Right now, public and school libraries and museums have exemptions to West Virginia’s law against displaying or disseminating obscene material to minors. House Bill 4654 would remove those exemptions.
A contentious proposal regarding schools, libraries and obscene material went to third reading in the House of Delegates Friday.
Right now, public and school libraries and museums have exemptions to West Virginia’s law against displaying or disseminating obscene material to minors. House Bill 4654 would remove those exemptions.
Del. Jeff Stevens, R-Marshall, and a public school teacher, said in floor debate that the bill allows him to better protect his students.
“For students’ electronic devices, we have GoGuardian to protect them from obscene material,” Stevens said. “We have the FCC that protects children from seeing obscene material on TV. This bill gave our students and children of the community the same protection they receive from GoGuardian and from the FCC.”
GoGuardian is a program that gives K-12 teachers tools from digital guardrails to student safety support to create safe student learning.
The bill’s sponsor, Del. Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, said the bill does not ban books but protects children from being exposed to pornography.
“I’m here to protect our young people,” Steele said. “And make sure that they are not put in a vulnerable position where they are presented with pure pornography, and an effort to groom them and prepare them for a potential sexual abuse or sexual assault.”
Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, said there are already local community standards in place to determine what’s obscene.
“There’s a school board, a locally elected school board that oversees our schools,” Hansen said. “And our libraries apply local community standards when they make decisions about what books to put on the shelves.”
The bill passed along party lines, 85-12, and now goes to the Senate. West Virginia’s obscenity laws have possible punishments of fines up to $25,000 and up to five years imprisonment.
On this West Virginia Week, we have a decidedly literary slant as we hear from Shepherd University’s 2023 Appalachian Writer-in-Residence, and we also learn about Banned Book Week.
On this West Virginia Week, we have a decidedly literary slant as we hear from Shepherd University’s 2023 Appalachian Writer-in-Residence, and we also learn about Banned Book Week.
We’ll also hear feature stories about an elementary school turned community center, and Inside Appalachia brings us the story of a Pittsburgh artist making locally-inspired tarot cards.
Chris Schulz is our host this week. Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert.
West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Caroline MacGregor, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.
This week is banned books week. Groups like the American Library Association encourage people to look at the books that have been banned and to think about why people attempt to remove them from public view.
This week is banned books week. Groups like the American Library Association encourage people to look at the books that have been banned and to think about why people attempt to remove them from public view.
News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Megan Tarbett, the Director of the Putnam County Library and the President of the West Virginia Library Association to find out what it is all about.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Let’s talk about banned books. Why are we celebrating books that have been banned?
Tarbett: In 1982, they kind of got it started as a response to some of the book challenges and protests that had been happening in schools and things like that. I know West Virginia has the history of the Kanawha Textbook Controversy.
Book challenges seem to be cyclical, like, some years, there’ll be really heavy, and then, it’ll hit a lull and then they’ll come back. So this was a response to that. Some people say, “Banned Books Week, are you celebrating banning books?” That’s obviously not what we’re doing.
But it was a way to bring awareness to the nation that these challenges were happening nationwide in schools and libraries. And so they called it Banned Books Week. And here we are all these years later.
Douglas: Do you want to discuss what some of the issues are, why it’s happening more recently now, or is it purely just cyclical?
Tarbett: It is cyclical, but in today’s age of all information all the time I do think people head to their keyboards, or head to people they know in outrage before they take a minute with what’s actually upsetting them and not sitting with it for a minute and thinking critically about why this particular book would be in a public library or would be in a school, especially with the things that people can find on the internet.
Sometimes it feels slightly disingenuous that we’re focusing so much on physical books when an internet search can bring so many more terrible things, if that’s what you’re really concerned about.
But, of course, we take these concerns seriously every year. The American Library Association puts out this little field report guide, which lists the annual top 10 most challenged books. In the years I’ve been working in libraries, some of them are evergreen, some of them have been on the list for a decade, at least. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has been on this list pretty much the 15 years I’ve been around libraries. Looking for Alaska, John Green has been on there forever. And then you get some of the newer books. The current one that is topping the list is a graphic novel, titled Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe, that’s topping the list everywhere.
We have these out for people to look at and to start discussions. This year, the theme is Let Freedom Read. I like to think of this week as more like “Freedom to Read Week.” And there is a Freedom to Read Foundation that is affiliated with the American Library Association.
Megan Tarbett, Director, Putnam County Library and President, West Virginia Library Association
Douglas: What is the response when somebody wants to ban a book? We’re not talking some extremist pamphlet showing up in a school library. This is something that has been vetted and reviewed and researched by librarians for a purpose or for a potential audience. So what is the response to dealing with these kinds of things?
