These estimates indicate that a one standard deviation increase in community conservatism decreases the probability of finding a title from my list of books on race/racism by 3.2 percentage points (a 20% reduction relative to the sample mean of 16%) and decreases the probability of finding an LGBTQ+ title by 4.0 percentage points (12.9%) in high schools. Similar patterns appear even after controlling for the number of books in the library, the acquisitions rate, and student enrollment at the school. Seuss titles that were discontinued from publication in 2021 because of racist imagery. Libraries in conservative areas also have more Christian fiction titles and more Dr. School libraries in the most conservative areas have fewer LGBTQ+ titles and fewer books that deal with race/racism or abortion than libraries in the most liberal areas. Figure 1 shows the number of books from each list of controversial titles in school libraries in more and less conservative communities, which I define based on the margin that voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Next, I examine whether the prevalence of books with controversial content is related to local political environments and state laws. 4.02 titles).įinding #2: Access to controversial content is related to local political environments. School libraries in high-income neighborhoods also have nearly twice as many recent best-sellers in their catalogues for young adults (18.58 vs. 1.40) and employ more full-time equivalent librarians (1.12 vs.
Compared to school libraries in low-income areas, school libraries in high-income areas have higher book acquisition rates (2.05 vs. The gaps are especially large between schools in low- and high-income communities (community income measured using the school neighborhood income-to-poverty ratio per the 2018-19 NCES EDGE school neighborhood poverty estimates). Schools with larger shares of white students, schools located in high-income areas, and schools in non-rural areas have better-resourced libraries and/or more up-to-date collections than their counterparts. Here, I describe some of the main findings from that work.įinding #1: Libraries in low-income areas have lower staffing levels and less up-to-date collections.įirst, I consider how library resources and collections quality vary for different types of schools. I use these data to identify patterns in library resources and content, especially as they relate to political preferences, state laws, and book bans. This sample includes schools in rural and urban areas, schools in counties with conservative and liberal political leanings, and schools that serve students of very different backgrounds. My school library sample consists of 5,240 elementary/middle and 1,391 high schools in 48 states. I also estimated the total number of books in the library and the library acquisitions rate (the share of books recently added to the library’s collection). The list of titles across controversial topics includes both fictionalized stories and nonfiction titles. I collected this data by first curating book lists in several areas, including best-sellers, award-winners, and books that deal with controversial content including LGBTQ titles and books on race/racism or abortion, and then searching publicly accessible school library catalogs in the spring of 2022 for books on those lists. For a new study, I assembled data on hundreds of titles in public school libraries across the country.
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