As one of those librarians who was challenged, I’ve always thought that citizens in an open society have a right to question what their tax dollars go for and question the appropriateness of —for instance —books in their public library. And the American Library Association agrees with that, and even recommends that public libraries have a transparent policy that lays out the path a local citizen may take to “challenge “library material.

In my large public library there were a few staff members who were reactive in a challenge, but they tended to be the non-professional staff. My process in managing a challenge was to form a temporary committee of two other people and me, and we all reviewed the material, and if it was a book we read it, and if it was a video, we watched it, made written comments, and I then decided to keep the material or pull out from the collection. Usually we kept the material but every couple years there were something that after every review, we decided it wasn’t appropriate for our collection. Once in a while, we moved something from one location to another, or from one age collection to another, if it was youth material.

I wish I could remember some of the titles of the more interesting challenges. One of them was the film In The Realm of the Senses about a Japanese prostitute in the 1930s, who killed her lover, and then cut off his penis and carried it around with her for several days. That film is tricky because it was X-rated at the time because it was made in the days when the rating X was given to films, but it was an art house film. I think we pulled that one from the collection and I talked to my boss about it. She was the administrator in charge of the film collection. That challenge was especially tricky if I remember correctly because the person who originally ordered the video refused to consider the challenge in the “I am right/do not question me” vein and that right there is a problem if you don’t go into it with an open mind.