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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 19, 1992                   TAG: 9201190065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MADISON, WIS.                                LENGTH: Medium

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BOOK-BANNING EFFORTS EFFECTIVE

Efforts to get books and magazines banned or restricted in school libraries succeeded nearly half the time over three years, researchers said.

A University of Wisconsin survey of 6,600 secondary schools nationwide found censorship most successful at small schools, said Diane McAfee Hopkins, who supervised the study.

An American Library Association official said the finding was alarming.

The study focused on 739 book and magazine challenges between 1987 and 1990.

Publications that drew objections from parents and organizations were removed 26 percent of the time and were restricted - by age or grade - 22 percent of the time, said Hopkins, an assistant professor of library and information studies at the Madison campus.

Ann Levinson, assistant director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom in Chicago, called the statistics alarming.

"That's a very high rate of successful challenges," Levinson said. "We would like to hope that First Amendment freedoms hold up a lot more than that. As it is, they don't work half of the time."

The most frequently questioned book was "Forever" by Judy Blume, about a teen-age girl who loses her virginity. The book by Blume, who specializes in adolescent fiction, was challenged 13 times in the schools and period studied.

There were 10 challenges each for "Go Ask Alice," a book by an anonymous author about teen drug use; "The Chocolate War," Robert Cormier's novel about boys who rebel when their school forces them to sell candy bars; and "Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean Auel, which is set in prehistoric times.

Hopkins said 64 percent of challenges came from parents, 13 percent from teachers and 7 percent from principals.

The rest came from conservative or liberal groups, superintendents, school boards and others, she said.

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