Why People Challenge Books
The grounds on which people challenge books are thoroughly discussed in the literature, notably by the Facts on File Banned Books series, which does an admirable job of categorizing books on the basis of challenges for social, sexual, political, or religious content.13 Censors often fail to view literature holistically, concentrating on specific words or scenes as objectionable instead of evaluating the merit of a work as a whole.14
While content including sex, profanity, or religious viewpoints may catalyze challenges, the underlying motivations of censorship attempts are often more complex.15 Cain notes that “some censors have low tolerance for diversity, ambiguity and conflict, because they see these things as dangerous to order and stability.”16 Avid defenders of the First Amendment embrace the very traits that would-be censors reject, believing that “disagreement and controversy are not only inevitable, but desirable, the very life-blood of all intellectual and cultural activity.”17
Summary
Lee’s introduction to the 2002 exhibit suggests that books that inspire may also offend: “[Books] liberate us from the narrowness that tradition and society impose…. This is the power of books—a power that some societies fear and, consequently, they seek to restrain access to books and the ability to read. We are fortunate to live in a society that recognizes and appreciates the value of books and reading.”18
The mission of higher education is to promote individual enrichment and community engagement. Studies demonstrate that students continue to participate in recreational reading despite time constraints and that leisure reading correlates strongly with student achievement in the short-term as well as long-term success and civic participation. Academic librarians recognize the connection between leisure reading and the academic mission and have developed library services that support or encourage leisure reading. Understanding the value of leisure reading, the qualities that make books inspiring, and the reasons controversy attaches to them may give academic librarians a new understanding of readers’ advisory services in academic libraries and the extent to which those services can support the mission of higher education.
Method
Observing the University of Oklahoma Libraries’ annual BTI exhibit prompted two questions: (1) What are the reasons people find certain books inspiring? and (2) Are there any relationships between those reasons and the reasons that those same books have been challenged or censored?
This study, which is concerned with the leisure reading interests and motivations of members of the academic community, used the contributions to the Books That Inspire exhibit as a convenience sample. The study included the books from the first five exhibits (2001–05) and the seventh (2007). The 2006 “encore exhibit” of selected entries from previous years was omitted. This yielded 298 entries discussing 277 titles, with 13 books having been contributed twice by different people and 4 books, 3 times. Members of the University of Oklahoma faculty contributed 179 of the entries; non-athletics staff, 91; members of the Athletics Department, 28. In recognition of the state’s 2007 centennial activities, the seventh exhibit highlighted books either about Oklahoma or written by Oklahoma authors; otherwise, contributors were free to nominate books of any type.
The BTI contributors’ statements about their books were studied using content analysis techniques to determine why they were viewed as inspiring. For the books that had been the object of censorship, the exhibit statements and the literature on the challenges were compared to ascertain if there were any similarities between the reasons that they were deemed variously offensive and inspiring.
First, cases of the books having been banned, censored, challenged, prohibited, or suppressed were researched. This article generally refers to those books as having been “challenged,” but intends the term broadly: Cases ranged from official state suppression to single complaints at school or public libraries. Searching for challenges included consulting approximately 20 encyclopedias and anthologies on censorship, obtaining the references that those sources cited, and searching in relevant databases for news or research articles mentioning challenges.19 Challenges were found for 48 entries (38 unique titles). A graduate research assistant reviewed the resultant literature and excerpted key words and phrases that explained the reasons for each challenge.
The researchers then independently examined the BTI contributors’ statements, conducted a content analysis of all 298 statements, and jointly through an iterative process developed a vocabulary to describe the themes that emerged. These themes were not defined with reference to any preexisting framework; rather, they were developed a posteriori from the text of the contributors’ statements. Finally, similar or related themes were grouped together and organized into overarching concepts.
As a precaution against bias, the researchers minimized their exposure to the located literature about challenges (including the keywords selected by the graduate research assistant) as much as possible until having completed this process. Only after the themes were finalized did the researchers review that literature and examine the underlying reasons for the challenges. The reasons for the challenges were compared to the themes that had emerged from the BTI contributors’ statements for each of the forty-eight challenged entries. (Wherever possible, the researchers examined the original language used by challengers rather than that of commentators; however, some analyses by third parties were also included in the study.) The hypothesis driving the comparison was that inspired readers and offended readers would likely emphasize similar aspects of a given work, but would differ markedly in their framing, the former celebrating aspects that the latter condemned. Finally, the frequency with which each theme occurred in challenged and unchallenged books’ statements was compared to determine if there were any trends differentiating the two groups.
Findings
The analysis of the BTI contributors’ statements revealed twenty-six major recurrent themes. Those themes clustered into seven major concepts: the connection between the book and its reader, relationships and understanding others, the individual in society, self-improvement and living righteously, worldview or philosophy, intellectual influence and appeal, and readership. The identified themes appeared in as few as 3 (1 percent) to as many as 100 (34 percent) of the 298 statements. Table 1 indicates the frequency with which each theme emerged from the challenged and unchallenged books’ statements.
