# 419 | Reading Practices and Intellectual Freedom Research Emily J. M. Knox, Ph.D.

1. # 419 | Reading Practices and Intellectual Freedom Research Emily J. M. Knox, Ph.D. Graduate School of Library and Information Science | University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign • Interpretive Strategies and Censorship Practices • How do challengers understand the practice of reading? • Common sense interpretations of text prevail • Fear of the undisciplined imagination • Imaginative visualization and mimesis • Concern with short- and long-term effects of reading on the reader • Early Research on Reading in LIS • Integral component of graduate education at the Graduate Library School (GLS) at the University of Chicago • Ended in 1932 • The GLS and librarianship “walked away from an opportunity.”[1] • Censorship Practices • Types of Censorship Practices • Removing, restricting, or relocating materials • Requesting—either orally or in writing—that materials be removed, restricted, or relocated • Self-censorship • Sources of Censorship Discourse • 13 book challenge cases from 2007-2011 • Observations of public hearings • Interviews with challengers • Documents from challenge cases Examples of Discourse on Reading from Challengers Remind your child that when making a picture or mental image, readers put themselves in the story or text by making a “mind movie.” When you really enjoy what you are reading creating this picture is probably the most important step. But do we really want our kids, even if they are age 15 or 16, picturing themselves in Montana 1948? Or do we want them making it into a mind movie? We sure don’t. We hope you will agree and remove this book (Merrill, WI Letter 9/27/2011). Anyone going in there can just take that book out. And then they’re going to…those doors are open. It’s like a Pandora’s Box or whatever. You can’t go back once you’ve had that information in your head. That’s it. That will lead to further curiosity about things. And I don’t know what that means. Does that mean acting it out? Doing it with another…to see…or whatever. I have no idea, but I don’t think those things are appropriate for children that young (Carrollton, NY Interview). …I have spent my whole life working with children. And I can tell you that the things that what we expose our children to does not make it right and does not necessarily prepare them for life and to make good decisions. If I want my kid to know more about drugs do I then get heroin or cocaine and say “Try it son”? Or try it on my daughters?But when it comes to literature, [it’s] okay? We have this thing where we want to educate… (Clarkstown, NY Hearing Male Speaker #3). M. Holzknecht speaks at a book hearing in Stockton, MO Picture credit: Nathan Papes / News-Leader Image: Seattle Municipal Archives • Investigation into Reading as a Practice in other Fields • R. Darnton – Approaches to Understanding Reading[2] • Examining “ideas and assumptions underlying reading in the past” • E. Long – Reading as a Social Practice[3] • Reading is collective • Relies on both social infrastructure and social framing • S. Fish – Interpretive Strategies[4] • Give shape to reading • Shape texts • Do not to come from the texts themselves Image: Susan Hoerth. Altered Book Grimm's Fairy Tales. http://www.etsy.com/listing/96544675/altered-book-grimms-fairy-tales References [1] Wiegand, W. 1993. Tunnel vision and blind spots: What the past tells us about the present; Reflections on the twentieth-century history of American librarianship. The Library Quarterly, 69(1), 1–32. [2] Darnton, R. 1991. First steps toward a history of reading. In Kiss of Lamourette. W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 154-187. [3] Long, E. 1992. Textual interpretation as collective action. In J. Boyarin (Ed.), The ethnography of reading, University of California Press, Berkley, CA, 180-211. [4] Fish, S.E. 1982. Is there a text in this class? Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Photo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/yes-virginia-they-still-b_b_1923928.html