A research report on Censorship Practices and Access to Information based 
on interviews with school/children’s librarians has been produced and is 
available to download from http://www.ebase.uce.ac.uk/publications.htm

Some of the main findings include:

• Although in theory interviewees did not support censorship, all 
employed censorship in practice to a greater or lesser extent.  
• Racism, violence (especially against women) and sadomasochism were 
seen as the most serious issues which should be censored in libraries used 
by children and young people.  Swearing was less of a problem.  
• Graphic novels and fantasy books (e.g. Warhammer, 
manga), ‘crossover’ novels (i.e. teenage imprints of adult titles) and art 
books were among the most problematic types of resource to deal with.  
• As well as considering each resource objectively, most librarians 
would take account of the ethos and culture of their organisation when 
making decisions about censorship. 
• Almost all interviewees restricted access to fiction materials 
according to age.  
• Librarians intervviewed claimed that young people were generally 
accepting of the restrictions in place and understood the reasons for 
them.  
• The fear of receiving a complaint from a parent was a strong 
motivator for librarians to censor materials, especially as many did not 
feel they would be supported by their head teacher or colleagues if a 
complaint was received.  
• Decisions in school libraries tended to be taken at a more 
personal level and individual librarians made decisions based on personal 
views, rather than a rigid selection policy.  
• Interviewees stressed the importance of building a balanced 
collection of resources which represented all sides of an argument.  
However in some schools, for example, denominational schools, this might 
not happen with certain issues.  
• Most librarians labelled books which they felt might be biased to 
make students aware that they should look at alternative resources as well.
• No librarians interviewed had direct control of Internet access in 
the library.  This caused problems because many useful sites were filtered 
and the ease with which these could be unblocked varied.  Librarians were 
concerned that these restrictions did not allow them to teach information 
skills to students in the most effective way and gave students a false 
impression of the reliability of the Internet.  
• Networks, both formal and informal, were crucial in alerting 
librarians to resources which might cause problems; helping them decide 
how to deal with such resources; and providing support in deciding how to 
handle a complaint.