A librarian told me to stop using book banning statistics from a single source

She showed me how one national report I relied on from 2022 actually missed half the local school board challenges in my own state, so now I cross-check with three different databases before I post anything about censorship trends - has anyone else found a similar blind spot in their research?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylor822d ago

Read a piece saying most bans happen at the local level where no one reports them.

taylor_fox2d ago

Has @taylor82 seen that piece too? You're right, local school boards are where most of the censorship actually happens, but nobody reports it consistently. I started following state-level education blogs and county clerk meeting notes after realizing the big databases were only catching about 60% of what's going on in my region. Now I keep a running spreadsheet of challenges from local newspapers and watch those public records requests from parents groups.

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