Libraries which are constantly under attack, explicit or implicit, by conservative parts of society - whether because they oppose any government projects, because they oppose the existence of certain books, because they oppose the kind of people who rely the most on libraries, or so on. If they're not shutting them down they're slashing their budgets or imposing draconian rules about what they can do.

They're unfortunately not something that can be relied on exclusively for an indefinite future.

This is not an imaginary threat: https://www.al.com/news/2024/08/this-alabama-library-had-to-...

> by conservative parts of society

And likely other parts of society as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_commonly_challeng...

I expect many books are on the radar of would-be opponents because they are either a) revered classics that are often part of school reading lists, or b) books that are popular. Though I can understand why you might want to restrict books with instructions for harming others or oneself (even if such information is readily available on the internet.) I can also see why many revered but subversive children's books are opposed (but of course that's what makes them so great!)

My take is that the greatest threat to libraries is copyright law, which currently does not permit a first sale doctrine for ebooks or digital media and generally stands in the way of building practical and sustainable digital library collections.

Every bookstore nowadays, front and center, has a 'banned book' section. It's practically a meme. In the article you linked, no books were removed from the shelves.

It's the definition of an imaginary threat.

The books that are actually banned, the ones that were forced out of print, not available in public libraries and cost hundreds or thousands for a used copy? They are right-leaning politically.

It's not an imaginary threat. It is happening all over in GOP-controlled areas.

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/roughly-300-books-were-r...

Even back in the late 90s/early 2000s, public libraries had a "banned books week". It was mostly a gimmick to get kids to read through the allure of the forbidden, to the point where sometimes through deals with teachers you could get extra credit in school for having checked them out.

What are some examples of books that have actually been forced out of print?

The copyright to Hitler's Mein Kampf passed to the Bavarian government, which after WW2, refused to allow it to be printed until the book fell into public domain.

Browsing the list of in rem cases in the US turns up quite a few cases where the US actually seized several pornographic books such as Lady Chatterley's Lover, which is perhaps a little more in line with what you were thinking about.

I was once on a tour of St. Albans, a very expensive private school in Washington, and Mein Kampf was the first book I noticed on the shelves. I have to suppose that the school has confidence that any boys who read it will not be indoctrinated.

- Decent Interval - Frank Snepp - About Saigon's fall by a CIA analyst - Inside China's Nuclear Weapons Program - Danny Stillman - Operation Dark Heart - Anthony Shaffer - Afghanistan. "The Pentagon" bought and destroyed the whole first printing - The Targeter - Nada Bakos - About fighting ISIS

The last guy's alluding to right wing books though. I remember Axios reported that the Turner Diaries and Camp of the Saints are going for hundreds now, because printing has been ended: https://www.axios.com/2021/01/28/racist-novels-skyrocket-in-... But books are now available on Amazon for cheap and pirating is easy, but here are some which libraries don't seem to have stocked and mostly aren't purchasable.

I imagined Holocaust denial etc. are effectively banned/not stocked by most libraries. Googling, I found discussions about My Revolutionary Life by Leon DeGrelle, Into the Cannibal's Pot by Ilana Mercer etc. But things from other movements too like an Ulster loyalist Ian Paisley's Messages from the Prison Cell or Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Pinochets memoir is also inaccessible.

Then there are books about bombs or e.g. Put em Down, Take em Out by Pentecost about knife fighting ($60/now used). In the UK, a nazi was jailed 13 years for having a pdf the White Resistence Manual: https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2023-08-31/prison-officer-...

I'll stop there. There are long lists, with about half the entries seeming plausibly banned.

Yeah, it is the second and third paragraphs I was wondering about. I guess I’m not really 100% clear on what he meant by “forced,” I don’t see any instances there of the government actually forcing them out of print, right? It looks like the situation where nobody wants to publish or distribute that sort of stuff.

中国宪政转型, 无敌的铁拳 - you probably know more hehehe ;)

And book banners may be driven by any political persuasion. In the 'Left-leaning' (rather more than leaning' of course) Soviet Union, universally acclaimed literary masterpieces (not books objecting to a certain lifestyle) were banned. All publishing houses in the USSR were state-owned, and every text had to get past the censor before appearing in print.

https://www.rbth.com/arts/331150-books-banned-ussr

> Every bookstore nowadays

I miss bookstores.

