Library Bill of Rights, Art. V, https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill (“age” included 1967; reaffirmed 1996); ALA, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,” https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/minors.

8. United States v. American Library Ass’n, 539 U.S. 194, 215 (2003) (Kennedy, J., concurring); Dwight D. Eisenhower, commencement address, Dartmouth College, June 14, 1953.

---

Opinion for Publication Submitted to Editor September 1, 2026:

New Jersey Hills:

Peter Bromberg’s Sept. 1 column, “‘Liberty for All:’ Public Libraries and the Promise of America,” identifies him only as director of the Somerset County Library System. That title is true. It is not the whole identification.

From May 2021 until June 2025, Mr. Bromberg was Associate Director of EveryLibrary, the national 501(c)(4) that organizes against book challenges and trains library boards in political messaging. On May 30, 2025, announcing the Somerset job, he wrote that he looked forward to “continued service on the EveryLibrary Board of Directors.” EveryLibrary’s board page still lists him. His résumé lists that board seat from 2014 to the present. MyCentralJersey reported the EveryLibrary post when he was hired. The system’s staff biography does not mention it. Neither did the column.

EveryLibrary Institute published the method. A 2023 handout, Library Board Policy and Messaging Playbook, includes a page headed “The Three Languages of Politics,” filed under "Intellectual Freedom and Book Challenges.” It tells staff that progressives, libertarians, and conservatives each have a default language, then assigns the frame:

Progressives: “equity, social justice, a leveling of the playing field… and equal treatment for all.”  

Libertarians: “liberty, self-determination, and support for those that are motivated to help themselves.”  

Conservatives: “preservation of tradition, local community history, help with assimilating new arrivals, and traditional American values.”

A related EveryLibrary presentation the same year supplied conservative sample copy: the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, Freedom of Religion, and “We don’t want to chip away at the Constitution.” Another line: “We should never usurp the role of parents.”

Mr. Bromberg’s column is written in the conservative and libertarian dialects. Reagan. Madison. The Constitution versus “authoritarian regimes.” “Freedom. Liberty. Justice. For all.” “Self-determination.” “Strong supporters of parents and families.” “Family values.” If a title offends, “we are free to reach for something else.” It is not written in the progressive dialect. It was published as the same paper group covered a petition and a local official urging towns to question library programs.

The column never quotes the rule that script is written to protect. Article V of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights says a person’s right to use a library “should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” ALA’s official interpretation, “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors,” states that this right means “free access to all services, materials, and facilities and unrestricted use of everything the library offers,” and that limits based solely on age, apparent maturity, or legal status “violate Article V.” A children’s room is furniture. Under that interpretation it is not a lock.

“Age-appropriate zones and displays” is what the playbook would call language for a conservative paper. “Unrestricted use of everything the library offers” is the professional text. Only the first sentence ran.

Using different words for different listeners is ordinary rhetoric. The problem is the combination: a national advocacy officer, writing as a local director, during a local materials fight, in the dialect his shop published for conservatives, while leaving the shop and the age rule off the page.

The authorities that actually address minors were also left off. In United States v. American Library Association (2003), Justice Kennedy wrote that “the interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree.” President Eisenhower, at Dartmouth in 1953, warned against book burners then added the clause usually dropped: use the library “as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency.”

The Somerset County Library Commission sets policy. It can ask, in public, whether SCLSNJ adopts the ALA Minors interpretation; whether a parent may limit a child’s card; and why an EveryLibrary board seat was omitted from a column on “liberty for all.” Those are records questions. The playbook page, the résumé, and the byline are already public.

Dan Kleinman  

Chatham, N.J.

NOTE ADDED 2 SEPTEMBER 2026:

Tonight I spoke at the commission meeting wherein Peter Bromberg is a member. He was there. So I confronted ALA head on. You see, people, it's not that hard. I've done it before. Don't be intimidated by them.

Here is what I said, along with other graphics showing the extent of the problem. It's my own recording as the commission makes no recordings.

Tonight I spoke at the library commission meeting where American Library Association and EveryLibrary’s board member is also a commission member.

Hear 👂 me speaking, asking where his loyalties lie and whether there’s an ethics issue.

