Abstract
The information needs of students must be met by school libraries as resources for student learning with collections that support academic curricula and are suitable for learning activities. A collection that contains no sensitive or contentious material is one that is appropriate for students. In this study, censorship issues in school library collections are examined from the point of view of the Association of Indonesian School Librarians. The study found four topics connected to the Association’s perspective on censorship issues in school libraries based on staff interviews and thematic analysis: the root reasons for censorship; how censorship is implemented; how to become a competent librarian; and how urgent censorship is. Censorship is seldom reported, thus the Association does not view it as a pressing concern. It places greater emphasis on problems such as information literacy training and developing librarians’ competencies than censoring library collections. Hence, there is no national attention given to this subject.
Keywords
Introduction
School libraries are set up to enhance teaching and learning in schools. Students’ primary source for learning is the school library; thus, it must be able to satisfy students’ information needs by offering a variety of information resources. Students’ information needs should be supported with resources that are relevant to their learning activities. Many think that school library collections should be suitable for school students and not harmful to students’ minds. Librarians have been seen to be the ones who can take responsibility to ensure that library resources are safe and appropriate for school students, and promote research skills and support the curriculum (Hossain, 2019; Rahme et al., 2021). In the past, censorship has been used to uphold people’s morals and public awareness (Irum and Laila, 2015).
Over time, the idea of censorship has become stronger when it comes to school libraries, where school authorities take action based on parents’ advice that library materials should be monitored and censored for any information that is considered harmful for students. Prebor and Gordon (2015: 28) state that censorship is seen as an action that ‘limits right of access to library collections since the content is found to be dangerous for readers’. School students should be safe from any materials in a library that their parents regard as not relevant to their study. Hence, censorship is intended as a means of limiting access to information (Emeka and Atanda, 2017).
Cases of censorship have been identified in Indonesian libraries. For instance, according to Ramadhan (2016), censorship has been carried out at the Japan Foundation Library. The library owns several collections of printed books, magazines, audio materials and comics. The collections that have been censored in this library include books, magazines and comics. The types of censorship include image-sealing, labelling, the separation of collections and access limitation. A further example of censorship has been detailed by Rianti and Dewakanya (2018), who report on the censorship that took place in the school library of a kindergarten and primary school. The librarian censored some items after considering parents’ advice. They complained that there were several collections that were believed to be inappropriate for school students to read. The censorship was implemented in every school library under the management of the Insan Cendekia Madani Foundation (Rianti and Dewakanya, 2018).
However, despite the censorship that has occurred in some schools, it is not a major topic of discussion among Indonesian librarians or even the professional librarian association in Indonesia, compared with other issues such as information literacy or open access resources. One of the professional organizations that plays a role in discussing issues related to libraries is the Association of Indonesian School Librarians (AISL).
The AISL is an Indonesian school librarian organization that was founded in Jakarta on 28 May 2009. The AISL is a national independent organization based on the Pancasila. According to the AISL’s statutes and bylaws, its purpose is to elevate the professionalism of school library staff and contribute to the development of library science. In order to accomplish these objectives, the AISL undertakes several activities, such as (1) fostering communication forums between school library staff and library institutions; (2) organizing and taking part in various scientific activities, particularly in the field of school libraries, documentation and information; (3) ensuring the AISL’s participation in implementing government and national development programmes in the field of school libraries, documentation and information; and (4) supporting advocacy efforts for school librarians.
The AISL emphasizes the professionalism of school librarians. The AISL is slightly different from professional librarian associations in Indonesia because it recommends career paths for its members. Most AISL members work in public schools where certification can affect librarians’ salaries. Accordingly, the AISL plays a role in enhancing the careers of its members. At the AISL, there is a commission for performance and career development, which is responsible for carrying out activities to further librarians’ careers – for example, if a librarian is a public servant, they can pursue a career path from a proficient librarian to an expert librarian.
