Celebrate Freedom to Read Week: The Challenge is On
Canada’s Freedom to Read Week (FTRW), an annual event inspiring us to think about and confirm our commitment to intellectual freedom, takes place from February 23 to March 1, 2025.
A powerful way to celebrate FTRW is for Canadian libraries to report their challenges to the CFE-CFLA/FCAB Canadian Library Challenges Database, available in English and French.
Following the lead of the American Library Association’s (ALA) challenge reporting, categories or fields in our Canadian database reflect a broad range of challenges in libraries. These can be related to: materials (books, movies, magazines, digital content); Internet (filtering, access, use policies); service (meeting rooms, programs, displays, exhibits, author visits); patron or customer privacy or confidentiality (circulation records, personally identifiable information); hate crime (defacement of library property to target a specific group); use of swastikas or other symbols of intimidation); threats or harassment to staff (online, by phone, by email, or in person); and, legislative changes and concerns.
Our searchable database covers the timespan from 1998 to the present. The bulk of the data aligns with the 2006 launch of an inaugural survey at the now defunct Canadian Library Association, carried on by its successor the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA-FCAB) and its survey, with results folded in last year to CFE’s original database created in 2022.
In Canada (and elsewhere), most challenges to libraries go unreported. While it’s impossible to make precise generalizations from the data, they give us the best indication available about the nature of challenges in Canadian libraries. They give us glimpse into the who, what, where, how and why of demands for censorship.
In 2024, based on the challenges reported in the database: the most complaints are filed by members of the public; the top object of complaints are items in the library collection; the top object of complaint is a book; the most challenges are reported in Ontario, and in the public library sector; the top form of complaint is a direct request for reconsideration of the item; the top rationale for a challenge is “age inappropriate”; the top requested action is to have the item removed; and the top action taken by the library, after careful review of the item, is to retain the item.
Interestingly, this 2024 barebones profile looks almost identical to the composite data for the years 1998 to 2025.
The common concern for age inappropriateness affirms a classic aim of censors to do what they think appropriate to protect children and young people from what they consider to be harm.
As much as we can play with the limited data that we have by running different searches, there is only so much we can interpret from it. The best approach to knowing more is to garner further information through more reporting.
To achieve this end, we need data to be reported from: across the country; throughout public librarianship (urban, rural, regional, remote; small, medium, large); and, other library sectors, including academic and K-12.
As the ALA in part asserts in the above link, information garnered from challenge reporting allows all of us to see the changing nature of censorship demands, let’s librarians learn how others had dealt with challenges they are facing, advances understanding of developments in librarianship, prompts the creation of critical resources and tools for librarians and other information workers to oppose censorship, and informs timely trend reports for advocacy and public awareness.
Freedom to Read Week is co-hosted by Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Urban Libraries Council, and the Ontario Library Association in partnership with the Book and Periodical Council. It’s the perfect time for libraries to report to the CFE-CFLA/FCAB Canadian Library Challenges Database and for the rest of us to use the database and appreciate its value in advancing expressive freedom.
The challenge is on!
