I try to keep “who to vote for” politics pretty well off of this blog and prefer to discuss politics in general and better and worse strategies for promoting libraries in whatever political climate we happen to be in. People acutely interested in high level politics in the US who also work in libraries may be interested in this Time magazine article about Sarah Palin. I was very interested in this paragraph.
[Former Wasilla mayor] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.
Usually I’m just happy to see libraries even mentioned in national level politics, but not like this. Mary Ellen Baker resigned from her library director job in 1999.
note: there’s some buzz being generated that says that this post contains a comment that lists the books that Palin supposedly wanted banned. The list is here, but there appears to be no truth to the claim made by the commenter, and no further documentation or support for this has turned up.
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Yeah, I’m not so comfortable with this…
I don’t know, I kinda like seeing libraries mentioned this way too …not so much for what it meant to the Wasilla Public Library, but what it tells the rest of us about a potential future … as an HR-ish friend of mine always said — “past behaviour is usually a pretty good predictor of future behavior.” Cheers.
Thank you for posting this, I was wondering if anyone would. Librarians go out of our way to be politically neutral, even when we should express outrage or, at the very least, *concern* over such matters.
rcn
San Francisco Bay Area
We’ve learned that the woman McCain calls a reform-minded Washington outsider supported the construction of Alaska’s infamously wasteful “bridge to nowhere.” In 2006, Palin campaigned for it. She also sought hundreds of millions of federal dollars for other pork barrel projects.
We’ve learned that as mayor, Palin raised sales taxes for pet projects. That’s not uncommon, but it’s not something a conservative reformer does. We’ve learned she recently hired a private attorney to defend herself in an investigation over whether she abused the power of her office to fire a state police official who refused to dismiss her former brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper. We’ve learned she is linked to the Alaska Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to be able to vote on whether or not to secede from the United States. We’ve learned that this so-called family values candidate tried to hide the fact that her teenage daughter is five months pregnant, out of wedlock.
Amid all these disturbing facts, it’s easy to forget that she is totally unqualified to for the position that John McCain has given her.
Does anyone have any idea which books, specifically, Palin tried to ban? Not that it matters – book banning is appalling regardless – but I’m curious and thought that perhaps someone here might know or have the contacts to find out.
I wonder what books were banned? I bet someone will turn up the list.
In the school district in Texas where I went to high school in the 1980s, there was an organization called the Committee of Concerned Citizens, who gave the district the list of books to ban every year.
I wonder if Palin was part of such an organization, or if she had a standard list from her church?
The specific book list would be so interesting.
This is the list of books Palin tried to have banned. As many of you will notice it is a hit parade for book burners.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
Andrew, can you please tell us what your source is for this list? Thanks in advance!
I was also wondering about the source on the list. I’m really concerned about this.
You folks have to get the facts first, and from an unbiased source, before you transmit pure fiction on your blogs.
The book-banning claim would be disturbing as all-get-out for any candidate at any level of public office. But Stein was her political opponent — I’d love to see some more evidence and hear from the librarian herself.
Like others, I would be very interested to know Andrew Aucoin’s source for that list.
The source of the list appears to be this site, which I got to from this site, which I found by googling the very first titles on the list as a single search term (A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle).
This list obviously has nothing to do with Palin whatsoever.
The list of banned books is inaccurate. Several of the titles listed above, most notably the Harry Potter books, had not been published yet in 1996 when Sarah Palin attempted to fire the librarian.
The New York Times has further information on this issue today, including the news that Palin FIRED the Wasilla librarian:
“Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.
Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,†Ms. Kilkenny said.
The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,†Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.
In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.â€
Ms. Emmons was not the only employee to leave. During her campaign, Ms. Palin appealed to voters who felt that city employees under Mr. Stein, who was not from Wasilla and had earned a degree in public administration at the University of Oregon, had been unresponsive and rigid regarding a new comprehensive development plan. In turn, some city employees expressed support for Mr. Stein in a campaign advertisement.
Once in office, Ms. Palin asked many of Mr. Stein’s backers to resign — something virtually unheard of in Wasilla in past elections. The public works director, city planner, museum director and others were forced out. The police chief, Irl Stambaugh, was later fired outright.”
It should be reiterated that Andrew Aucoin’s list is fake. Many of those books (like the Harry Potter titles) had not even been released when Palin became mayor.
I find the approach she took more interesting than the actual subject here. As librarians we are acutely aware of the negatives to censorship but that might not hold true for the average American. Personally, I see it as a good thing that Palin questioned the Librarian on the subject rather than attempting to make a blanket decision. As we’ve seen from articles in Time and Newsweek, she does not appear to be the type of person who asks questions first and acts later, and this seems to be a rather positive change from her previous actions. Asking us about censorship only provides us the avenue to express why it is wrong and to have our voice heard. Simply having information does not educate us. We must instead have a conversation about it. As for the Librarian in question, we do not know all of the facts and until we have heard both sides of the story it would be impossible to form an understanding of the truth.
The list cited by “Andrew AuCoin” is not from Sarah Palin. It actually comes from http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html. It’s a compendium of all books banned anywhere in the United States.
Folks, we need to keep our eye on the prize here. Every time we pass on false or inaccurate allegations, we’re helping Sarah Palin (and John McCain) look better, not worse. Please fact check before you share a rumor.
