14 ms·

US saw record high of 5,668 books banned in libraries in 2025, says agency

67 points by vinni2 5mo ago

jazz9k 5mo ago
[flagged]
- jaapz 5mo ago
  As someone not from the US, this fingerpointing and the " i don't care 'their' books are being banned as long as 'my' books are being banned" is so weird to me. You guys should care books from either side of your political spectrum are being banned!
- marpstar 5mo ago
  Not everyone has the money to buy whatever book they want to read and it's wrong no matter who does it.
- ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
  This is an example of "DARVO" [0] – Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. Readers will notice that the post itself literally follows each of the instructions in order. IMHO it doesn't make for particularly interesting or pleasant discussion. But you're free to not care about what you don't care about, and free to provide (or not) any explanation or pretext for it. 0 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO
  - mindslight 5mo ago
    It's also incredibly sad because it's falling into the all-too-common pattern of ascribing the actions of corporate authoritarians to "the left", thereby framing "the right" as some kind of alternative when it's really that same corporate authoritarianism but without even the pretense.
joe_mamba 5mo ago
[flagged]
- ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
  > What people should look at before being up in arms, is which books were banned and why they were banned. Okay, I'll bite: why were they banned? Banning books from a public library is prima facie bad, so each one would need to have a pretty compelling argument articulated for why it wasn't. What if "why they were banned" isn't a good reason for banning information from a public library?
  - 9x39 5mo ago
    > Okay, I'll bite: why were they banned? The flashpoint is usually sexually explicit passages or writing in popular new books. I haven’t thought enough to have an opinion whether libraries (and city vs public school library is unclear) should fight to protect literary depictions of blowjob or rimming or anal intercourse, particularly in an LGBT lens, but enough groups evidently decided they have, and here we are.
    - ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
      Yeah, I'd say a political pressure group's personal preferences (sexual or otherwise) don't alone constitute a good reason to ban information from a public library. Really makes you wonder if the pressure groups behind these bans really understand the point of a library. To consume only information you like and agree with? To go read 10 different perspectives of something, but only if they are all identical to your current perspective? To minimize risk of mind expansion?
      - 9x39 5mo ago
        How far do you push ‘information’? As long as it’s written, fair game? Pictures? Web content? I don’t want the job, but it’s ripe for arguing.
cyanydeez 5mo ago
We wont need books in the future. You'll just open up your Red OpenAI or Blue Claude app and ask it for a new story !
- KumaBear 5mo ago
  No you will tell it make X into a live action tv show.
smithoc 5mo ago
Important to note that "banned" here means "a school chose not to have this book in their library". It's an annoying abuse of language. "Banned Books" has historically meant people are getting arrested for possessing the books or stores are being prevented from selling it or publishers are being prevented from producing it. This is essentially a clickbait title for "People disagree about what is age-appropriate content for a public school to provide to children".
- ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
  This is incorrect. The article is talking about book bans at public libraries and school libraries alike. The linked censorship search portal [0] lets you filter by "# Count of Challenges at Public Libraries" > 0. 0 – https://www.ala.org/bbooks/censorship-search-portal https://www.ala.org/bbooks/censorship-search-portal
  - barbazoo 5mo ago
    I'd call that "not making publicly available" via the library system rather than banning. As parent said, you can still buy these books and share with or sell them to each other.
    - ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
      I'd call it "banning books from public libraries", since that's a clear description. Contrary to what GP claimed, this is indeed public libraries, not just school libraries. Whatever you want to call it, IMO public libraries shouldn't ban books, especially based on some radical PAC's opinions about what jesus would want or whatever.
- torben-friis 5mo ago
  Depends on your definition of people: >The report also found that challenges are becoming more coordinated and politically driven: 92% came from pressure groups, decision-makers or government officials, compared with 72% in 2024. By contrast, 2.7% were attributed to parents and 1.4% to individual library users. So this isn't librarians, parents or even neighbours deciding something isn't appropriate. The article also seems to refer to libraries in general, as opposed to school libraries alone, except on a specific paragraph.
black_13 5mo ago
[dead]
yeah879846 5mo ago
List?
like_any_other 5mo ago
Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail, or White Identity by Jared Taylor, never make these banned book lists. They don't have to be "banned" - libraries simply make them unavailable, so they get to control information, without being the kind of horrible people that would censor or ban a book. How virtuous!
- JuniperMesos 5mo ago
  Any given library is failing to make most books that have ever been printed in human history available, because it would be completely intractable to do so. Any given library management can always claim that a book they don't make available because they disapprove of it, is in the vast class of books they haven't even thought about including in their library. People will only even bring a complaint if a specific book becomes politically salient for some reason - which might be because a book was available at a library and then was removed; and this means that banned book lists are inherently political documents that serve to highlight specific books that the list-compiler thinks are unfairly suppressed. There's no meaningful difference between a library not stocking Gender Queer and a library not stocking Camp of the Saints; all that matters is what the political sensibilities are of the person or organization putting together the banned book list and deciding what titles to include on it.
  - like_any_other 5mo ago
    > all that matters is what the political sensibilities are of the person or organization putting together the banned book list and deciding what titles to include on it. And the political sensibilities of those deciding which books will be available don't matter? What a convenient position. Would you still hold it if it was the John Birch Society that supplied all librarians? All those challenged books that talk about systemic this or that, yet when it comes to libraries themselves, you want to pretend they're purely neutral, technocratic establishments. Well, almost - it's okay to want to disrupt whiteness in libraries [1] - they're not neutral then, and we can care about their political sensibilities. But when it comes to criticism from the other political direction, we use doublethink so systems and institutions again cannot be biased. [1] Disrupting Whiteness in Libraries and Librarianship: A Reading List - https://www.library.wisc.edu/gwslibrarian/bibliographies/disrupting-whiteness-in-libraries/ https://www.library.wisc.edu/gwslibrarian/bibliographies/dis...
mc32 5mo ago
Do you know who needs to start banning "books"? Amazon. They truly need to start finding a way to ban bullshit books and lousy books printed on demand --it's a racket and they just don't seem to care. Can they not hire some people to curate titles to ensure they are legit and anyone doing a bait and switch gets banned from the site altogether. It's not like they can't ID bad actors.
abernard1 5mo ago
My sole comment is that people who use verbiage like this are mentally ill. Not "mentally ill" like I'm calling them an epithet. But like, actually mentally ill. There are things that are simply not pedagogically useful in the limited instructional period in school. There are things that are simply not appropriate during early childhood development. People who abuse and manipulate language like this are exactly why more traditional instruction is desired in certain school districts. Postmodernism is wrong. There are actually things that are true without the miasma of an artificial (and exhausting) social construction of reality.
insane_dreamer 5mo ago
[dead]

