UK campaign body Index on Censorship (IoC) has discovered that more two dozen school librarians in the UK have been asked to remove books – many of which are LGBTQ+ titles – from school library shelves.
The IoC survey found that 28 of 53 librarians polled – 53% – said that they had been asked to remove books. In more than half of those cases books were taken off shelves.
Among the titles complained about were This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, Julián is a Mermaid by Jessica Love, and ABC Pride by Louie Stowell, Elly Barnes and Amy Phelps. More than 50% of the requests to remove books came from parents.
Alison Tarrant, chief executive of the School Library Association (SLA), said: “[Censorship] is definitely something that there’s quite a lot of concern about from some of our members”. She told the Guardian that there appears to be something of a “trend” of censorship targeted at books written by queer authors or featuring queer characters.
The IoC commented: “Books challenged in several schools – but ultimately not removed – included various Heartstopper books by Alice Oseman, which were accused of homophobic language, swearing and self-harm discussions. Young adult fiction also came under fire in many schools, with librarians usually able to hold firm in keeping their collections.
“One was asked to remove a book for “racism against white people”. They did not comply with the request.
“Our overall sample was small. Only 53 school librarians took part in the survey which we distributed via the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), the School Library Association (SLA) and on a school librarians Facebook page. But it is not the only evidence we collected. We heard plenty of anecdotal accounts from librarians and the organisations that represent them. A CILIP survey in 2023 found that a third of librarians in public libraries had also been asked to remove books. Even more worryingly there seems to be a lot of self-censorship – librarians not supplying books for fear of coming into conflict with parents and senior staff in religious schools or those thought to have a religiously conservative student body.”