Keynote speaker at National Library Association conference says ‘explicit’ books can be ‘really valuable’ to students

A keynote speaker at a national library conference told attendees that explicit content in schools and libraries could be “really valuable” to students and other patrons, according to a video recording of the June 8 conference reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

During the Library 2.0’s “Banned Books and Censorship” conference, University of Kentucky Associate Professor Dr. Shannon M. Oltmann spoke on pornographic content within public schools, noting that books, content and pictures that are “explicit” or make someone “uncomfortable” don’t always fall under the definition of pornography, according to a video recording of the June 8 conference. Oltmann advised attendees not to get caught up in the definition of pornography, saying that the debate over what falls under the definition is misleading.

“Pornography does not equate to something that makes you uncomfortable, I just want to make that very explicit,” Oltmann said. “There are things that make us uncomfortable, there are things that could be explicit, those may or not be defined as pornography. I think chasing after what is pornography and should pornography be on ‘such and such’ library shelves, I think that is a complete red-herring.”

“I don’t want people to get caught up in definitions of pornography definitions, especially definitions that say anything explicit or detailed should not be allowed,” Oltmann said. “Sometimes those things are really valuable to students or other patrons.”

Another speaker, Emily Knox, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, addressed two books, “Gender Queer,” a book that contains cartoon images of masturbation and oral sex, and “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir about the experience of a black queer boy growing up that depicts graphic sexually explicit encounters, which have been challenged within school districts because of their pornographic nature. Knox claimed that the books are not pornographic, though they have “surprising,” but not “particularly sexy pictures.”

Parents across the country are pushing to have sexually explicit books removed from schools; a Virginia town board voted to partially freeze funding to a local public library after parents protested the presence of sexually explicit books available in the kid’s section. In California, parents compiled a database of books that feature pornographic scenes and are available in school libraries.

Oltmann said at the conference that she didn’t think there were school districts with pornographic content on their shelves.

“Obviously there are things that are illegal that should not be in libraries,” Oltmann stated. “One thing that is not illegal is pornography, but I cannot imagine a school library that has pornography on their shelves. I cannot imagine most public libraries or academic libraries or any libraries that have pornography on their shelves.”

Oltmann, Knox and Library 2.0 did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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