Book Rating Websites as Tools for Censorship
What are Book Ratings?
Rating systems are tools or labels devised by a person or organization to advise people about the suitability of books and other library materials for readers. Recently, several book rating systems devised by religious and political pressure groups are promoting ratings, book reviews, and content labels that identify many books as “objectionable content.” Books identified as “objectionable content” by these groups’ ratings systems include viewpoints, opinions, and topics they do not approve of based on their personal and moral beliefs. These ratings are generally posted on websites and shared on social media.
These websites are not devised by trained and degreed educators, librarians, or professional reviewers. Contributors do not consider a work’s literary or educational value for students. Yet the ratings are increasingly being used by school systems, library boards, and lawmakers as tools for censoring and banning books and other library materials.
Using Book Ratings in Library Collections Threatens First Amendment Rights
Ratings systems that assess books based on a group or individual’s subjective feelings about a book’s content introduce viewpoint and content-based biases into decisions about a library’s collections. Using these rating systems as rationales for restricting the purchase of library materials or access to materials is a form of unconstitutional viewpoint and content-based censorship that violates the First Amendment rights of readers, including students.
Labels and ratings that prejudice, discourage, or otherwise predispose people’s attitudes towards library resources impose a few people’s viewpoints on the entire library community, denying readers the right to decide for themselves or their own children what is suitable to read. These subjective book ratings convey the background, views, and value judgments of their creators, who are often generating the ratings to push particular ideologies. The ratings classify some people’s stories as inappropriate or offensive for all, even though many readers find those stories valuable and important.
Parents should be able to guide their child’s reading and make decisions about what library materials they would choose for their child. But no single parent or group of parents should be able to limit other children’s access to books. Allowing an individual or small group of parents to limit all minors’ access to library books violates other parents’ rights to choose what is best for their own children.
The presence of books in the library is not an endorsement of their contents. Rather, the books and materials are selected following the library’s collection development policy. Librarians are trained in collection development and are best suited to implement library collection development policies. They build effective library collections based on well-vetted and popular book review resources, educational resources, and the interests and needs of their community as aligned with their library’s policies. In school libraries, library staff also respond to the school’s curricular needs and actively engage with teachers and students to understand their needs as well. School libraries also carefully select books that are developmentally appropriate for library users. Books meant for high school students are not shelved in elementary school libraries.
The selections librarians make are viewpoint-neutral—librarians do not advocate for the ideas found in their libraries’ collections. Instead, library collections contain a wide array of materials, allowing individuals to make up their minds about the ideas they examine. Aside from viewpoint-neutral guides (call numbers, stickers indicating particular genres such as mystery or science fiction), which help library visitors find what most interests them, librarians do not rate or rank the books in their collections. They trust individuals and, in the case of minors, their parents, to determine which materials best suit their needs.
Every community is a collective of individuals with differing attitudes and viewpoints about what is deemed offensive or immoral. No one group of people should take responsibility for making that decision for the entire community. Subjective book rating websites are tools for censorship when they are used to make decisions about library collections. Individuals may choose to select books based on subjective standards, but imposing those standards on everyone’s library choices violates their freedom to read.
Additional Resources
Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights
Labeling Systems: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretation/labeling-systems
Rating Systems: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/rating-systems
Labeling Rating Systems Q&A
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/labelingratingqa
AASL: Position Statement on Labeling Practices
Statement Regarding Midwest Tape/Hoopla Age and Content Ratings System
https://www.oif.ala.org/oif-statement-regarding-midwest-tape-hoopla-age-and-content-ratings-system/