Related pics tell a story of harm by ALA. https://t.co/pRqX0uHSgg pic.twitter.com/GH9abciIRv

— Dan Kleinman @OccupyLibraries (@OccupyLibraries) September 3, 2026

NOTE ADDED 9 OCTOBER 2026:

Has this post and/or my appearance before the library board resulted in the retirement of Peter Bromberg? I don't know yet due to a paywall on what I can see here.

MASSIVE BANNED BOOKS WEEK WIN FOR PARENTS! PETER BROMBERG FROM ALA's EVERYLIBRARY IS RETIRING AS LIBRARY DIRECTOR IN NJ! Possibly I was involved, but paywall blocks me from checking. But URL gives a hint: https:// www.mycentraljersey . com/ story/news/local/ somerset-county/ 2026/10/09/ peter-bromberg-retiring-somerset-library-director/92170401007/

— Dan Kleinman @OccupyLibraries (@OccupyLibraries) October 10, 2026

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Legal Defense for SLAPP Suits Against Free Speech

Librarians Finally Admit the Reviews They Hide Behind Are Useless

School librarians have spent years telling parents, school boards, and courts that every book in the collection was carefully selected using professional reviews. That claim has been the standard defense. “We follow the selection policy. The books have multiple positive reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus, Booklist…”

It was also the shield used against parents who dared to object to s[*]xually explicit material in school libraries. Challenge a book? You’re told the professionals already reviewed it. Object too loudly? You risk being labeled a book banner, a bigot, or worse—and in multiple cases sued.

Now the librarians themselves are admitting, in their own research and on their own podcast, that those reviews cannot be trusted.  Audio, transcript, and journal article available below.

In a 2026 study published by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL, a division of the American Library Association), Books and Barriers: The Influence of Book Censorship on the Role of School Librarians, Their Self-Efficacy, and Well-Being, researchers Misty S. Schattle and Johnny R. O’Connor, Jr. interviewed eleven school librarians in one large Texas district. The librarians reported that collection development now takes far longer because:

“they often feel that the reviews cannot be trusted, requiring the need to read books in their entirety before placement on the shelf.”¹

One elementary librarian put it bluntly:  

“It’s almost like we can’t go on our reviews. I’ve been reading a lot more books.”¹

Dr. Schattle expanded on these findings on the School Librarians United podcast:

“lots of librarians that I talk to were saying that they couldn’t really rely on reviews anymore because… they read a review, but are they gonna get something that is questionable… so they might still find that they needed to read it before it could go on the shelf… they’re just finding that it’s taking so much time… because now you have to read all the books.”²

This is not new. I documented the same problem more than a decade ago.

In 2010, Kalida, Ohio Superintendent Don Horstman removed Lush by Natasha Friend after a fifth grader brought it home. The book contained graphic s[*]xual details. Horstman read it himself and said the glowing professional reviews had omitted those details entirely.³ Similar patterns appear in my 2011 post on incomplete reviews⁴ and my 2009 post on a Kentucky superintendent overriding ALA lists.⁵

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been even more direct. In August 2026 remarks, he stated that the librarians are the ones responsible for the presence of “dirty, filthy, and vulgar books” in school libraries, that they know what is on the shelves while many superintendents and teachers do not, and that the American Library Association trains librarians and considers such material “just fine.”¹⁰

Librarians themselves have used the same defense when suing parents. Amanda Jones, who filed a high-profile lawsuit against parents who criticized materials in her library, has stated: “As a professional librarian, I use professional reviews about where we place books in the library.”¹¹ Her justification for the books she selects rests on the very reviewing sources that Schattle’s research and the librarians she interviewed now say cannot be trusted to flag “something that is questionable.”

Meanwhile, the American Library Association itself continues to elevate those same professional reviews. Through its Unite Against Book Bans campaign, ALA created “Book Résumés”—documents packed with awards and glowing professional reviews, designed to be handed to boards and review committees.⁶ The résumé for Gender Queer is a perfect example: starred reviews from Booklist and School Library Journal, YALSA and Rainbow Project lists, the Alex Award, and more. What it carefully omits is any actual content from the book.⁷

At the same time, ALA’s official policy forbids the rating systems that do document content.

The 11th edition of ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Manual (2026) is explicit. On page 8 it notes that school boards and lawmakers use ratings produced by “religious and political groups” to limit access to library books and control what is added to school libraries. Chapter 7 contains an entire section on rating systems and states:

“Using, enforcing, or approving of ratings systems violates the Library Bill of Rights.”

