Libraries can and do choose what books to keep in their collection. If a library chooses not to acquire a book, that isn't necessarily `banning'. If I write a b

Libraries can and do choose what books to keep in their collection. If a library chooses not to acquire a book, that isn't necessarily `banning'. If I write a book on dog poop art, a library may well decide that nobody is going to want to read it, and that acquiring the book would be a waste of budget and of shelf space. Banning can best be thought of as external. If a library has a book, and a politician (e.g., library board or school board member) demands the book be removed, that is a call for the book to be banned. Not all banning is external, to be sure. A library that refused to acquire books of interest to people of color, or to LGBTs, can definitely be said to be banning books. Librarians I have known have pretty much all had the opinion that, as much as possible, acquisitions should be responsive to the needs of the community, and would not be supportive of policies like that. As for the Turner Diaries, I'd echo the OP that, even if a library chose to include it in its collection (and thus spend money on it that would not be available to spend on other books), it should be held in a Special Collections division, available only on request. But my guess is that my dog poop art book would get more circulation than the Turner Diaries.