The AISL was chosen for this study because it is one of the largest professional librarian associations in Indonesia, with 31 branches. This enables the AISL to connect with library staff in the different regions of Indonesia to implement its programmes. One of the AISL’s programmes is technical guidance for librarians. This guidance is divided into many learning modules, one of which covers collection development and includes a subchapter on censorship issues.
Nonetheless, in the literature, research on censorship is still limited (McNicol, 2016). Currently, research on censorship issues revolves around how it is implemented in school libraries. While international professional librarian organizations have highlighted censorship as a significant concern, the same is not true in Indonesia. At present, school librarians, like other librarians, are more concerned about more popular issues such as information literacy training, new technology based on artificial intelligent and library management systems, rather than censorship issues. Censorship was a topic for discussion in 2018 among librarians when local media reported that parents discovered a book with adult content in a school library (Fatmawati et al., 2018; Rianti and Dewakanya, 2018). But since then, very few studies have discussed censorship in Indonesia. Moreover, the issue of censorship continues to be a matter that is rarely brought up and debated on a global scale (McNicol, 2016). McNicol (2016) emphasizes that research on censorship still requires further investigation, particularly on the role of professional associations in supporting school librarians in dealing with the issue.
The professional librarian associations in the USA and the Netherlands have recommended that librarians should be concerned about the censorship of library collections, and this stance has been adopted in official statements by several professional librarian associations (Prebor and Gordon, 2015). Meanwhile, according to the American Association of School Librarians, school libraries can organize work programmes involving policy, procedures and guidance to support information access. School libraries have the power to make decisions regarding collection selection by considering how the curriculum is used in the school. School libraries should be able to select any collections that suit the education levels that are being instructed. As a result, this study investigates book censorship in school libraries.
Review of the literature on censorship in school libraries
There are three major groups that support censorship: parents, community members and particular organizations (Ademodi, 2013). Nevertheless, when it is applied to library collections, O’Sullivan and O’Sullivan (2007) emphasize the problem of influence and who should be in charge of censorship decisions – the librarians, the parents or the community.
While censorship can be found in various forms, such as book bans, the removal of a collection from a library or restricted access to information sources, Knox (2014: 740) argues that the definition of censorship within librarianship is concerned with ‘impediment to access’. Censorship in school libraries is typically accomplished by restricting access to a collection that is deemed to be unsafe for students. Censored collections contain racism, pornography or other matters that are identified as provocative (Steele, 2017).
A recent study of censorship in a school library by Afifa and Dewi (2018) reveals some of the reasons why library collections need to be censored. Their research shows that the state school library in Semarang, Central Java, evaluated its fiction collection after complaints by parents that there were some novels that included inappropriate imagery for junior high school students and language that referred to pornography. The censorship process was conducted by assessing all of the collection’s contents with the help of student librarians. Another study was conducted in Indonesia by Rianti and Dewakanya (2018), which looked at the implementation of school library censorship as some parents had alerted the school about library materials that they believed were not appropriate for the school curriculum and went against the school’s visions. These two studies confirm that complaints and feedback from parents regarding library collections has become the basis for implementing censorship in school libraries.
Research on the censorship of school library collections has also been published in other countries (e.g. McNicol, 2016; Saykanic, 2000). The censorships of books in school libraries have involved school systems such as parent groups, community groups and taxpayer groups. They influence the books that are available in a library. Librarians and teachers do not have much choice other than to follow the demands of parents and community groups (Saykanic, 2000). There have been important censorship issues dealt with by school librarians in the United Kingdom, and variables affecting attitudes towards censorship in school libraries. McNicol (2016) raises a concern about how librarians make decisions in the face of pressure from outside bodies, such as parent and community groups. Librarians are believed to be the guardians of the right to information. However, librarians’ authority in this issue is not clear – for instance, according to Marco (1995: 15): librarians are authorised censors of their societies to do what operates for the communal goods, but if they fail to do what community requires, the community will take steps to remove the librarians from the authority. In practice, librarians need more support in implementing their censorship roles (Hannabuss and Allard, 2001). They need assistance in finding ways to uphold the principle of information freedom professionally in school settings, particularly from professional organizations in coping with censorship issues (Hannabuss and Allard, 2001; McNicol, 2016).
