Periodically we note great outcries in the media about “book banning.” The banning of books is indeed a serious issue, when it actually happens, but what these scares are about is almost never real banning. Banning means a book is declared illegal, and its publication and possession are forbidden by law. The closest thing to that that’s going on these days is when conservative books get cancelled by publishers. Which isn’t real banning, either.

Let me divulge (once again, because people keep forgetting) a secret from the forbidden world of librarians – librarians are not actually against banning (in their own sense of the term) books. They call it banning when parents want books kept out of libraries, or at least out of their children’s hands. But the fact is, librarians keep books off the shelves all the time. Deciding what books to acquisition, and what books to reject, is part of a librarian’s job.

The librarians aren’t against books being “banned” in that (erroneous) sense.

They’re against the peasants doing it.

Librarians believe that they themselves, as the anointed priesthood, have the sole right to “ban” books. They go into a snit when mere parents and concerned citizens violate their turf.

I used to be a librarian, but I’m out of the racket now. If I mysteriously disappear, you can be sure the Enforcers of the ALA have abducted me, and I probably sleep with the discards, for violating the Unwritten Code.