It further warns that rating or labeling materials based on assumed age-appropriateness “may be perceived as restricting access.”⁸

On page 145 the Manual specifically addresses the sites parents actually use:

“websites like BookLooks.org and RatedBooks.org often use legal-sounding language to falsely imply that certain books that do not comply with their moral or religious beliefs are illegal and ‘harmful to minors.’ … Their claims are false and have no basis in law. Libraries should not use ratings from these sites to justify removing books from their collections, limiting access to library resources, or making decisions about what books to purchase for library collections. … publicly funded libraries should not use private content rating systems to restrict access to materials. This policy should apply to all users, including children and young adults.”⁸

Kelly Jensen at Book Riot has likewise dismissed BookLooks, RatedBooks, and similar sites as “unprofessional, biased book reviews” and “politically-driven.”⁹ Tools such as RatedBooks and the National Book Rating Index (NBRI) that actually catalog explicit content are rejected, while the professional reviews that leave librarians unsure whether a book contains “something that is questionable” remain the approved standard—until parents notice the problem, at which point the response is often a lawsuit.

So the position is now fully circular:

• The professional reviews ALA has long promoted as the gold standard for selection and defense of books are admitted by ALA’s own researchers (in an AASL journal) to be inadequate. Librarians say they can no longer rely on them and must read the books themselves.
• The rating systems that actually describe s[*]xual content, language, and other details are denounced by ALA as illegitimate tools of “religious and political groups.” Using them violates the Library Bill of Rights.
• ALA’s Book Résumés lean on the same professional reviews while omitting the content those reviews fail to flag.
• When parents point out the resulting problems, some librarians sue them for defamation while continuing to cite the very reviews now acknowledged as unreliable.

Either the approved reviews work, or they don’t. If they don’t—as Schattle’s study and the librarians themselves now say—then the tools that do provide useful information about content are the ones ALA explicitly forbids, precisely because those tools can be used to keep inappropriate material away from children.

I spoke with Brooke Stephens, founder of RatedBooks.org and the National Book Rating Index (NationalBookRatingIndex.com). RatedBooks creates reports based on a content rating scale that uses the book’s own excerpts to justify each rating. The National Book Rating Index aggregates nearly 38,000 reviews from multiple sources and can be searched for free or used by librarians to process entire library inventories and generate rating reports on matched titles. The more the ALA defends giving mature content to minors while declaring professional reviews inadequate and parent-created rating tools illegitimate, the more obvious the need for these resources becomes. Stephens is both amused and grateful for the free publicity the ALA has given her work. She sees their rejection of transparent content rating systems as further diminishing any remaining need for the organization itself.

Parents who challenged books and were attacked for it were right. The professional reviews were never the rigorous safeguard claimed. They were a convenient shield. ALA still promotes that shield through Book Résumés and selection policies while simultaneously declaring the more accurate content ratings off-limits and supporting legal action against those who notice the gap.

The result is predictable: children retain access to material that even the librarians selecting it now say they cannot trust the reviews to identify—and, as Lt. Gov. Patrick noted, the librarians are the ones who know what is on those shelves.

NOTE ADDED 23 AUGUST 2026:

This article will have a followup article about teachers who truly are trusted experts and who truly care for teaching children, instead of indoctrinating them, like the requirements American Library Association added to all the various state Freedom to Read Acts and Right to Read Acts.  These teachers who truly care were directly vilified by American Library Association and its librarians, such as by Amanda Jones who is suing me for defamation calling one of them "a menace and a bully."  The only menace is to ALA as people wake up and realize the emperor has no clothes, something that Misty S. Schattle described in detail when we learned librarians have to read all the books for themselves.  Then when teachers do read all the books for themselves and decide some books are inappropriate for schools, they are vilified and sued, such as by PEN America, a partner with ALA in "Unite Against Book Bans."  So stay tuned for the upcoming post.

NOTE ADDED 3 OCTOBER 2026:

As promised in the above note:

• "In Education, 'Trust the Experts' Is a Scam To Silence Even Expert Dissent," by Crystal Marull and Vicki Baggett, The Hill, 22 September 2026.