In view of the previous literature, this research offers a different perspective on the issue of censorship. This study looks into the point of view of one of the professional school librarian associations in Indonesia. It reveals the AISL’s perspectives regarding censorship issues in school libraries.
Research methods
This study employed qualitative research techniques. The qualitative research method is a research procedure that produces descriptive data in the form of speech or writing and the behaviour of the people being observed (Patton, 2015). This approach is said to be pertinent for researchers since it enables them to study and explain descriptively phenomena that cannot be quantified.
The informants were selected using a purposive sampling technique. Purposive sampling is a non-probability sampling strategy based on traits possessed and chosen because they are consistent with the research goals (Etikan, 2016). This research used purposive sampling because, in this way, the researchers could find informants who suited the criteria – that is, (1) registered as the officials at AISL head office and (2) were responsible for librarian competency development activities. This research is only devoted to interviewing AISL staff. These criteria were confirmed as the guidelines for selecting the informants to be interviewed because the selected informants had to be registered as AISL officials. By following these requirements, two AISL staff were recruited and consented to be interviewed. Anwar is an AISL leader whose role is to support and administer the chairman’s duties, including coordinating the AISL programmes and providing advocation to AISL members. Nana is the chairperson of the Commission for the Professional Development of School Librarians. This commission is responsible for carrying out research activities in the fields of libraries, documentation and information. Both of the informants were recommended by the Central Management Coordination Meeting.
Semi-structured interviews were used as the data collection method in this research, where the interview questions consisted of main questions and follow-up questions. The interview questions included:
Why do you think censorship should take place in school libraries? The follow-up questions were: What kinds of library collections have been censored? How did they censor the collections? Was there any impact on students and teachers?
How does the AISL react to the censorship in school libraries? The follow-up questions included: What has been done by the AISL to respond to the censorship?
Thematic analysis was the data analysis method used in this study. This process was developed by Braun and Clarke (2012), who recommend thematic analysis as a way to analyse data with the aim of identifying patterns or finding themes in data that has been collected by researchers. The steps used in analysing this research refer to the stages outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006):
Familiarization with the data: the researchers familiarized themselves with the data obtained through the interviews, listening to them again and producing written interview transcripts. The transcripts were created differently for each informant with the aim of facilitating the coding process.
Generating initial codes: the researchers developed codes based on the interview transcripts according to the definition of the problem (see Table 1).
Grouping: the codes that were made were reviewed again and grouped based on the meanings they had (see Table 2).
Defining and naming themes: the themes were defined and determined on the basis of the predetermined groups. These themes indicated the perspectives on censorship issues in the school library collections.
Producing the report: the researchers wrote the research report detailing the data analysis.
Coding examples.
Grouping examples.
Results and discussion
Based on the analysis, four themes were found regarding censorship issues in school libraries: factors causing censorship; the censorship being performed; librarian competency development; and censorship urgency.
The selection of library materials is a crucial step in the collection development process. Library material selection activities include analysing and evaluating a collection so that it meets users’ needs. The selection procedure for library materials is carried out based on the school’s policy. This process is an important step before the collection is presented to users. However, censorship does not just happen; there are other elements that affect censorship in school libraries.
Factors causing censorship
The first theme is the factors that cause censorship in school libraries. The censorship that takes place in school libraries can differ from one school to another; it is based on the vision and mission of each school. For school libraries, their vision and mission are the key pillars of library development, which includes collection development. The management and service of the school library is organized in order to support the development and improvement of school tasks, and functions as stated in the vision and mission of the school: ‘This includes if the books considered to be left stream and they are not in accordance with the school's vision and mission, so we should censor them’ (Anwar). The relevance of the school’s vision and mission is put into practice at the material procurement stage to ensure that the library’s resources adhere to school policy. The selected collection cannot be separated from the librarian’s important role during the planning process. Yet there are still many schools that do not involve librarians in the creation of their library collections, especially student handbooks.