Kudos to those commenters who raised questions about the list. And shame on “Andrew AuCoin” for perpetrating a falsehood.
Does Sarah Palin have a college degree?
I don’t think Time or the NYT are credible sources to begin with.
:The list cited by “Andrew AuCoin†is not from Sarah Palin. It actually comes from http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html. It’s a compendium of all books banned anywhere in the United States.”
Pretty obvious when one notes that Solzhenitzin was in the list, not exactly a conservative target. Anyone who DIDN’T realize this was BS should be ashamed of themselves.
YDD: Palin has a journalism degree from the University of Idaho with a minor in poli-sci.
Can anyone track down these “news reports from the time (that) show” all this?
It makes sense to try to have a politics-neutral blog until the politicians start to take shots at libraries. Then all bets are off.
—I don’t think Time or the NYT are credible sources to begin with.—
Oh my…classic.
I think Fox News said it too…
The intellectually alert will be able to discriminate between banning the use of taxpayer money to buy certain books for the public library, and totalitarian government banning books from being read or sold in a country. The former is reasonable public policy, the latter is an infringement of liberties.
I would disagree, Matthew, with the concept that a government official should impose his or her individual religious beliefs on the availability of book titles at a government institution funded by taxpayers of multiple religious beliefs should be considered “reasonable public policy.”
I thought the problem was wanting to after-the-fact remove books from the library that had gone through a formal selection process by a trained professional (the librarian) because of some people’s personal beliefs about the subject matter. I’m in agreement with Mike generally — the reason you have trained professionals working in libraries is so that they can make these selections with the interests of the entire community in mind and also have a grievance process if anyone is not happy with the process.
Let us observe:
1) Palin never banned any books.
2) The article states the motive for her inquiry as “some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them”
3) Despite the above two facts, TIME leads by stating that: Mrs. Palin inserted her religious beliefs into policy in this case.
The tactic used in the above paragraph is something called Poisoning the Well. A logical fallacy. A false one as well. I would expect a bunch of librarians would be able to see that before a computer programmer came along, since librarians are more versed in literature and rhetoric, IIRC, than most programmers.
Jessamyn, you might consider deleting the listed posted by “Andrew Aucoin,” as it has now taken on a life of its own and is being circulated around the net, providing your blog as the source.
I’ve said elsewhere that I think the comment doesn’t have any merit and I don’t have contact information for the person who posted it, but I feel that deleting it doesn’t really help anything at all.
I think everyone is also overlooking something very telling about this article: Pailin said that the conversation regarding banning books was “rhetorical.”
Am I alone in thinking she meant “hypothetical” and quite possibly misspoke or doesn’t know the difference?
Oh and SMith and the others citing the Times as not being a “credible source” should look at the article again, as it plainly names Wasilla’s local paper, “The Frontiersmen” as one of it’s sources.
Is THAT credible enough?
“You folks have to get the facts first, and from an unbiased source, before you transmit pure fiction on your blogs.”
What? Why would they bother with that? I would remind you that first Mrs. Palin was an avid Buchanan supporter (this turned out to be a lie), then she was a member of the Alaskan Indpendence Party and wanted to secede from the union (this turned out to be a lie), then she was trying to foist the teaching of Creationism on the public schools (this turned out to be a lie), then there was the wild speculation that her mentally handicaped son was the issue of an incestuous relationship between her daughter and her husband (my personal favorite–if you’re going to slander, at least be creative!).
I don’t see why anyone should let facts get in the way at this point. Her throat was going to be slit, and so it has been…you might be a bit cautious lending a hand, though. You may feel dirty later.
Oh, and you might be interested in this article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13084.html
This allegation stems from a report done by her 2006 opponent in Alaska’s gubanatorial race, and says this:
“Palin Asked City Librarian About Censoring Books, Insisted It Was ‘Rhetorical.’ In 1996, according to the Frontiersman, Wasilla’s library director Mary Ellen Emmons said Palin asked her outright if she could live with censorship of library books. Emmons said, “This is different than a normal book-selection procedure or a book-challenge policy. … She was asking me how I would deal with her saying a book can’t be in the library.†Palin said in response, “Many issues were discussed, both rhetorical and realistic in nature.†[Frontiersman, 12/18/96]”
Even assuming Palin’s “rhetorical” claim was an excuse, a discussion with a librarian about censoring books is a very far cry from attempting to censor books and then firing the librarian. I would speculate that, had she canned a public employee like that, it would have been brought up by her opponent .
Your publishing facts before you check them out and willingness to condem without the facts shows your true colors.
Yes Sarah Palin is an unknown
But oh how quickly the rumors have grown.
About banning books and state succession.
Without sustenance or fact is the confession
Joe Biden says she has good looks
How sexist but she’s banning books
How short her time in politics has been
Accomplishing more than old Joe Biden
So you better keep your library job
Instead of telling you opinions on you blog
If your prejudice makes you fib
It exposes you as a lib
Whether or not books were banned, the fact that Mrs. Palin wanted to know how one might go about it is enough for me to know that I don’t agree with her on this particular issue.
Has it occurred to anyone that the Republican party plan may have been to choose a VP that would be so easy to bash that they couldn’t help but to look victimized?