Tarbett: My favorite quote, and kind of my personal motto is “A good library has something in it to offend everyone.” If you are looking at the whole of what we have available in a public library or school library, or an academic library, it runs the gamut. There are things I walk by and go, “Oh, I’d never read that, or that upsets me,” but that’s why it should be there.
Every library should have a procedure ready. It’s called the reconsideration of materials form. Anyone can fill it out and it asks what book, what page, why? And then there is a process. You turn that back in to your librarian, and the librarian, and sometimes a panel of other librarians, or in smaller systems sometimes the board discuss. You can discuss what the challenge is and what the issue may be, and what your steps are. The steps can be that it is left in exactly its place. The step could be, okay, that’s a good point. Maybe it doesn’t need to be in the picture books, but we can move it up to a different section of the library. So maybe we just move it.
In a very few cases, sometimes libraries have almost a Restricted Section, where you have to ask at the front desk to see this particular book. And then there’s completely taking it out of the system altogether. Those are the four options you have when you get a book challenge.
But a lot of the times the librarian and the panel elect to leave it where it is, because before it even comes into the system at least someone has taken a look at it, has evaluated it. Did it come down in a most recommended list from other librarians or from our professional publications? Was it a customer request? Most libraries take requests and purchase things that are requested.
What we’re seeing right now is that some people are bypassing the process altogether. We make a display, we put out books. And sometimes people will walk by and go, “I don’t think I like that book,” and they’ll take it with them. And then they’ll bypass the library’s procedure altogether and go to a city council person or a county commissioner, or the school board, and go directly through a different authority than working it through the library itself.
Or they just go straight to Facebook. They just go to their friends and then all of a sudden we’ve got a community that is unhappy.
Douglas: The outrage of social media. And none of those people’s probably read the actual book.
Tarbett: Libraries are nonpartisan, not bipartisan. We strive to keep that, but there are challenges from quote, unquote, both sides. I mean, it’s not one particular group of people with an ideology that are the sole challengers. The reasons run the gamut, the breadth of humanity.
It may just be an anecdote, but there are places that have had the Bible challenged, because it does have scenes of murder, incest, rape — something that in a fiction novel would outrage some people. Some people also would want to challenge that. It really does run the gamut.
Douglas: What is the situation in West Virginia now?
Tarbett: Our Parkersburg libraries have been dealing with some challenges the past six months to a year. I think they’re over the worst of it, but there’s still some challenges coming in.
What most likely happens in most West Virginia libraries and communities is kind of like the quiet censoring. Either a librarian might self-censor what they order. They might take a second look at a book that may be on a “best of” list, but they also have to evaluate it for their community and they may just decide not to purchase that item which is a form of censorship in and of itself. Or sometimes, if a patron doesn’t particularly like the book, they’ll borrow it, and it never comes back. So there is that form of censorship as well.
It really is the loud ones that you see on the news and some of the more quiet ones. And honestly, it’s the quiet ones that, frankly, are more insidious than the big noisy ones, because then you know they’re happening.
When you’ve got a one person library in a small town, I don’t blame them for not wanting to quote unquote, rock the boat and that’s not saying that they’re not doing their jobs, because they are. I know in my system, we have multiple book selectors. In some systems, it’s selected centrally. I’m the director of the Putnam libraries and every branch manager orders their own materials. We’ve got five to six to seven, sometimes 10 different people ordering all different things from all different personal perspectives, and professional perspectives.
We strive really to hit everything so we’re not having a myopic view of what should be in the collection. Most libraries do similar things to try to keep it as broad based as they can. Academic libraries sometimes have a specific focus on things, and they can do more deep dive things. Most public libraries, we’re generalists. The people’s university. You can come learn a little bit about everything, but we’re not your subject specialists. School libraries are similar. They also have a different mission than public libraries. All of our libraries all have the same mission, but also different versions of it, which is to help educate and entertain our constituents.
Douglas: What haven’t we talked about?
Tarbett: The last few years, the American Library Association and the Freedom To Read Foundation have really moved away from the negative of “look at all the things people want to ban” to a positive, “free people read freely.” Let’s keep that in mind. Let freedom read, and making it a more positive thing to have all of these books available for people. I like that because there’s so much negativity about everything in a 24-hour cable news cycle in a world where the internet never turns off.
I got asked the question this morning, “What do libraries do now that there’s the internet?” He didn’t mean it in a mean way, he just was not a book guy and just didn’t know. And my answer to him was, “There’s too much information now and people need help navigating it.”
