A book was removed from Richmond Public Library (RPL) in 2022 for containing misinformation about COVID-19, while three children’s books about gender and sexuality and a cookbook were allowed to stay on the shelves.
The Truth about COVID-19 by Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins was the first book to be removed from RPL since 2015, according to a report by RPL.
Wendy Jang, coordinator of collections and customer service delivery, said the book was removed because it contained “numerous misleading discredited statements in the footnotes” and cited “questionable sources.”
It also prescribed treatments deemed dangerous by medical professionals and mixed sensible health advice with pseudoscientific advice. One of the authors, Mercola, had been warned by the American Food and Drug Administration to stop offering Vitamin D as a treatment or prevention option for COVID-19.
“McGill University’s Office for Science and Society website described the book as ‘monumentally wrong,’” said Jang.
Jang said she’s not sure how the book ended up on RPL shelves in the first place, but she suspects its popularity at the time might have something to do with it.
“It was a very popular book for some people.”
The three children’s books, which RPL decided to retain in its collection, are Tabitha and Magoo Dress Up Too by Michelle Tea and illustrated by Elvis Van der Dos; It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, Gender and Sexual Health by Robie Harris and Michael Emberley; and Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberger and Fiona Smyth.
A customer had complained that Tabitha and Magoo “promoted pedophilia (and) pushed children to break society’s rules without good reason,” they also claimed drag queens were not “considered reputable leaders in society.”
The library pushed back saying it “offers a positive affirmation of gender expression and features a drag queen storytime” and RPL is dedicated to ensuring a balanced offering.
“For young children, we believe that parents have a responsibility to guide what their own children read. If they do not believe something is appropriate… they can select something else (that’s) right for them,” said Jang.
It’s Perfectly Normal and Sex is a Funny Word were both reported to have “sexually explicit material” and allegedly contained child pornography.
“The final decision was to keep the two books because they provided age-appropriate information on sexuality for children,” Jang explained.
“These books have received accolades from book reviewers and doctors, and they do not contravene the Criminal Code of Canada.”
Politics was also a reason for such complaints, as Simply Happy Cooking by Steve and Kathy Doocy was reported for Steve Doocy’s appearance on the show Fox and Friends. The customer argued that the show “represented American conservative political and cultural values which shouldn’t be ‘what the library stands for.’”
RPL decided to keep the book as it only contained recipes and anecdotes and had no “political, cultural or ideological agenda.”
What happens when people get offended?
It is not often that complaints are made about RPL materials, Jang explained. In fact, only 10 complaints were received before the COVID-19 pandemic between 2010 and 2020, with zero complaints recorded in half of the years.
Between 1982 and 2022, the library received a total of 117 complaints.
At RPL, such complaints are submitted as requests for consideration, which are reviewed by a team of three librarians and later by a manager of customer experience or community engagement.
A recommendation will then be made to the Chief Librarian, who will decide on one of the following: keeping the material, relocating it to a more appropriate collection, buying more materials with opposing viewpoints or removing the material.
“It is not often that we take a book off the shelf,” said Jang.
RPL staff guidelines indicate that materials are only removed if they are inaccurate or outdated, or if they contravene RPL’s code of conduct, the Criminal Code or the Human Rights Act.
What are people offended by?
Jang told the News that reasons for complaints are vast and diverse, ranging from race, religion, politics and gender and sexuality to nudity and excessive violence.
The two main trends, according to RPL’s report, are related to Indigenous depiction and race.
Complaints also extend beyond the English collection, since RPL customer have also complained about its Chinese books and Bollywood DVDs.
Despite complaints being rare at RPL, it has seen a recent spike with six complaints received in 2021 and five in 2022.
This is consistent with trends observed throughout North America during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the American Library Association (ALA) saw 681 challenges to 1,651 titles in 2022 and 729 challenges to 1,597 titles in 2021. Only 377 challenges were recorded in 2019.
“The challenges reported to ALA represented the highest number of attempted book bans since the list began more than 20 years ago,” reads RPL’s report.
Most recently, Chilliwack RCMP were called to investigate allegations of child pornography in local school libraries earlier this week. While police never revealed the book titles in question, or who made the complaint, they did conclude the contents did not constitute child pornography.
Meanwhile, some popular Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl books are either ceasing publication or facing edits due to racist and insensitive imagery and language.
And, more recently, the Tennessee school board unanimously voted to ban Art Spiegelman’s Maus, a graphic novel depicting the Holocaust, from the eighth-grade curriculum.
Jang said the uptick could be due to any number of reasons, but she suspects it may have to do with the pandemic.
“It might be because people (were) at home and looking for things to do, and they started reading a lot. And then they find what their reading may not agree with what they believe in,” she said.
Library is obliged to offer a variety of viewpoints
RPL’s guiding principle when it comes to building a collection and addressing customer complaints is to support intellectual freedom.
“For libraries, we tend to lean towards intellectual freedom versus censorship because we’ve seen a lot of the results of what censorship can bring to us, to a society,” said Jang.
“We are very fortunate that we live in a society where people are more open-minded and there’s a lot of different viewpoints and ideas.”
As such, Jang said RPL tries not to censor materials and instead is “obligated to provide a balanced collection with a variety of different viewpoints.”
For example, the library carries one copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which has “a fair number of checkouts.”
“Richmond Public Library is a popular reading library… So we have books that people are interested in reading. If they’re not interested in reading (the book), if it sits on a shelf for years… Then we get rid of those books,” Jang explained.
“But the fact that Mein Kampf is still in the collection, it means people are borrowing it.”
Freedom to Read Week took place from Feb. 19 to 25. To learn more about banned and challenged books, check out RPL’s online collection or FreedomToRead.ca.
“Intellectual freedom and the right to choose what you read, listen to and watch is fundamental to what Richmond Public Library stands for,” said Jang.
“Our collection of over 420,000 digital and physical items covers a wide range of ideas and viewpoints that inspire curiosity, enhance creativity and help to build a more informed society.”
