New Report: Challenges to Library Resources and Policies in Canada During 2011

The Canadian Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Advisory Committee has released the results of its annual survey of challenges to library resources and policies in Canada for 2011.

For the first time in six years of the survey, an entire genre of resources – graphic novels – was challenged for removal from a library’s collection. The challenge was motivated by objections to explicit sexuality and violence, and singled out 16 titles authored or illustrated by Jaime Hernandez in the Love and Rockets series.

Overall, Canadian libraries reported 101 challenges in the 2011 survey that is conducted annually by the Canadian Library Association (CLA) Intellectual Freedom Advisory Committee. Of these, 93 challenges involved library resources and eight were to policies. These challenges were reported by 32 libraries, most of them public libraries, serving patrons across six of Canada’s most populous provinces.

Love and Rockets was not the only series targeted in calendar year 2011. Three other series were also challenged: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy; one season of four episodes of an ITV series titled “Trial and Retribution” on DVD; and, one season of nine episodes of “The War Years,” volume two in “The Adventures of the Young Indiana Jones” television series, also on DVD.