That is a huge part of what the library does, is help you find the best information out of a sea of so much misinformation or just mediocre information. I think maybe everyone could just take a breath every once in a while and realize that not everything can be for you. And that someone else may enjoy the thing that you don’t like, but it’s not your job to take that away from them. That they are allowed to be who they are and like what they like. And if we could just show each other a little bit more grace in all aspects of our lives, but especially in the public sector, I think we would all be a little bit happier, frankly.
On this West Virginia Morning, for the past several years, on a warm autumn afternoon at the end of September, the parking lot of West Virginia University’s Coliseum fills with visitors. But they don’t come to watch basketball. As Chris Schulz reports, they come out for the paw paw fruit.
On this West Virginia Morning, for the past several years, on a warm autumn afternoon at the end of September, the parking lot of West Virginia University’s Coliseum fills with visitors. But they don’t come to watch basketball. As Chris Schulz reports, they come out for the paw paw fruit.
Also, in this show, this week is banned books week. Groups like the American Library Association encourage people to look at the books that have been banned and to think about why people attempt to remove them from public view.
News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Megan Tarbett, the director of the Putnam County Library and the president of the West Virginia Library Association to find out what it is all about.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Caroline MacGregor produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom focused on the criminal justice system, published a searchable database of the books banned in 18 state prison systems. Some states, like West Virginia, didn’t provide banned book lists, but the states provided book policies on how they ban books in the first place. Banned book lists are available for download.
Book bans in schools and libraries have been in the news lately, but books are also being banned in prisons without much public attention.
The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom focused on the criminal justice system, published a searchable database of the books banned in 18 state prison systems. Some states, like West Virginia, didn’t provide banned book lists, but the states provided book policies on how they ban books in the first place. Banned book lists are available for download.
News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Andrew Calderon about the project and what it means in West Virginia prisons.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Explain to me why prisons ban books in the first place?
Calderon: From the perspective of the policies that we reviewed, it seems that there is a really big concern on books being a threat to order or security, be it because the books themselves can be used to smuggle in contraband or because information can be transmitted in them in the forms of notes or highlights. Sometimes the policies also make it clear that the format of the book itself can be considered a threat. For example, there are some systems that ban spiral binding or hardcover books. It’s unclear to me based on the reporting that I’ve done to what extent books have been used in those ways. Either they’ve incited violence or been used as part of gang activity or something to be able to smuggle contraband or information, but it seems that the policies themselves elicit a very explicit fear of that happening.
We also spoke to many people who are trying to get books into prisons and have been doing so for decades. And from their perspective, the policies are overly restrictive and make it hard for both their programs, as well as family members of the incarcerated, to get much needed information into the facilities. For example, many people who try to get books into prison systems often rely on donations because price is a major concern. And there’s one example out of Wisconsin where a group sent in a number of new books that were beaten up by the mail carrier in the course of transport, and by the time they made it to the mailroom, the mailroom deemed them to be used because they were so mangled and sent them back.
Douglas: Is this something that’s gotten more restrictive in the last 20 years? Or are these policies that have been in place for a while?
Calderon: I don’t have a clear answer on that. But what I can say is that there is a sense among people who are working on this space that because of the environment around book bans, in general, across the country, especially in the education system, that there might be ways in which the prison systems will respond and themselves also become more restrictive, because ultimately they are public entities. And many of these prohibitions happen much less publicly than they do in schools. And so it’s possible that it’s already happening. And it’s just really hard for us to know.
From the policy review we did, we managed to get policies from 37 states. And we found that in four states plus the federal system, there’s an explicit ban on having a banned book list inside of the facilities. And so in those systems, it’s virtually impossible for us to know which books are being prohibited and which ones are being allowed into the facility.
Douglas: So they literally have a rule that says there can’t be a list of books that we’ve banned. But we are banning books.
Calderon: That’s right. I spoke with an official in Alaska, which is one of those states, and asked him about the pros and cons of this policy. And what he said to me was that he thinks that it’s better this way, because every single book is reviewed on a case-by-case basis and on its own merits. At the same time, he acknowledged that it does leave room for inconsistencies, but that in a system like Alaska is, which he said is small, it’s about 5,000 people who are incarcerated, and a small number of people who are working, they in part rely on institutional memory, to prevent those inconsistencies. And they also think that the appeals process for people who are incarcerated whenever they do receive a rejection, which is common in many states, can also be a corrective.
Douglas: Let’s talk about West Virginia for a minute. I know you don’t have a whole lot of specific information on the state but you did get West Virginia’s policy. What is the state policy on books in prisons?
