Image: LGBTQIA+ themed books which have had bans proposed in Australian libraries.
The NSW government is aiming to help the 361 public libraries in the state defend themselves from future book bans and culture war attacks. The proposed new legislation aims to protect the right of public libraries to collect material some may find offensive, and for the public to read what they choose.
At a State Library Of NSW event, NSW Arts Minister John Graham introduced the amendments to the state’s Library Act, saying “We’re making freedom to read part of the legislation.” If they became law, the right to read and collect without pressure from special interest groups would be embedded “for generations to come”.
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.
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. Most of the complaints related to material about LGBTQIA+ communities.
One of the most visible of these cases happened at Cumberland City Council in the western suburbs of Sydney, where Councillor Steve Christou persuaded the council to ban books about same-sex parenting from the council’s libraries, focusing specifically on the book Same-Sex Parents by Holly Duhig. The change was short-lived, with protests the streets in and more than 40,000 signing a petition to lift the ban. Only two weeks later, the Cumberland Council reversed its decision, voting decisively (13-2).
Also in 2024, Port Macquarie’s local council put forward a motion to remove the LGBTQIA+ books Welcome to Sex and Gender Queer.
An article in The Conversation explains that book banning efforts are often highly coordinated,with groups distributing lists of books that may be in the collections of their local libraries. “These culture-war attacks on libraries and librarians are often motivated by grievances against progress, such as LGBTQ+ visibility and acceptance, and other forms of diversity.”
Australian Library and Information Association CEO Cathie Warburton has reported that “People are going into libraries, grabbing books off the shelves, reading them out loud and saying ‘These shouldn’t be here’, calling librarians horrible names and threatening doxxing and physical violence.”
Equality Australia currently has a petition to sign, urging government to protect our libraries from censorship and hate by supporting amendments to the Library Act 1939.
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