Endnotes:

1. Misty S. Schattle & Johnny R. O’Connor, Jr., “Books and Barriers: The Influence of Book Censorship on the Role of School Librarians, Their Self-Efficacy, and Well-Being,” School Library Research 29 (2026), https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/2026-06/schattleandoconnor.pdf.

2. Dr. Misty Schattle, “Censorship’s Impact on School Librarians and their Libraries,” School Librarians United with Amy Hermon, Episode 372, August 21, 2026, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/censorships-impact-on-school-librarians-and-their/id1434321470?i=1000784807311.

3. “School Excoriates Book Reviews that Fail to Disclose ‘Graphic S[*]xual Details’ in Books for Children; Lush by Natasha Friend is ‘Wildly Inappropriate’ for Certain Children,” SafeLibraries, December 16, 2010, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2010/12/school-excoriates-book-reviews-that.html.

4. “False Censorship Claims Exposed by WSJ Author Attacked for Exposing Truth About Young Adult Books; Meghan Cox Gurdon Decries Incomplete and Uninformative Book Reviews,” SafeLibraries, June 8, 2011, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2011/06/false-censorship-claims-exposed-by-wsj.html.

5. “Kentucky School Superintendent Exposes False Cries of Censorship; Removes Educationally Unsuitable Books from Curriculum Despite Being on ALA’s List for Reluctant Readers,” SafeLibraries, November 30, 2009, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2009/11/kentucky-school-superintendent-exposes.html.

6. Unite Against Book Bans (American Library Association initiative), Book Résumés, https://bookresumes.uniteagainstbookbans.org/.

7. Book Résumé for Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Unite Against Book Bans / ALA, https://bookresumes.uniteagainstbookbans.org/wp-content/uploads/kobabe_GenderQueer_20240214.pdf.

8. American Library Association, Intellectual Freedom Manual, 11th ed. (ALA Editions, 2026), pp. 8, 145 (and Chapter 7 on rating systems). See also ALA’s related “Labeling and Rating Systems: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights.”

9. Kelly Jensen, “BookLooks, RatedBooks, and Other Unprofessional Book ‘Review’ Sites to Know: Book Censorship News, January 10, 2025,” Book Riot, January 10, 2025, https://bookriot.com/booklooks-ratedbooks-and-other-unprofessional-book-review-sites/.

10. “Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Opposes Explicit Books In Schools, Pleas for Parents to Act to Get These Books Removed, Calls Out School Librarians,” SafeLibraries, August 20, 2026, https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/08/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-opposes.html (quoting Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s remarks holding school librarians responsible for the presence of explicit materials and noting ALA’s role in training them).

11. Maggie Heyn Richardson, “Livingston Parish’s Amanda Jones landed in a national fight about book banning. Now, ‘That Librarian’ Has Written a Memoir,” 225 Magazine, August 8, 2024, https://www.225batonrouge.com/our-city/livingston-parishs-amanda-jones-landed-national-fight-book-banning-now-librarian-written-memoir (quoting Amanda Jones: “As a professional librarian, I use professional reviews about where we place books in the library.”).

Hear the Admission:

Listen to the librarians themselves discussing how professional reviews can no longer be trusted, followed by a transcript of what they said:

Librarians Finally Admit the Reviews They Hide Behind Are Useless

Major exposé to be published soon.

Here's an excerpt of librarians lamenting how book reviews are no longer useful, forcing school librarians to read all books for themselves.

Transcript in attached post. pic.twitter.com/fY7y0LzkmP

— Dan Kleinman @OccupyLibraries (@OccupyLibraries) August 22, 2026

Transcript:

Amy Hermon:

[Y]ou know, these attacks on their collections were happening. 

Dr. Misty Schattle:

So what I found, and you have to keep in mind, this was a, this was, very much a small group of people. They were eleven librarians that I spoke with from one district, so you're talking about a very tiny population. But, they all found that their collection development processes were taking far longer than they ever had before. So, they, you know, we, we, all, as librarians, we, we read reviews, that's what we do, because unfortunately, as much as we would love to, we cannot read every book, there's just way too many out there. But I was finding that, that lots of librarians that I talk to were saying that they couldn't really rely on reviews anymore because, you know, they didn't know, were they going, you know, they read a review, but are they gonna get something that is questionable, um, you know, like, and then so they would, they might read a review and they might get something but then they might still find that they needed to read it before it could go on the shelf, or maybe they were going to public libraries and trying to find books so they could read them before they bought them. But then, you know, they're, they're still like, they're just finding that it's taking so much time, so much time that they don't have, right? And collection development, it's, it's a lengthy process anyway. Right? I mean well, maybe not, if you don't have much money to spend it don't take much time. But, if you, if you have a decent budget, you know, I, I, I don't know a single school librarian anywhere that's been like, "well, I had all this money to spend, so I was just buying whatever." I mean, nobody does that.

