Biblioteken och censuren : om försök att censurera HBT- litteratur på amerikanska folkbibliotek

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to look at censorship and attempted censorship of books about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (GLBT) people in public libraries in the USA. People from the public can submit formal challenges to a book at the library when they find the material offensive which can lead to those books being taken away from the library shelves. The questions asked are why GLBT- literature is being challenged, and sometimes banned, and how do the libraries deal with the challenges to the books.It is nowadays the people from the public, rather than the government or the librarians that are behind many cases of removal of books with homosexual themes. The study presents some of the fictional GLBT- literature that has been cause for much controversy in the USA. All the five examples mentioned are children’s books concerning GLBT- themes and are among the most challenged books in American libraries in the past twenty years. It is namely a majority of books that are challenged by parents, not wanting to expose their children to something they themselves find objectionable.The libraries in the USA are under pressure from different parties concerned with how the libraries handle challenges. They have to follow the laws that affect them as well as taking into regard opinions from the public. They also need to live up to certain standards set by the library-industry, including the American Library Association. Especially the library-industry and some people of the public have very different expectations on how the library deals with controversial material.