Book Bans in American Libraries: Impact of Politics on Inclusive Content Consumption

Banning of books has become increasingly prevalent and politically polarizing in the United States. Although the primary goal of these bans is to restrict access to books, conversations about the bans have garnered attention on a wider scale. This increased attention to bans can either have a chilling effect or can influence consumers to read the banned books. In this study, we use a novel, large-scale data set of U.S. library book circulations and evaluate the impact of high-profile book bans on the consumption of banned books. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that the circulations of banned books increased by 12%, on average, compared with comparable nonbanned titles after the ban. We also find that banning a book in a state leads to increased circulation in states without bans. We show that the increase in consumption is driven by books from lesser-known authors, suggesting that new and unknown authors stand to gain from the increasing consumer support. Additionally, our results demonstrate that books with higher visibility on social media following the ban see an increase in consumption, suggesting a pivotal role played by social media. Using patron-level data from the Seattle Public Library that include the borrower’s age, we provide suggestive evidence that the increase in readership in the aggregate data is driven, in part, by children reading a book more once it is banned. Using data on campaign emails sent to potential donors subscribed to politicians’ mailing lists, we show a significant increase in mentions of book ban-related topics in fundraising emails sent by Republican candidates. We also provide suggestive evidence on the impact of the rhetoric around these events on donations received by politicians.