Amy Hermon:

Uhhh, (laughter) I, I was gonna say, back in the, uh, the ESSER days when we had ESSER funds, uh, after the pandemic, ah, there was something that I was aware was never gonna happen again in my career, but it involved a, a very small window of time and spending an amount of money that I could, could barely believe this was actually happening, it was like winning the lotto or something. But um, no, but I, I think that especially when you talk to people for whom they are not rookie librarians, these are not rookie librarians, you're dealing with people who are, in some cases, seasoned, they are veterans, they, they, this is not their first rodeo. They have built a collection repeatedly and you'd like to think that at some point you get better at this, and and you start to trust your, um, your judgment as a professional, and the longer you do this, in. The hope is that you become more confident in the decisions that you're making and you're not second-guessing yourself. But when somebody calls into question what you're doing, all of a sudden that hyper scrutiny that, that is imposed on, on the collection that we're building, this becomes an absolute, colossal, e-, e-, expensive time that we have to, to use, just to satisfy, uh, community members who have made it their life's mission to upend whatever sense of normalcy we have in our spaces.

Dr. Misty Schattle:

Yeah. It, it's just, you know, it's just crazy to me, like, I don't know. We have these degrees and, you know, we, we want to do our job, but sometimes it, it's hard, just finding the time to, to do all of the, the reading of, you know, all the books, because now you have to read all the books.

Amy Hermon:

So, I regularly hear from school librarians that there aren't enough hours in the day to do our jobs. We arrive before school early, we work through  lunch, we stay late. I'm already aware that there are, uh, a number of us who have extended calendars where we have built in days where we are working either, ah, before the school year starts or well into, uh, after the school year ends. Our professional training, our judgment, apparently isn't good enough when it comes to selecting the books that we oversee. And it's just, it's not just insulting, the burden that we now have to satisfy, uh, uh, somebody's expectations of, of how we are, are, you know, supposed to be doing our jobs.

Dr. Misty Schattle:

Yeah. I think it definitely makes that harder, because, like you said, we have training for this, we go to school to, to learn how to develop collections, and, you know, I, I'm sure you did as I did took classes on collection development, but not just that, I took children's literature, I took young adult literature. I mean, I enjoyed them. Honestly I was exposed to books I probably would've never picked up on my own. And I know, like, even now looking back, looking back at those classes, I can still, you know, recall some of those books that I read in those classes back in 2007. I can say, you know like, I know that I've put specific books that I read because of those classes in specific children's hands, because that was what they needed at that moment. I've always said that my most favorite part of my job as a school librarian was connecting kids with that just-right book for them. With that book that they didn't know they needed, but they needed.

Amy Hermon:

At Wayne State University, we had to pick two of the three categories, so we had, there was a young adult course, a middle grade course, and a, ah, children's, ah, literature. And these were actually the three classes that overlapped with our School of Education. And, so that was really interesting. And I'll never forget, it was the, you know, the, the assignment was legend, it was the hundred book project. And the hundred book project, the expectation was is that we would familiarize ourselves with a hundred books during the semester and write up synopses and, and all sorts of, ah, write ups and, and critical reviews, and, and, you know, we thought it absolutely daunting at the time, but now that I think about it, it was ay, some of the most memorable activities I did and I really, really enjoyed it.

—

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Seeing through the Smoke and Mirrors from the ALA

​

Adult books are available to children of all ages in public libraries

Abortion, alcohol/abuse, alternate gender/sexual ideologies, animal cruelty/neglect (severe), anxiety, assassinations, bestiality, BDSM, body horror, blackmail, cannibalism (themes/threats), controversial commentary, cults and ideological zealots, dark content, deception, derogatory terms, demonic content, depression, divination, drugs/drugging, erotica, explicit sexual activities/nudity,  fetishism, gore, inflammatory commentary,  incest (themes), mental illness, molestation, murder, necrophilia (themes), patently offensive content, paraphilias, pedophilia, Pervasively Vulgar content,  profanity (multiple languages), prurient content, prostitution, rape, Satan worship (themes), self-harm, sex trafficking, smoking, stalking, suicide ideation, theft, torture, violence and Voyeurism. (This is a topic summary in Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon). 

