At the recent Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, a librarian from Jessamine County, Kentucky, spoke firsthand about dealing with calls for censorship in his library, and an expert from the American Library Association discussed how to handle challenges to graphic novels at the panel titled "Burn It, Hide It, Misshelve It, Steal It, Ban It! Dealing with Graphic Novel Censorship in Your Library."

"Images are powerful," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom, who hosted the panel. "Something that is described in four or five pages can be done in a single panel, and it has real impact on people. It can trigger a challenge to graphic novels or libraries very quickly—someone can pick it up, open it, and see a panel out of context." Adding to this is the common misconception that comics are "trashy" and are strictly for children. "There are libraries today that still don't see comics as something fit to collect," Caldwell-Stone said.

The chief reason for challenges is sex and nudity, with violence a close second. "A graphic novel may be written for a young adult audience, but parents say it deals with topics that no 13-year-old should be thinking about: homosexuality, sex," Caldwell-Stone said. Some books are challenged because of racial or ethnic slurs; the Brooklyn Public Library took Tintin in the Congo out of circulation and now keeps it in a locked vault because of a complaint about the creator Hergé's depiction of Africans. "This is a hard question," said Caldwell-Stone. "It deals with attitudes from the past you don't want to talk about, but there is also a usefulness in being able to talk about the past. Having access to that book for scholars and those who are interested in graphic novels as a whole is important."

Most challenges are brought by parents and grandparents, or adult community members who happen to stumble on a book in the library, Caldwell-Stone said, but there are also organized groups, using names like "family friendly," "citizens for decency," or "safe libraries." "[They] say they are there to protect kids, that they are there to protect parents' rights to raise their kids the way they see fit, and they think this gives them the right to dictate what is in the library," she said. "They can often take a challenge in a community where a concern is raised by a single parent and blow it up into a major conflagration."

Caldwell-Stone stressed the importance of having written policies for dealing with challenges in place before the challenges occur, pointing to the case of Marshall, Missouri, as an example. "This is an example of a citizen walking in, picking up something at the new arrivals, wondering what the book is about, and finding the panel that has sex in it," Caldwell-Stone said. The books in question were Craig Thompson's Blankets and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.

"The board had no methodology to follow," Caldwell-Stone said. "They just took the books off the shelf in response to the challenge. There were five public meetings, and they hammered out a collection development policy. That whole time, these books were off the shelf in the director’s office, not available to the public.

"Ultimately they adopted the policy, they sent the books to a reconciliation committee who found the books had been acquired in accordance with acquisition policy and fit the needs of the library, and they were shelved in the library."

In addition to written policies, Caldwell-Stone advised libraries to back up their acquisitions with reviews and to have a core community of library supporters who can be called on when a book is challenged. "We often find censorship doesn't succeed when you have a strong Friends group, strong defenders who will show up at library board meetings and show there is strong support in the community," she said.

The first-hand account came from David Powell, librarian for the Jessamine County, Kentucky, library. The library does have written acquisition and challenge policies but still found itself at the center of heated controversy after terminating two employees who tried to keep Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier out of circulation. "Alan Moore is one of the most celebrated authors in comic books, and that ended up helping us quite a bit," said Powell. "If they would have picked a less known author, I think we would have struggled more than we did."

The book had been on the shelf for about two years when a staff member brought it to him and expressed concern that it was "pornographic" and shouldn't be on the shelf, where a child could see it. Powell told her that the proper procedure was to challenge the book, and the employee did so. The library's collection development committee reviewed the book and decided to keep it on the shelves.

But the story didn't end there. "After a while it was discovered, I can't say how, this library employee was checking out this item over and over to keep it off the shelves," Powell said. "She said to the paper it was her intention to keep it off the shelves to protect children." Eventually someone put the book on hold, so she couldn't renew it again. She checked who had put it on hold and discovered that the cardholder was an 11-year-old girl. Another employee removed the hold. "We have a confidentiality policy that says you cannot look at people's records for any reason other than everyday business of the library," Powell said. "This was beyond that. It was discovered, and their employment was terminated."

"I respect their convictions," Powell said. "I disagree with it, but I really like these employees and still do—I am not sure how they feel about me. What happened was we had their personal values versus the professional ethics we have to exercise as library staff and librarians."

The story became big news after the terminations. Seventy-five people showed up at the next library board meeting, but they were not allowed to speak because the issue wasn't on the agenda. "The next meeting, we put them on the agenda and made an open forum," Powell said. "People could register, but they had to be a cardholder. Our cards shot up that month in registrations. Most of these people were not library users—but now they can be."

Local preachers circulated petitions calling for the removal of the book, but Powell said the opposition was not well organized. "People wanted everything from the book taken off the shelf to a committee of citizens who would look over every book. Ultimately, as with most things, it just died down and has kind of gone away."

One positive aspect was the support that poured in from all over the country. The writer Neil Gaiman supported the library on his blog, and he and Powell recently did a live internet broadcast for National Library Week. And Stone said that the ALA is giving the library an award for exemplary defense of intellectual freedom, which will be presented at the ALA annual meeting in June.

There was one collateral benefit: "We had a lot of people from all across the country send us copies of the book, and our circulation skyrocketed," Powell said. "We now have three copies on the shelf, and I have a stash of them, so if they disappear I can put another one out."