Poll Shows Growing Support for Book Banning
According to the recent 2015 survey, 28% of adults feel there are certain books that should be banned from school libraries — up from 18% in 2011. Meanwhile, 71% believed books should be assigned a rating system similar to the one used for movies. The same percentage expected librarians to prevent children from borrowing materials deemed inappropriate for their age group.
While experts caution against drawing broad conclusions about censorship from the survey, the results suggest an expectation of school librarians to serve as gatekeepers:
This perception of librarians as monitors ‘could, in fact, be driving some of the changes in attitudes toward whether any books should be banned in general…With the rise of electronic books…some people are concerned that this takes the gatekeeper out of the equation, and makes certain inappropriate books more available to children.’ (School Library Journal)
