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These are challenging times for all libraries — perhaps especially school libraries. Funding is seeping away from public schools, and people seem to put a lower value on libraries and the knowledge of librarians than they used to. Also, when people are angry at government in general, it’s easier to act out anger in school budgets. Today’s story presents Ohio as an example.
Susan Tebben writes at Ohio Capital, “Public school librarians in Ohio are raising alarms about book bans and funding cuts. …
“Proposed legislation to filter the reading choices students can make has brought concern, and budget reductions make some worry about the future of public school librarians as a mainstay in schools.
“ ‘Right now, a lot of administrators and school boards look at having school librarians as a luxury,’ said Gayle Schmuhl, president of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association. … Schmuhl said many members of the association were wondering about the future of their jobs with cuts to public school funding in Ohio and debate over property taxes that go to education.
“Cuts to state public education has been talked about for decades, especially after multiple Ohio Supreme Court decisions that said the state was not paying its constitutional fair share. …
“While the most recent state operating budget included a $226 million increase in school funding, [Ohio’s] Fair School Funding Plan model needed at least triple that amount to maintain its initial calculations and keep up with inflation. Lawmakers, however, increased private school voucher funding into the billions. …
“Part of the job of the modern school librarian is discussing material with parents that they may find objectionable enough to demand it be taken off the shelves.
“Sharon Hawkes, a retired librarian who is also part of the group Right to Read Ohio, decided to survey school librarians, with the help of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association’s member list.
“Of those who participated in Hawkes’ study 56% ‘experienced censorship incidents’ between 2021 and 2025.
“While she only received responses from 32 school librarians, about 10% of the total school librarians in the state, she said the experiences were still indicative of a challenge in Ohio.
” ‘We’re getting some clues about what’s going on,’ Hawkes said, noting that because there’s no standard survey system in each state to study censorship in libraries, the count made by organizations like the American Library Association may be less than the actual amount happening across the country.
“The American Library Association reported 98 attempts to censor 355 books in Ohio from 2021 to 2024, and last year, there were seven attempts to censor 129 books. …
“Schmuhl agreed that the study was representative of the experience she’d heard of in the state. …
“Hawkes’ study, of the 16 censorship requests in Ohio between 2021 and 2024, eleven were ‘challenges without removals,’ while eight resulted in a book ban of some kind, and three involved ‘relocations of books or other materials.’
“According to the researcher, librarians use ‘objective criteria’ in decisions about what materials are age-appropriate and relevant for the school libraries. Their training qualifies them to decide on the inventory, and to deal with challenges from parents, where the majority of material challenges came from in the study.
“The majority of school librarians who responded to Hawkes’ survey had between 11 and 15 years of experience as the director or manager of their current library, and more than 62% had a Master’s degree in Library Science.
“ ‘More than anything, I wanted people to understand that parents do have the right to guide what their children read and when they read it … they can approach their librarians about it,’ Hawkes said. ‘What they can’t do is ban books for other people’s children.’ …
“The legislature approved one measure to compel public libraries to relocate ‘inappropriate’ materials out of the sight of minors, but Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed it as ‘not workable.’
“Another bill still in consideration by the legislature would order vendors of online educational resources that go to public libraries and schools to create protections to prevent ‘inappropriate’ content from making it to kids’ eyes.
“Opponents of the materials have said the bill could have unintended consequences, removing materials that are educational as well.”
More at Ohio Capital, here.
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