Q: It’s important to me to try to build a bridge when someone comes to me with a concern about library materials. Currently, complaints seem more focused on eliminating certain types of content from libraries rather than specific books (although books are mentioned–usually quite a few). Complaints also feel more politically motivated than personal. What strategies do you suggest I use to find common ground?
Your desire to build bridges is understandable, and commendable.
Before we address that aspect of your question, we want to note that while many materials complaints and challenges in recent years have felt politically motivated, as you state, the concern or challenge in front of a school or public library at any given time is a local issue, and it is personal to those who raised the concern. Everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this: They are speaking up because they care; and they are exercising their right to question. We aren’t saying this to negate the differences you’ve noted in the nature of challenges in recent years, but it is important to acknowledge, and one way to ground yourself any time you are addressing a concern or challenge. (Just as policies and related procedures establish parameters that guide the selection of materials for the library, they also provide parameters for submitting and addressing concerns as well. To that end, making sure all involved are following your institution’s board-approved process is still the most important thing you can do as you and your institution navigate through a materials concern situation.)
Regarding your desire to build bridges: There may be disagreement at every stage of a concern or challenge. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to work toward mutual understanding of your points of view (rather than changing minds), with your role one of listening and informing. (We’ve written elsewhere on the importance of listening at the time of a materials concern. That’s a critical first step. When you respond, begin by making sure you understand their concern by restating it.)
You note wanting to “find common ground.” Giving the benefit of the doubt regarding the motivation behind a concern or challenge positions you on common ground with those raising the concern in two critical ways when the materials in question intersect with library services to children and/or teens:
- You all care about the children and teens in your community. (That’s why you do the work you do, it’s what motivated them to bring up their concern.)
- You all value the critical role that parents and guardians play in guiding their children’s development and reading.
State these two points in a friendly, conversational manner e.g.: “I can tell that you, like all of us here at the library, care about the children and teens in our community. And like you, we value the role that parents and guardians play in their children’s reading. That understanding is important to the work we do building collections for our community.”
It’s ok if they don’t agree with you, and disagreement about common ground beyond these two points is likely obvious if there is a concern on the table.
But this is where the context and responsibilities of your different roles matter. Parents and guardians must consider the needs and interests of their own children–the children for whom they have personal responsibility–in engaging with the library collection. You/the library (or school district) have responsibility for and commitment to serving all children, teens and families in your community when developing the library collection.
The bridge here is assuring them that you appreciate and welcome their involvement in their own child’s reading and choices, and that you/library staff are (or should be) ready to provide information about the collection and help parents/families find materials they will find useful and/or enjoy.
We know that it isn’t always a parent who is raising a concern about materials that youth in a community have access to. You can still affirm your shared interest in the well being of the youth in the community, and you can still state that you/the library respect the role of parents and guardians in guiding their own children’s reading. Even if the complaint is about adult materials and audience, we hope there is still common ground in caring about the community and believing that people should be able to decide for themselves what they want to read or view from among the offerings the library has provided, following its board-approved policies and procedures for developing a collection to serve the entire community.
Regardless of who is raising the concern, there are two other points to share important to a library’s efforts to curate its collection:
- Your community–every community–is diverse in ways that are visible and ways that are not apparent. That diversity includes aspects of individual and family identity and experience as well as diversity of tastes and opinions on everything from reading choices to hobbies to political beliefs. And among parents and guardians, it includes varying ideas regarding materials their children read.
- The library (school or public) is responsible for building a professionally curated collection that provides choices to meet the wide-ranging needs and interests of the individuals and families in your community.
These ideas are critical to the context of the library’s work and its responsibilities as a public institution.
Every person bringing a concern to the library has a voice and opinion that matters; the process for responding to concerns should offer them the opportunity to be heard and for their concern to be given due process. (What that looks like will vary from place to place depending on the policies and procedures in place.) But no concerned individual can speak for everyone in the community, even if they have raised their concern as part of an organized group. If the concern becomes a formal challenge, the complaint and issues raised should be given thoughtful consideration following the library’s relevant, board-approved policies and related procedures, including the library’s collection development guidelines, selection criteria, and goals for serving its community as a whole, from the most visible and most vocal to least visible and least vocal members.
May, 2025
Thank you to Tessa Michaelson Schmidt and Caitlin Tobin for contributing to this response.