67 points by vinni2 5mo ago

jazz9k 5mo ago

[flagged]

jaapz 5mo ago
As someone not from the US, this fingerpointing and the " i don't care 'their' books are being banned as long as 'my' books are being banned" is so weird to me. You guys should care books from either side of your political spectrum are being banned!
marpstar 5mo ago
Not everyone has the money to buy whatever book they want to read and it's wrong no matter who does it.
ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
This is an example of "DARVO" [0] – Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. Readers will notice that the post itself literally follows each of the instructions in order. IMHO it doesn't make for particularly interesting or pleasant discussion. But you're free to not care about what you don't care about, and free to provide (or not) any explanation or pretext for it. 0 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO
- mindslight 5mo ago
  It's also incredibly sad because it's falling into the all-too-common pattern of ascribing the actions of corporate authoritarians to "the left", thereby framing "the right" as some kind of alternative when it's really that same corporate authoritarianism but without even the pretense.

joe_mamba 5mo ago

[flagged]

ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
> What people should look at before being up in arms, is which books were banned and why they were banned. Okay, I'll bite: why were they banned? Banning books from a public library is prima facie bad, so each one would need to have a pretty compelling argument articulated for why it wasn't. What if "why they were banned" isn't a good reason for banning information from a public library?
- 9x39 5mo ago
  > Okay, I'll bite: why were they banned? The flashpoint is usually sexually explicit passages or writing in popular new books. I haven’t thought enough to have an opinion whether libraries (and city vs public school library is unclear) should fight to protect literary depictions of blowjob or rimming or anal intercourse, particularly in an LGBT lens, but enough groups evidently decided they have, and here we are.
  - ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
    Yeah, I'd say a political pressure group's personal preferences (sexual or otherwise) don't alone constitute a good reason to ban information from a public library. Really makes you wonder if the pressure groups behind these bans really understand the point of a library. To consume only information you like and agree with? To go read 10 different perspectives of something, but only if they are all identical to your current perspective? To minimize risk of mind expansion?
    - 9x39 5mo ago
      How far do you push ‘information’? As long as it’s written, fair game? Pictures? Web content? I don’t want the job, but it’s ripe for arguing.

cyanydeez 5mo ago

We wont need books in the future. You'll just open up your Red OpenAI or Blue Claude app and ask it for a new story !

