Interview of Ken Miller, Librarian at Pack Memorial Library, March 1, 2018. Interviewed by Cara Forbes.<\/b><\/p>\n
CF: So are you familiar with Toni Morrison\u2019s book, <\/span>The Bluest Eye<\/span><\/i>? <\/span><\/p>\n KM: I am. I have not read the book, but I am familiar with that title. We keep it in the collection. She is one of the most famous and decorated American authors and that\u2019s one of her most popular titles so there is perpetual interest in it as well as interest in <\/span>Song of Solomon<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Beloved<\/span><\/i> and a few of her other titles. <\/span><\/p>\n CF: Awesome. So one of the things that we\u2019re looking into for this project is specifically the censorship of<\/span> The Bluest Eye<\/span><\/i>\u2019s sexually explicit content, especially in high school settings. The case that were looking at was an Honor\u2019s Junior level class where the book was challenged by a parent. So, one of the questions that we had on censorship was, do you think that there is a age group where it is appropriate to censor material, especially in the context of sexually explicit material? <\/span><\/p>\n KM: I guess I would have questions about what you mean by censorship. It depends on whether you mean preventing a teacher from teaching that book in class or restricting access to that book in the public library. Those are two different issues completely.<\/span><\/p>\n CF: In this case, the book is being restricted from being taught in a specific class but I would also be interested to hear your commentary from the public library domain as well.<\/span><\/p>\n KM: Sure, well, in the public library we hold the book in the collection, and books like that in the collection, and if it\u2019s a book that was reviewed in a source, a professional source that we use regularly, and that source indicated that it was best suited for an adult readership, then we would put it in the adult collection, if that source said it is suitable for adult and young adult, we might put it in both collections. Our circulation policy is that if you own a Buncombe County library card that\u2019s in your name, then you can check out from any of those collections. A twelve-year-old, for example, could walk in and check out <\/span>The Bluest Eye<\/span><\/i> and there\u2019s no restriction on that whatsoever. Does that make sense?<\/span><\/p>\n CF: It does. That makes a lot of sense. So one of the arguments that we\u2019ve been hearing is that there are other books that you could be reading to get the same message that aren\u2019t as offensive. Do you think that there is a value to offending readers?<\/span><\/p>\n KM: I think the goal, at least in schools, should be educating readers. And I\u2019m not an educator myself. So I don\u2019t know that anyone\u2019s goal explicitly is to offend. But sometimes when you broaden someone\u2019s horizons, they\u2019re upset about what they have learned about the world that they have not learned before. And some people consider that being offended – to learn that a certain offensive or derogatory term is applied to a certain race or people of a certain gender is upsetting to some people. Its part of historical context, in many cases, some people don\u2019t want to be offended. But I am uncomfortable about the notion of withholding knowledge about history and the history of literature from people just so they aren\u2019t offended. Did that make sense?<\/span><\/p>\n CF: That does. So do you have a censorship process?<\/span><\/p>\n KM: I wouldn\u2019t call it a censorship process. The form is called the \u201cStatement of Concern About Materials Form\u201d. And I\u2019m glad to give you one after we\u2019re done if you want. So it allows a patron, which is what we call library users, to make a statement of concern about materials – \u00a0like, for example, they might say, \u2018I don\u2019t think this book should be in the public library\u2019 or they might say, \u2018I don\u2019t think this book should be in the children\u2019s part of the public library\u2019. Really, they can make any statement that they wish, like, \u2018This film\u2019s rating should be larger so people that go to check out the film will have an easier time of knowing what the rating is and what it\u2019s for\u2019. And then we respond to the patron. It doesn\u2019t mean we always act in accordance with the patron\u2019s wishes, but we address their concerns with a response.<\/span><\/p>\n CF: Well, unless you have any other comments that you feel compelled to share I think that wraps things up. <\/span><\/p>\n KM: We\u2019re a public library and a taxpayer-funded institution and we\u2019re considerably more open on the issue of censorship than school librarians who are there to serve a certain age group of person or college librarians who are there to support curriculum. We\u2019re here to support everybody. And various viewpoints and perspectives are contained in the works on our shelves and that’s the hope and that\u2019s what we hope it always will be. <\/span><\/p>\n CF: Thank you very much I appreciate it<\/span><\/p>\n KM: Sure, sure.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Interview of Ken Miller, Librarian at Pack Memorial Library, March 1, 2018. Interviewed by Cara Forbes. CF: So are you familiar with Toni Morrison\u2019s book, The Bluest Eye? KM: I am. I have not read the book, but I am familiar with that title. We keep it in the collection.\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-131","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/burn.coplacdigital.org\/unca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/burn.coplacdigital.org\/unca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/burn.coplacdigital.org\/unca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burn.coplacdigital.org\/unca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burn.coplacdigital.org\/unca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/burn.coplacdigital.org\/unca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360,"href":"https:\/\/burn.coplacdigital.org\/unca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131\/revisions\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/burn.coplacdigital.org\/unca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}