(New York) Like most librarians in his country, Nick Higgins saw red when he learned of Texas Representative Matt Krause’s list in October 2021.
This list included some 850 books which, according to the elected Republican, risked causing students “embarrassment, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or their sex” . Hence his request to public schools in his state to check if they had one or more of these books on a multitude of subjects, including racism, homosexuality and feminism.
“It was a form of intimidation, especially for administrators and school librarians,” recalls Nick Higgins, chief librarian of Brooklyn’s vast public library system, whose flagship stands at the north entrance of Prospect Park.
For Nick Higgins and a group of his New York colleagues, Matt Krause’s list was above all a call to join the fight against censorship which continues to spread in the United States.
“We wanted to know if there was a way to intervene on behalf of young people who may not have the support that young people in Brooklyn enjoy,” says Nick Higgins.
Digital subscriptions for 6,000 young people
This reflection led to the launch of a project called Books Unbanned on April 13, 2022. Less than a year later, this project has enabled nearly 6,000 young Americans, aged 13 to 21, to obtain a free digital subscription card providing access to the half-million digital and audiobooks of the Brooklyn Public Library, which serves New York’s most populous and progressive borough.
“We thought we were getting 100, 200 emails from people wanting to get a digital subscription card,” says Leigh Hurwitz, outreach programs manager at the Brooklyn Public Library and a member of the team leading the Books Unbanned project.
We also thought that the project would have a limited duration. We seriously misjudged the needs. There is no end in sight now.
Leigh Hurwitz, from the Books Unbanned project
The initiative of the five members of the Books Unbanned project team earned them, at the beginning of the month, to be named “librarians of the year 2023” by the Library Journalthe middle reference.
PHOTO RICHARD HÉTU, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Nick Higgins and Leigh Hurwitz, from the Books Unbanned project
In announcing its choice, the journal presented disturbing data on book censorship in the United States. In the first eight months of 2022, the American Library Association (ALA) recorded 681 attempts to ban or restrict access to 1,651 titles, a record since this data was collected.
For its part, the organization PEN America, which defends freedom of expression, has listed 2,532 cases of banning of individual books, affecting 1,648 titles, from July 2021 to June 2022.
Behind these statistics, there is a human reality that Leigh Hurwitz became familiar with by reading the emails or Instagram messages of young people who contacted Books Unbanned. Because these often describe the circumstances that lead them to request a digital subscription card from the Brooklyn Public Library.
It’s heartbreaking. I would say that half of the requests come from young people from the LGBTQ+ community. They tell us that they have no access to books about them.
Leigh Hurwitz, from the Books Unbanned project
“We also get emails from young black people, and even from parents who tell us: ‘We are black and our school does not have books written by black authors in its collection.’ It’s heartbreaking, but at the same time, I’m grateful that we can provide them with this resource, because they don’t have it any other way. »
According to Nick Higgins, there is a perfect match between the states from which requests to Books Unbanned originate and those where book censorship is most rampant in schools. Taking into account their relative demographic weight, the six states that generate the greatest number of requests are the following, in descending order: Oklahoma, Georgia, Utah, Idaho, Florida and Texas.
Refuse invisibility
Giving young people access to books banned in their corner of the country was just one goal of the Books Unbanned project, which is sponsored by the Brooklyn Public Library but publicly funded.
“We also wanted to take control of a narrative that had previously been dominated by parents campaigning for a book to be banned and taken off the shelves. It was the story of a small group of people who want to impose a particular set of values on a larger group of people. We wanted to bring that conversation back into the space of the public library and start to own the conversation about intellectual freedom. »
Members of the Books Unbanned project team also aimed to enlist teenagers in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the fight against book censorship. Those in Brooklyn have already been instrumental in finding a name for the Brooklyn Public Library Project and promoting it across the United States.
But the rest of the fight remains to be defined, according to Nick Higgins.
We give young people access to 500,000 titles, but they still live in states that ban books.
Nick Higgins, chief librarian of the Brooklyn Public Library System and one of the initiators of the Books Unbanned project
“The next phase is to connect teens with other teens to talk about what’s really going on. Then, as responsible adults in Brooklyn and other places across the country, we need to provide them with the tools, resources, and training to respond and speak out effectively. I don’t know the answer to all of this, but it’s about more than books, it’s about people. Leigh Hurwitz insists on this last point: “Yes, it’s about democracy and freedom of expression, but really, for those who want to ban books, it’s about trying to push people out of community and making them invisible, making them feel unwelcome and in danger. »