The recent flurry of newspaper comments on books withheld by the Schools Library Service (SLS) prompts me to reply to some of the fantastic things mentioned.

First of all there is no ‘hidden hand’; the present Head of the section, Ms Marisa Calleja, who has 23 years of library experience, is not keeping a low profile; there has been no written or verbal directive to ban any author’s books in toto; there are no hidden agendas on the part of the SLS.

These and other misguided thoughts, put into print, need to be put to rest with the real version of things.

The Schools Library Service, which I set up in 1976 to guide and assist schools in the provision of libraries, has a set of guidelines when it comes to a lot of things. These are contained in the Manual for Teacher Librarians, now in its fifth edition (2006), written by Ms Calleja and myself, and issued after lengthy consultations with the Director General of Education at the time. Ten pages of this manual deal with book selection. Book selection is a different kettle of fish from censorship.

My sparring with censors goes back to 1968 and since then I have been trying to make people understand the difference between censorship and selection. Professional librarians are against censorship because this seeks to eliminate what the few think could be harmful to the masses. Librarians on the other hand are there to select the things that will be of benefit to the masses. The process of selection is time consuming and a very delicate exercise. Not only are you required to designate the reading age for a particular book, you must also decide whether the book in question is suitable The manual clearly states that “books chosen for a school library need to be age appropriate, sex (gender) appropriate and subject appropriate”.

The Schools Library Service issues monthly lists of new recommended titles in the English language for primary and secondary schools. These are the books that have been noted as being superior to the many others being published monthly.

This brings us to another important factor. School libraries have a mandate to support the curriculum. While university libraries share this goal, they are not expected to provide general reading material (i.e. fiction). On the other side of the scale is the public library, which is the layman’s university. This type of library differs greatly from a school library. Just because a book has been put in the junior or young adult section of a public library is not a sine qua non that it should go into a school library. Their users are totally distinct. Anyone joining a public library does so voluntarily and if under 18 needs a parent’s consent. Having spent 18 years as Head of the Public Library I feel qualified in being able to make the distinction. Incidentally, is the Public Library still using my book selection guidelines or have these too been forgotten? School attendance is compulsory till the age of 16. So let us stop mixing the two together. As a teacher for many long years I think I know something about schools.

If a book is awarded a prize it does not follow that it can go into any library. I will not go into the merits of any individual book because every book is evaluated on its own. State secondary schools buy library books. Since the Student Services Department purchased library management software (OLIVER), all new books are taken to the SLS to be added to the central database. The central catalogue contains 68,577 different titles and 135,818 items at the moment. One can access this on-line catalogue by using the following URL … [email protected]/oliver

All books taken to the SLS are checked, barcoded and eventually returned to the schools. It may surprise people to know that on average some four to five books are withheld each week. No fuss, no press comments, just a tête-à-tête with the teacher-librarians concerned and the book/s are normally retrieved by the school and exchanged for others. The reasons for this vary but mostly they are due to the unsuitability of the material for schools. Nor are they all Maltese language books. One case in point is a recent submission of an English fiction book by a convicted paedophile whose books are no longer being stocked in libraries worldwide. Teacher-librarians had been warned about this author but it is quite easy for one to forget especially if one is offered this book at a bargain price.

It is pertinent to point out that this whole episode came about because one state secondary school bought a copy of Vampir and the SLS recommended that it be taken back and exchanged for something else. The idea spread by the papers that all copies of this book was withdrawn from school libraries and that a directive was issued to ban all the author’s books was an over exaggeration. How can one remove what was never there?

One paper took me to task, claiming that I had unilaterally decided to stop this book. Then the correspondent went on to say why the SLS had stopped this book claiming that the “SLS seems to have objected to Vampir on the basis of two stories; the second story to which the SLS most likely objected”. The same correspondent however got my surname wrong in the paper (and corrected it on the online version later!).

I find it amazing that the National Book Council came out in favour of putting this book in schools. As far as memory serves me, their terms of reference makes no mention of recommending books schools. Assuming they are using the same criteria I wrote many years ago as a Cabinet memo for a law that would help books in Malta, I find it hard to believe that they should make such a stand.

Joseph Boffa