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NSW Arts Minister John Graham will fend off a Florida-like wave of attempted book bans and culture wars with new legislation to protect the right of the state’s 361 public libraries to collect material some may find offensive, and for the public to read what they choose.
“We’re making freedom to read part of the legislation,” Graham said, speaking before an event to celebrate the State Library of NSW’s 200th anniversary last Friday. If a proposed amendment to the Library Act of 1939 became law, the right to read and collect without pressure from special interest groups would be embedded “for generations to come”.
Graham said the justification for the original legislation was probably truer today than it was 86 years ago. “Without libraries, the citizen has no check on indoctrination and propaganda,” a report said then.
There have been at least 309 attempts to exclude 184 titles from library shelves around Australia since 2023, according to reports to the Australian Library and Information Association.
Association chief executive Cathie Warburton said most related to material about LGBTQ communities. This included multiple attempts to ban Same-Sex Parents by Holly Duhig, the book removed from Cumberland City Council’s libraries for two weeks in 2024, creating an international furore.
Graham has introduced legislation, likely to be debated in the next few months, to close a loophole: the right of citizens to borrow was enshrined in the existing act, but the right of libraries to collect books and materials relevant to their communities was only a regulation.
Only materials prohibited by the Commonwealth Classification Board can be removed from a library’s shelves, and it is the only body with authority to have a book restricted.
Graham said the public’s right to freely access books would be compromised if libraries were not free to develop their collections because of external pressure.
He was motivated by the Cumberland incident and similar controversies in Victoria. He said councillors at Yass Valley and Port Macquarie-Hastings had unsuccessfully attempted to exclude “perfectly lawful books”.
“They’re highly political. And this is an attempt to say: We don’t want Florida-style [book bans] here,” he said.
School districts in the southern American state have banned thousands of books from school libraries, including Beloved by Toni Morrison, Normal People by Sally Rooney, Forever by Judy Blume and Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.
Graham said: “We want exactly the opposite, where anyone can have access to [the books they want].”
State Librarian Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon said libraries had never been more vital. Last year, there were more than 28 million visits to public libraries and more than 41 million collection items borrowed.
The institution is inviting people to record their memories as part of The Library That Made Me project for its 200th anniversary.
Graham’s love of reading was nurtured at Albury Library, where he could “borrow 10 books to read over the weekend, and then go back and get another 10. It was incredible.”
Historian, author and professor Grace Karskens, who has spent much of her life doing research in libraries, remembered loving books by Enid Blyton of Famous Five fame but finding they were not available. “Certainly NOT!” one librarian barked at her.
Karskens said they were simply told, riveting, fantastic stories. Only later did she realise some libraries would not include them on the grounds that they were not “proper literature” for young people.
“I didn’t turn out too bad,” Karskens said.
The host of the UK’s Grand Designs, Kevin McCloud, recalled landing a job in a London library locating books for people who wanted something they had read decades earlier.
“I would find [the book] on the old dusty old stacks, and then wrap them up in brown paper and send them … It was the most brilliant thing because the book became the item for communication, letter writing … these people just thanking us.”
Joseph Damilare said he visited Green Square library almost every day.
“It allows me to do things that I wouldn’t be able to do at work because [it’s] company time, and when I’m at home I’m too distracted, so the library is a perfect place for me to get things done.”
The public has been invited to share their memories via The Library That Made Me online portal.
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Julie Power is a senior reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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