A collection development policy can be a guide for librarians in implementing censorship when there is inappropriate content. The collections that are censored are general ones, such as those that have racist and pornographic elements. It is hoped that librarians will not only read the title of a publication during the filtering process but also the entire contents, so that they can detail and minimize uncensored content that is considered to be high risk. The absence of policies regarding censorship results in little information about prohibited content. The censorship process is not limited to purchased books but can also be applied to grants or gifted books, which are also selected and censored if they are incompatible with the main institution’s policy and improper according to the main institution’s needs.
Librarians have the right to freedom of information in using the available information in a library. However, censorship is often regarded as the limitation of information for readers. Librarians must be extremely cautious when censoring their library books as they do not want to create new complex problems in the future as a result of censoring books. Hence, they are only limiting the access, not removing the books from library collection. In fact, school libraries have the right to make decisions in collection selection by taking into account the curriculum applied in the school, and can protect students from unsafe information. Based on the right that libraries have, they employ censorship with the aim of safeguarding the information that students will access. By implementing censorship, librarians play a role in protecting information and continuing to ensure that students get information according to their needs: a librarian in school has to think about how our students are kept safe from any inappropriate information, but at the same time we should not break the freedom of information rule. It’s not easy … but censoring unimportant materials from students is actually helping them by ensuring they only get the information they need for study. (Anwar)
The censorship being performed
The second theme is the implementation of censorship. This theme describes the types of censorship that librarians perform on high-risk collections. Librarians have the full responsibility for ensuring that libraries remain secure locations and meet users’ information needs. Censorship is intended to exclude or even remove inappropriate content. There are numerous ways to block or delete inappropriate information. One is by closing content that is thought to be unacceptable. The partial closure of content is undertaken when there are only a few images that are deemed to be improper. As reported by Anwar: ‘If it is only one or there are two pictures, then we only censor those parts’. Limiting access is the most frequent thing that school librarians do when discovering contentious materials in a school’s library collections. Dawkins (2018) also comments that the restriction of dubious content in school libraries was decided by school librarians in North and South Carolina during their study.
If there is a lot of content in a book that is deemed to be inappropriate, a librarian can take other action, including withholding a collection. Collection withdrawal may be done not only when there are inappropriate collections, such as those containing racism and pornography, but also if the available collections are not in accordance with the main institution’s mission and values. The reasons for collection withdrawal may vary by school because each will have its own constraints. For instance, in a religion-based school library, if there are collections that deviate from that religion, they will certainly be withdrawn.
Collection withdrawal is not always carried out; there is a separate protocol for collection withdrawal, although in some libraries the procedure is not in writing. The librarian must first look at the level of the collection’s usage; if the book is needed by only a few readers, then the librarian has no right to remove the entire collection. This can be overcome by limited service, where the collection is placed in a special cupboard or on a shelf where access is restricted and supervised by the librarian: Regarding the procedures, we always look at the level of the book usage. If it is categorized as a scientific book, we put it on a particular shelf in case there is a teacher who needs to use it, meanwhile, when students have already learnt anatomy in their class as it is taught in higher Grades 5 or 6. Moreover, the teacher has already taught them about it. So, they also have the right to access this collection (Nana)
A preventive measure performed by librarians to avoid censorship is to involve teachers in evaluating student handbooks before the procurement of such books. This step can be taken by the librarian so that the procured books suit students’ needs and censorship is avoided following procurement. Here, cooperation between librarians and teachers is necessary for the books to be appropriate for students and serve as learning resources for them.
