Content Warnings

Diversity Audit is completely done (as far as my library aides are concerned)! I have to go through and put the data into the spreadsheets then share in blog posts, but the students are ready to move on to our next project. I’m so excited that we will be moving forward with our Content Warning Project. Students will go through the shelves, book by book, and using this website (and Goodreads/StoryGraph) they will find what content warnings are in which books. Thanks to Willow Darling I have personalized content warning stickers that I purchased from Sarah Styles at willowdarling.com. If this is something that you want to purchase and edit to fit your needs, contact Sarah through her website or Instagram (@willowdarlingbysarah) and she will sell you the template for you to print at home on sticker paper. I was able to get a set of 200 sheets of 6 per page. I’m hoping this will hold me for what we need in all my genrefied fiction sections.

For the past several months I have made it a goal to use content warnings in my bookstagram posts when I do my daily book reviews. I have found it to be more and more common on Goodreads and StoryGraph lately too. By listing content warnings in books I am hoping to have students be more aware of what they want to read and what they feel emotionally ready to read. Social Emotional Learning is at the forefront of education right now, in addition to checking on students’ mental health. By labeling these trigger or content warnings we are helping those students acknowledge their traumas and feel comfortable reading what they choose to.

I recently had a comment on one of my bookstagram posts about how content warnings can be perceived as spoilers. To some degree, I agree with this. However, I believe that people who are triggered by content in books need to be protected over those who might get some type of spoiler. Most of the content warnings on the list below can be taken in many different contexts so I hope that anyone who sees them checked, realizes there is so much more than one word to a book. I would rather protect the mental health of someone going through (or having gone through) a traumatic event and can’t handle reading a book dealing with similar topics than someone who feels like checking one of these boxes is considered a book spoiler. For those who are worried about spoilers, if they don’t have any triggers (like the person who commented on my post said they didn’t), they can skip the front title page altogether, missing the content warnings sticker completely so they’re not in danger of having their books spoiled.

I also think this will help with all the book challenges that have been popping up in Texas and beyond. If a student can see right away that a book has content in it that they aren’t interested in reading or content that might be triggering for them, then they won’t check out that book. I plan to also have my library aides add notes for the book in Destiny Follett so that we can look up the content warnings as well. This is a big project that will take us most of the year, in addition to other tasks such as book fairs, weeding, inventory, etc. I can’t wait to see the results of having a library that has content warning stickers. Reach out if you have any questions about this process!