That's quite a list.  

And yet, thousands of public libraries can't find one single reason to keep a book with all of these adult topics out of the hands of children. There are tens of thousands of sexually explicit books and materials with no limits, restrictions, guidelines, or protections of any sort,  available to children all across the United States. The public library and school policy of open access to all materials to all ages has repeatedly exposed children to content that would be considered obscene and illegal in any other setting.  

Who came up with that policy?

The American Library Association has manufactured reasons to override parents and give kids of all ages access to adult books in any format, digital and hard copy. All children, all ages, all access, all the time…that’s the policy whether you like it or not.

To do anything else would be Censorship!                             Book Banning!

Okay, that's not true...

The Supreme Court weighed in with Ginsberg v. New York (1968) and decided that children are NOT entitled to view sexually explicit materials under the Constitution and that "obscenity is variable", which means the content doesn't have to be obscene for adults in order to be obscene for children. Kansas Law (21-6401 and 21-6402) states that adults are prohibited from exposing children to obscene materials, and that obscenity is to be determined at least in part by community standards (not library policies) because minors lack the maturity to process explicit sexual content responsibly (Miller v. California 1973).

Restricting a sexually explicit book based on age in the library or school is not censorship.  Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) decided that books can be removed from school library shelves without risk of censorship claims if the removal is due to vulgarity or unsuitability, and gives school boards broad discretion to do so with Constitutional protection. 

One more time for the people in the back...

The Supreme Court ruled that a book does not have to be obscene to an adult in order for it to be considered obscene for children. Schools and libraries cannot be forced to expose children to adult materials in the name of combating "censorship." The standards for children are, and should be different than the standards for adults. That's literally true in every other situation. Children are not adults, and should not be treated like they are. 

It is the duty of all adults in any setting to protect all children from exposure to anything that may harm them.

Even if the child is too young to read the words, they can look at the pictures of erect penises and teenaged boys in sexual positions. Kids who are little older, maybe by 3rd or 4th grade, can pick up on concepts like anal or oral sex.

Graphic illustrations placed where kids can see. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Accidental and unsupervised exposure to mature content is much more dangerous than a controlled discussion with a parent. Many other librarians and schools refuse to protect children from that exposure. 

Thousands of libraries adhere to the American Library Association's policies that fight censorship where censorship does not exist at the expense of childhood innocence.   

Decades of research from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), the American Professional Society of the Abuse of Children (APSAC), the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), and the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), shows that early sexualization of children is very damaging and can lead to depression, anxiety, anger, confusion, aggressive sexual behaviors, desensitization, low self-esteem, increased mental health crisis and increased risk of exploitation by adults due to normalization of sexual concepts by children too young to understand the consequences.

That's also quite a list. 

Ignore all of that, though, the American Library Association says that your child can see or read whatever they want, whenever they want as long as it's at the library or on school property. That's not a law, it's a library policy suggestion from a NGO with no accountability to anyone involved, but that's the lead most schools and libraries are following. 

The Library Bill of Rights says that "A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views." Adults, who are not the parents, use this policy to defend and justify giving materials to children in the library or at school that would be illegal if given to them at a gas station. The "Rights" in this Library Bill are granted by no one, and are legally unenforceable. 

And yet, librarians defend it as if it's the law of the land

Parents have the right and responsibility to oversee their child's upbringing, education and moral development. 

Children do not have the right to read and see whatever they want. 

Librarians do not have the right to expose children to potentially harmful materials under any circumstances. This practice is justified by policy, not law. 

If the Community Standards question the appropriateness of allowing a child to access any material, the librarian should err on the side of caution to protect the child. Librarians who expose children to potentially obscene materials are not constitutional champions even though the American Library Association directs them to "fight censorship." 

There are NO banned books in this country. 

Banning a book means that you can't legally get the book anywhere. If a book is banned, you can't buy it, borrow it, steal it, see it, possess it or read it. 