When high-risk collections are not censored, it will have an impact on students’ mindsets and behaviour. Censorship can protect students from harmful information, whatever the manner of censorship. In Indonesia, librarians, as citizens, are obliged to comply with the provisions of the law by continuing to censor the collections that have been determined dangerous for readers. Law No. 3 of 2017 concerning the keeping of books categorically forbids collections that are not in line with the Pancasila (Five Principles) – those containing racism, pornography, violence and hate speech (Republic of Indonesia, 2017). So, if there is a problematic collection, then, based on the law, a librarian is obliged to carry out censorship in any form whatsoever. In addition to being based on the law, librarians can conduct censorship in accordance with accepted standards.
Librarian competency development
The third theme is competency development. Based on the data analysis that has been carried out, librarian competency development in this research is interpreted as an activity undertaken by the AISL in the context of developing librarians’ competence. Librarians’ competence in selecting library collections is considered an important skill by the AISL. Librarians are required to be capable of determining library materials that suit their readers’ information needs. This competency is also particularly needed when assessing library materials in order to avoid inappropriate and sensitive content. This finding is consistent with the research conducted by Mosher (2010), which demonstrates the necessity for school librarians to educate themselves to be good advocates for their students, so that they have the knowledge necessary to support both students and constitutional law.
Based on the interviews that have been conducted, it was found that currently 90% of schools have libraries, but only few of them managed by librarians. The fact, in reality, is that there are still many teachers who are hired to become library personnel in order to accommodate the demand for working hours.
Because of the lack of librarians and many positions being filled by teachers, the AISL considers that what is more urgent is to increase librarians’ competence and professionalism in order to deal with such issues as censorship. Librarians’ competency development is one of the AISL’s goals by offering instruction and training in library administration. Censorship is a subchapter discussion in the collection development training held by AISL, although the discussion on the censorship issues during the training was not yet so detailed. The paucity of information on the subject of censorship is caused by variations in the content limitations that school librarians are required to impose because each institution has its own restrictions based on its vision and goals.
Although the focus of the AISL is more on competency development, censorship issues are important because one indicator of good management is librarians’ ability and knowledge with regard to censorship in their school library collections. Censorship issues have not been expressly covered by the AISL because, until now, the goal of this professional organization has been to improve the skills of school librarians. The AISL considers that the most urgent need in the field today is to create competent librarians. The librarians' competence is important in the library management as illustrated by the following two quotations: We are more concerned with improving competence in general. So, we prioritize managerial competence, social competence, information technology competence due to the urgent need of our colleagues. (Anwar) we are paying more attention to the staff, to the people, not the library itself, moreover to the staff’s competence reinforcement. (Nana)
Even though censorship is not the AISL’s focus, the organization nonetheless helps librarians by offering guidance if there are items in their collections that are thought to be particularly inappropriate: we provide some kind of advice, some kind of input to our colleagues, so we can only give input to that person or to the librarian … like, OK, because they are not appropriate and some other considerations … it’s better to withdraw. (Nana)
It is undeniable that, in selecting collections, it is important to find out which collections are unsafe or otherwise; this requires in-depth knowledge on the part of a librarian. The AISL, as a professional school librarian organization, has decided to concentrate on the improvement of librarians’ competency. The AISL considers that if librarians are highly competent, they can manage libraries properly, including being able to perform censorship activities on each school library collection effectively without infringing students’ right to information, in terms of both censorship policy and censorship practices. In this setting, school librarians may face challenges. School librarians are obliged to keep students safe from sensitive and controversial information, but, on the other hand, they have the responsibility to ensure that they do not contravene students’ right to information. According to Duthie (2010), these are challenging circumstances, where school librarians have a special responsibility of care to the developing mind, and should ensure that students’ information needs are met while protecting them from any knowledge that is unrelated to the curriculum.
