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Don Davis, in favor of the banning of certain books, waits to respond to the argument made by a student in the crowd during yesterday's Banned Books Debate.

Students debate banning books

By: Briana Hernandez

Posted: 10/3/07

SJSU students and faculty gathered in the Student Union Amphitheatre at noon on Tuesday to discuss the national issue of schools, at all levels, banning and challenging books.

James Schmidt, a library sciences professor at SJSU, said that a book usually becomes challenged or banned from public use if it is deemed to have sexually explicit language, violence or is deemed inappropriate at a certain age level.

Schmidt said, however, "Requests to withdraw or limit access to books rarely occur at academic libraries," such as the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library.

Alex Bulatskaya, a junior communications major who attended yesterday's event, where two students debated over the issue, said, "I think the specific issue we are looking at is book banning, but what about government control? That's what it's really about. Book banning is something that was done in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia."

While some believe that the student body would protest a ban on particular books, others also believe that people on the administrative level would contest banning as well.

Karla Aleman, a library sciences graduate student and reference intern at the library, said universities are "more apt to fight" possible banning of materials.

Rebecca Feind, an information literacy coordinator at the King Library, said, "To my knowledge, nothing here has been challenged in the collection."

If in the event a parent, student or citizen of San Jose wanted to challenge certain materials being available at the library, Feind said, "They would be welcome to have a conversation with the librarians on the fact that we don't censor materials, and that it's our job to make information available to anyone on any topic."

She added, "In a university setting, there is always going to be information that people find challenging."

Jordan Rosene, a junior communications major, said if books were banned from the library, she wouldn't be affected by it and would go somewhere else to check out what she needed.

Regarding controversial books such as William Powell's "The Anarchist Cookbook," which includes instructions for making make napalm, Rosene said, "I don't really think that should be in a library, but, at the same time, I don't think books should be banned."

Yesterday's event was hosted by SJSU business Professor Annette Nellen as part of Banned Books Week.

Banned Books Week is also scheduled to include a performance of Allen Ginsberg's controversial poem, "Howl," by SJSU's Poet and Writers Coalition. The performance should take place near the Smith-Carlos statue at 11:30 a.m. today.

After the debate, Nellen said it was important for SJSU students to ask librarians how they choose books for the library and why certain materials are not available to them.

However, Dominie Garcia, a business professor who assisted Nellen with the event, said she would be surprised if there were any books that were banned at SJSU "because the purpose of a university is freedom of intellectual thought and discourse. It would kind of go against that."

Library Coordinator Feind said the criteria for selecting books for the library involves SJSU curriculum, publishers' catalogs and money allotted by the library budget.

"We work hard to support the curriculum of the university so that we have materials to support the things that students are studying," Feind said.