Book banning is not a thing in the United States.

Adults can get any book from a variety of sources any time. An adult can go into any library and get any book they want. Libraries cannot possibly be required to carry every title--if a book is not available in the library it does not mean it has been banned by any legal true definition.  

PEN America shows on its website that more than 23,000  "book bans" have been documented since 2021 in public schools across the country. The stats are misleading, however--"If the same book is banned in 10 school districts, that would count as 10 bans, but one unique title. A book ban is the removal or restriction of those materials, either permanently or under review (PEN.org). 

It is counted as a "book ban" if a sexually explicit book is moved out of the children's section to the adult section, even though adults are not restricted from access in any way.  The American Library Association and PEN America offers tools to librarians and library boards to fight "when the censors come." (PEN is referring to parents who object to adult materials being offered to their children.)  

What do you call the repeated and excessive use of words like "book banning" and labeling parents as "the censors" who are coming to violate the Constitution?  

Gaslighting. Fear mongering. Manipulation.

What's your problem? Are you a Nazi or something? 

Book banning is a phrase associated with Nazi Germany, and the fervent use of the phrase is intentional to evoke a connection between anyone who objects to childhood exposure to sexually explicit materials and that horrible time in world history. The claim of book banning insidiously weaponizes the fear of those events being repeated in order to get parents to give up their rights over their own children to avoid the comparison. 

Parents aren't Nazis just because they want to decide what their children see and read. Parents have the right to determine when their child is mature enough for the content, and the responsibility to protect their children as they see fit without interference from libraries and schools.  

The fact that the taxpayers buy the books, build the libraries, build the schools, pay the librarians, elect the boards, and fund the NGOs only to have those institutions and organizations band together to strip them of their rights and authority over their own children makes all of this truly insulting.  

Restricting children’s access to adult book titles doesn’t take anything away from parents who want their children to read sexually explicit books. A parent can go check out that book anytime they want to and let their children see it.

On the flipside of that, a parent who wants OTHER people’s children to be exposed to sexually explicit books has NO legal right or authority to do that. NONE. Libraries who fight to keep these policies that override parent rights ARE taking something away from parents—their rights to have knowledge of and to choose what their children are exposed to. 

Why do seemingly normal adults fight so hard to defend putting sexually graphic books in front of children?

Protests, parades, lawsuits, angry board meetings, hateful social media attacks, threats of violence, cancel culture, lectures and virtue signaling from board members and lawyers...WHY? 

Why do libraries CHOOSE to allow children to have access to adult materials when they don’t have to? What is the motivation behind overruling community objections to facilitate giving sexually explicit material to children that would be illegal in any other setting? It's regulatory displacement...materials that would violate regulatory guidelines and definitions outside of the building are protected inside the building based on location. 

It's still the same children inside and outside of the building.

NGOs like the American Library Association decide what hoops parents have to jump through to protect their own children while shielding the library from any responsibility to do so. Kansas law regarding definitions of obscenity are ignored because of location in the library. 

Library boards of directors choose (but are not required) to adhere to policies from the ALA, purporting that no materials are obscene and that children cannot be prevented (protected) from seeing any materials because it would violate their "Freedom to Read." The American Library Association developed a Freedom to Read policy which has no support from the law. It's a policy, suggested guidance, and means nothing in court. It's not enforceable. 

There is no Constitutional Freedom to Read for Children

The ALA Library Bill of Rights is not law. 

There are no banned books in the USA. 

Curation is not censorship. 

Adults have the right to Freedom of Speech, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Protecting children from sexually explicit materials does not infringe on any adult's First Amendment Rights in any way. 

Children's first amendment rights are limited and do not overrule the rights of their parents to exercise authority over their child's upbringing, moral development, and education.

Adults who are not the parents have no right to give a child sexually explicit materials using subjective decision making. 

Policy guidance from private non-governmental organizations cannot override state law. 

It requires the cooperation of complicit public institutions to undermine parents rights and sacrifice childhood innocence in the name of "fighting the good fight" against censorship. 

Ask your local librarian to defend sexually explicit materials in the children's section without using borrowed ALA policy language. 

I'll wait.

—

URL of this page: https://safelibraries.blogspot.com/2026/05/seeing-through-smoke-and-mirrors-from.html



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Legal Defense for SLAPP Suits Against Free Speech