Censorship urgency
The fourth theme is censorship urgency, which reveals why censorship issues have not been considered urgent and have not been widely investigated, especially by professional associations. The AISL thinks that librarians carefully choose their items so that users will only receive what they need. Hence, they do not need to censor the collections anymore. The rare occurrence of censorship issues is also influenced by book publishers, which already have their own censorship organizations. Through their censorship bodies, publishers perform strict book selections, especially for student handbooks. As stated by Nana: ‘the books, in particular student handouts, they have been censored by their own censor body carefully, therefore censorship cases are rarely found’.
Discussion of censorship issues within professional associations in Indonesia is still very limited and rarely leads to a specific topic. Censorship issues only comprise a small part of the collection development material. As explained by Anwar: ‘Specifically, it has never come to a serious discussion related to censorship. We do more general things, not specifically about censorship alone. It still runs more common, for instance, on the management of library collection’.
There are undoubtedly justifications for debating the censorship issue. The underlying reason is that, until now, the censorship cases that have occurred have been within the internal scope of specific schools. This signifies that there has not been a censorship case with a collection that has occurred nationally, where Indonesia as a whole has carried out the censoring of the same collection. Currently, the censorship cases that occur in schools are still limited to the local level. This indicates that censorship is still confined to the internal policy of each school and has not yet manifested at the national level. It is influenced by the policies of each school, which are different, depending on the vision and mission they have. In addition, it is also constrained by the various censorship policies in each school, particularly those in religious schools. This relates to Mosher’s (2010) finding that censorship acts are never reported and become local issues that librarians themselves manage and solve. Mosher (2010) reports that librarians prefer to self-censor to avoid the challenges that may come from parents and other community organizations.
The low rate of censorship cases, especially at the national level, causes censorship to be an issue that does not need to be prioritized and is considered to have no urgency. The AISL, as a professional association, may need to decide on or investigate urgent issues and put them into action as soon as possible (of course, this is conditional, given what may occur in reality). Right now, there are not many censorship cases, and they have not reached the national level (see Afifa and Dewi, 2018; Fatmawati et al., 2018; Rianti and Dewakanya, 2018). The AISL has not considered censorship to be an urgent matter. If, in future, there are numerous cases involving censorship difficulties, the AISL will have to examine censorship issues. During this period, discussions regarding censorship issues were conveyed through technical guidance activities on the topic of library collection development. Nonetheless, the AISL does not simply disregard findings from censorship-related studies. It continues to include censorship issues on its agenda as a preventive step in enriching school librarians’ expertise. The AISL asserts that it is still receptive to censorship-related issues and willing to help librarians if they discover collections that need to be assessed and censored.
Conclusion
As a school librarian association, the AISL has not yet considered censorship to be a key issue for school library management since what is more pressing at present is the continued professional development of school librarians. The AISL has observed that, currently, assisting school librarians to increase their competence is more urgent, especially given that some school libraries are being run by teachers who have fewer teaching hours, and hence lack the administrative and practical expertise of library and information service staff. In addition, there are other issues in Indonesia that are continuously becoming main concerns – for example, improving information literacy skills, social inclusion in libraries and reading habits. The AISL further holds that by enhancing school librarians’ competencies, it is anticipated that they will gain confidence in their ability to handle censorship issues in their institutions, and will have sufficient knowledge to practise censorship in their school libraries.
Moreover, censorship issues are regarded as local issues by the AISL, which can be resolved locally in each school; hence, there has been no instance of censorship that has garnered widespread national attention. It seems that censorship cases have only been the interest of students and researchers in higher education in Indonesia. In this regard, academic communities have the responsibility to collaborate with other organizations, such as schools, the government and community groups, concerning censorship in school libraries and even censorship in general.
This investigation has focused on exploring a school library association’s perspective on censorship in school library collections, but censorship may also occur in other types of libraries, such as special libraries, public libraries or university libraries. The results of this study may be valuable for further research investigating the same subject in various cultures. The findings may also benefit other librarian associations in the region and international bodies as guidance when discussing censorship and freedom of information in Indonesia, especially in the school library context.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.