Mike Curato’s “Flamer” was on the American Library Association’s Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022 list. It’s seen here on Thursday, May 11, 2023 in the Vigo County Public Library. Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza
The year 2022 saw a record number of attempted book bans — 1,269, according to the American Library Association, Most of the books targeted were about or written by people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Now Indiana has joined in the fray. On May 4, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed House Bill 1447, which declares that schools can no longer claim legal protection by using “educational purposes” as a reason for sharing banned materials with minors.
Public and charter schools are now required to post online a list of books in their libraries and create a procedure for parents seeking to request material be removed.
Such requests must be reviewed by local school boards at their next public meeting. An appeal process must be created by school boards for when they disagree with the complaint.
Initially, HB 1447 also applied to public libraries, but that language was removed from the bill before its final vote.
By contrast, Illinois lawmakers recently passed a bill protecting against book banning in libraries.
And in a recent American Family Survey, 65% said it was important for public school libraries to offer a variety of perspectives about controversial issues — even if it makes some people uncomfortable.
“I’m a believer in open access, so I don’t support book banning,” said Vigo County Public Library Executive Director Kristi Howe. “But across the nation, we are seeing this being a topic of conversation. It’s seeing a resurgence right now.”
Stephen Patton, Indiana State University chair of library systems, said, “I think a lot of this has been inspired by the success in Florida.
“Texas and Indiana are looking at trying to align themselves with what is happening in Florida. … These parenting organizations are getting together and pushing for more banned books.”
“It’s something that the entire profession has been paying attention to,” Howe said. “For the most part, at least in public libraries, we try to focus on keeping access fundamental, as a right, and not get into the whole political fray. Sometimes we’re pulled into a more political conversation.”
Patton said, “If you’re eliminating library books, what you’re doing is trying to eliminate ideas.”
Thomas Steiger, ISU professor of sociology, is unimpressed with the efforts of the Indiana Statehouse.
“First off, I don’t think these laws will stand up in court — it’s one thing for a single library to decide not to include something, it’s quite different when the state deems it,” he said. “This is all about politics, and without anything more to run on than the culture wars, it’s a big distraction and that’s it.”
“The new set of book banning laws are part of a larger Republican agenda to silence the voices of marginalized communities,” ISU professor of political science Carly Schmitt said. “The politics of fear has been used to pass laws that target the LGBTQ+ community and book-banning legislation.
“Here, we see that GOP politicians use the ‘protecting our youth’ narrative to masquerade the discriminatory basis of these laws,” she added. “Book bans in particular are discriminatory, as the authors of the books that are targeted with bans tend to be from marginalized communities.”
Patton and Howe said that the ISU and public libraries don’t encounter much resistance to reading material.
Occasionally, Howe said, the Vigo library hears from customers making inquiries or expressing concern about certain materials.
“My preference is to use that as an opportunity for dialogue — that I can hear what they may have a question or concern about, and we can talk that through,” she said. “In my experience here, that’s usually as far as it goes. We have a conversation about the role of the library.”
In a 2013 survey, job satisfaction was at 71% among public librarians and 70% among school librarians, according to the School Library Journal.
In 2023, those statistics dropped to 57 and 62%, respectively.
Patton noted, “Even the programs for training K-12 librarians are being slowly diminished. You’ll see an atrophy of those librarians — they already feel the pressure and they’re spread out over multiple libraries.”
Howe agreed: “Educators feel that their environment is a little bit precarious now.”
These bans, Steiger said, can “run all the curiosity out of students.”
Schmitt warned, “The intent of these laws are to return to a society where marginalized communities do not have a foothold, and eliminating books with themes that map on to the experiences of those in marginalized communities takes away their ability to have a visual presence, and, more importantly, to gain power in society.”
Some observers believe that such laws are designed to encourage self-censorship on the librarians’ behalf.
“We as librarians have talked to legislators about that,” Howe said. “There has been concern that even if legislation is passed that isn’t detrimental as we fear, there could be a chilling effect from that — that people start holding back or questioning their judgement or not be willing to take the chance that [a book] might be problematic.”
She vowed that that will not happen at the Vigo County Public Library.
“In our conversations here at this library, we’re not going down that road,” Howe said. “We have intelligent, skilled people who are selecting material for us.”
© 2025 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.