Calderon: So for West Virginia, in particular, there were specific criteria listed for when a book should or should not be banned. That included some of the common things that we see in other policies like nudity, violence, etc. West Virginia also has an appeals process that allows people who are incarcerated who receive a rejection to appeal that process through the grievance system. And also in the policy, there’s room actually for the possibility that people in the mailroom who are reviewing the books who may not have all of the knowledge or understanding of the book necessary to be able to make a decision about whether or not it should be banned. And so there’s recourse for the mailroom to consult with legal counsel, as well.
There are also some specific deadlines that need to be observed, like the person who’s incarcerated has about 20 days to submit an internal grievance when they receive a rejection. And it’s important to note that because largely whether or not they receive the rejection in a timely manner, determines whether or not they’re able to file the grievance in a timely manner, which we’ve heard in some systems can sometimes be a problem as well.
Douglas: The way you’re talking about restrictions at the mailroom level, I would think decisions on what books can be allowed would be handled by a librarian, or by somebody in management, rather than just somebody in the mailroom who’s opening packages.
Calderon: We’ve heard from people who interact with the system, often when they’re sending books in, they’ll say that they often get rejection letters that show that there’s a complete misunderstanding of the substance of the book, or that in some cases, a book is rejected, just because the person who’s reviewing the book, the CO [Corrections Officer], doesn’t like the recipient, or has some problem with them, and will also reject it, just make it difficult for things to get to that person. That’s something that’s hard to prove, but it’s apparently not uncommon in the system for people to say that’s what’s happening.
Douglas: West Virginia is one of those states that does not maintain a list of banned books within the system. Is that correct?
Calderon: West Virginia is one of the states that explicitly bans the creation of a banned book list.
Douglas: Anything else you can tell me about West Virginia specifically?
Calderon: Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s in part because they don’t have a banned book list. If I had a banned book list, we’d be able to glean more about the system. And you know how these decisions are made when they’re made, the reasons that certain books are rejected, what kinds of books are rejected, and this speaks to, however well-meaning the policy of not having banned books are. To give credit to the institution or to be charitable to them, I’m sure that whoever wrote this down had some sense of the positives. But it does create an opacity that doesn’t allow us to glean what is happening inside of the system. And that doesn’t come without its disadvantages.
Douglas: What are some of the positive reasons for not having a banned book list?
Calderon: Well, from our conversation with an official from Alaska, he said that not having a banned book list in the state of Alaska makes it so that books aren’t just rejected outright because of their presence on the list, and that it forces the institution to review every book on a case by case basis to assess it on its own merits and to see whether or not it does or does not run afoul of the policy. I would assume that a similar logic might apply in other states that have decided to adopt this policy, as well. But it comes with the disadvantage that we simply can’t track what books are being banned and why.
Douglas: For the states that you do have data on, how big are these lists? I mean, what’s the scope of the problem?
Calderon: The frequency with which books are rejected varies from system to system. So as you can imagine, Florida and Texas have some of the largest carceral systems, therefore have some of the biggest banned book lists. And then you have other states that have much shorter lists, you know, maybe only a couple of 100 entries. There’s always the possibility of data, errors or issues with data collection, so maybe more books are being banned and they’re not being entered into the system.
There are many books that are being banned, because they’re considered inflammatory. But oftentimes, those are books that have to do with Black empowerment, Civil Rights, there are also books that we found that perhaps are not about history, but have also been considered dangerous, like yoga books, or books about meditation. Sometimes books are banned, not because of the substance of the book, maybe a Yoga Book is banned, because somebody in the book, there’s an image of them that exposes a part of their body, like their chest, and the person in the mailroom might deem that it’s too salacious for the the facility and so they will reject it.
For example, someone wrote to us to say that they wanted to send their brother a book of art by Ai Weiwei, a famous Chinese artist. And in one of the pages of the book the artist appears semi-nude. And they rejected the book in Arizona because of nudity.
Douglas: Is there anything we haven’t talked about?
Calderon: We’re really interested in building relationships with people who have experience in this system, either from the inside or from the outside. If they want to reach out to us, we have tried to make that easy on our website, if you go to TheMarshallProject.com.
We also have an email that people can use to send us any tips or to write to us about their experience, which is BookBans@TheMarshallProject.com.
On this West Virginia Morning, news about book bans have been in the spotlight lately, but books are also being banned in prisons without much public attention. The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom focused on the criminal justice system, published a searchable database of the books banned in 18 state prison systems. News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Andrew Calderon about the project and what it means in West Virginia prisons.
On this West Virginia Morning, news about book bans have been in the spotlight lately, but books are also being banned in prisons without much public attention.
The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom focused on the criminal justice system, published a searchable database of the books banned in 18 state prison systems.
News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Andrew Calderon about the project and what it means in West Virginia prisons.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from West Virginia University, Concord University, and Shepherd University.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