KumaBear 5mo ago
No you will tell it make X into a live action tv show.

smithoc 5mo ago

Important to note that "banned" here means "a school chose not to have this book in their library". It's an annoying abuse of language. "Banned Books" has historically meant people are getting arrested for possessing the books or stores are being prevented from selling it or publishers are being prevented from producing it. This is essentially a clickbait title for "People disagree about what is age-appropriate content for a public school to provide to children".

ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
This is incorrect. The article is talking about book bans at public libraries and school libraries alike. The linked censorship search portal [0] lets you filter by "# Count of Challenges at Public Libraries" > 0. 0 – https://www.ala.org/bbooks/censorship-search-portal https://www.ala.org/bbooks/censorship-search-portal
- barbazoo 5mo ago
  I'd call that "not making publicly available" via the library system rather than banning. As parent said, you can still buy these books and share with or sell them to each other.
  - ImPostingOnHN 5mo ago
    I'd call it "banning books from public libraries", since that's a clear description. Contrary to what GP claimed, this is indeed public libraries, not just school libraries. Whatever you want to call it, IMO public libraries shouldn't ban books, especially based on some radical PAC's opinions about what jesus would want or whatever.
torben-friis 5mo ago
Depends on your definition of people: >The report also found that challenges are becoming more coordinated and politically driven: 92% came from pressure groups, decision-makers or government officials, compared with 72% in 2024. By contrast, 2.7% were attributed to parents and 1.4% to individual library users. So this isn't librarians, parents or even neighbours deciding something isn't appropriate. The article also seems to refer to libraries in general, as opposed to school libraries alone, except on a specific paragraph.

black_13 5mo ago

[dead]

yeah879846 5mo ago

List?

like_any_other 5mo ago

Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail, or White Identity by Jared Taylor, never make these banned book lists. They don't have to be "banned" - libraries simply make them unavailable, so they get to control information, without being the kind of horrible people that would censor or ban a book. How virtuous!

JuniperMesos 5mo ago
Any given library is failing to make most books that have ever been printed in human history available, because it would be completely intractable to do so. Any given library management can always claim that a book they don't make available because they disapprove of it, is in the vast class of books they haven't even thought about including in their library. People will only even bring a complaint if a specific book becomes politically salient for some reason - which might be because a book was available at a library and then was removed; and this means that banned book lists are inherently political documents that serve to highlight specific books that the list-compiler thinks are unfairly suppressed. There's no meaningful difference between a library not stocking Gender Queer and a library not stocking Camp of the Saints; all that matters is what the political sensibilities are of the person or organization putting together the banned book list and deciding what titles to include on it.
- like_any_other 5mo ago
  > all that matters is what the political sensibilities are of the person or organization putting together the banned book list and deciding what titles to include on it. And the political sensibilities of those deciding which books will be available don't matter? What a convenient position. Would you still hold it if it was the John Birch Society that supplied all librarians? All those challenged books that talk about systemic this or that, yet when it comes to libraries themselves, you want to pretend they're purely neutral, technocratic establishments. Well, almost - it's okay to want to disrupt whiteness in libraries [1] - they're not neutral then, and we can care about their political sensibilities. But when it comes to criticism from the other political direction, we use doublethink so systems and institutions again cannot be biased. [1] Disrupting Whiteness in Libraries and Librarianship: A Reading List - https://www.library.wisc.edu/gwslibrarian/bibliographies/disrupting-whiteness-in-libraries/ https://www.library.wisc.edu/gwslibrarian/bibliographies/dis...

mc32 5mo ago

Do you know who needs to start banning "books"? Amazon. They truly need to start finding a way to ban bullshit books and lousy books printed on demand --it's a racket and they just don't seem to care. Can they not hire some people to curate titles to ensure they are legit and anyone doing a bait and switch gets banned from the site altogether. It's not like they can't ID bad actors.

abernard1 5mo ago

My sole comment is that people who use verbiage like this are mentally ill. Not "mentally ill" like I'm calling them an epithet. But like, actually mentally ill. There are things that are simply not pedagogically useful in the limited instructional period in school. There are things that are simply not appropriate during early childhood development. People who abuse and manipulate language like this are exactly why more traditional instruction is desired in certain school districts. Postmodernism is wrong. There are actually things that are true without the miasma of an artificial (and exhausting) social construction of reality.

insane_dreamer 5mo ago

[dead]