I agree that any attack on books and literacy is a problem, but let's not pretend it's just the right that's responsible.

It's not the right's fault that I now have to wonder if a given copy of Matilda is as it was written or if it's been 'sanitized'. It's not the right that challenges Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird for their depictions of racism. Harry Potter, once feared by the hyper conservatives for witchcraft, is now under fire because of the political opinions of the author.

We all need to get better at dealing with difficult ideas, and that includes books whose contents and authors we disagree with. This is a systemic problem across the entire US, not one unique to one wing.

Publishers releasing amended copies is not banning books. No one has demanded that original copies of such books be removed from libraries. Meanwhile state legislators in Florida and elsewhere are aggressively regulating libraries and demanding content be removed - and conservative legislatures are overwhelmingly responsible for funding cuts and closures.

> No one has demanded that original copies of such books be removed from libraries.

They don't have to. Publishers caved to cultural pressure from the left and were originally planning on stopping publishing of the original editions. That plan would have phased out Dahl's work without having to force anyone to do anything—as libraries replaced damaged books their shelves would become sanitized.

Left-wing destruction of history and suppression of difficult ideas isn't better for the world just because it finds non-legislative means like silent publisher edits and massive grassroots cancellation campaigns.

Florida is awful, and I'm not condoning their legislature's behavior. But so are those who yank Harry Potter because Rowling is loudly not liberal enough for their tastes. It's just different tools to accomplish the same odious end.

Please point to an example of someone pulling Harry Potter from a public or school library.

People deciding not to support an author is not censorship. Despite malicious right-wing claims trying to muddle it, being "cancelled" is just people exercising their right not to support you. No one's facing jail time for stocking Harry Potter in a library. You can't say that about right-wing crusading.

Don’t both sides this. I am not discounting that there are some folks who are not aligned with the Right. The magnitude of the efforts by the right to censor and limit ideas is a large multiple of what occurs on the left.

It's really not, it's just that the right is loud and obnoxious about it while the left is smart and subtle.

The left isn't better from a moral perspective just because they suppress their taboo ideas by quietly influencing school curricula and sanitizing books at the publisher level rather than hamfistedly legislating the "problematic ideas" away.

Both are reprehensible, but one is less competent. I honestly view the left as more dangerous when it comes to censorship precisely because it's not hamfisted.

Yep. They've shut down 180 in the UK.

> Libraries which are constantly under attack, explicit or implicit, by conservative parts of society

Which library burns books, more precisely 1/3rd of their children’s collection because fairy tales represent toxic masculinity, including The Little Red Hood?

Ah yes, the library of Barcelona. Not what I’d consider “under attack by conservatives”. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/18/barcelona-scho...

My childhood library changed from a place for books, to a place for homeless people to get internet.

I don't say that hatefully or anything, it's what happened. It was a tiny library chocked full of shelves. Then some were removed to add six or so computers. The last time I went in, over half of the shelves were gone and replaced with computers.

I don't mean to pearl clutch here, I fully support libraries and always will. I do not support a government subsidized internet cafe.

It's a common misconception that libraries are just stacks of books. Libraries are about connecting people to information and resources. How people access information changes. These days a ton of information is online - more than any one library could hold - and having access to those resources - whether to look something up on Wikipedia or to apply for a job - is a core part of the duty of libraries.

Libraries have books, magazine, journal subscriptions, children's books, music, movies, art. They host clubs, they host discussions or community events, they help people find all sorts of information.

Understood. Generally, I'm a fan of all types of media, basically everything you mentioned -except- computers/internet. Perhaps a couple smart thin clients for wiki and such? But the process of removing books to add computers specifically is what irks me I guess.

Maybe it's just its ephemeral nature. In 1000 years if someone came across an old library they could see and learn so much. Not so much if it's just a pile of computers that don't work anymore.

The corporate neocons and neoliberals are vampirically sacrificing and selling off essential commonwealth public infrastructure and cultural institutions for profit to the detriment of long term investment. The net result is decline and regression.