Magale Library is celebrating Banned Books Week September 25-October 5. Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. BBW highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.
“This type of display is new; we usually have a smaller exhibit for Banned Books Week, but this year we really wanted to showcase the books we have in our library that have been banned somewhere in the U.S. during (mostly) the 20th century,” said Daniel Page, who became Magale Library Director in July.
Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for BBW. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.
The type of books found in a library depends on the demographics of the library. SAU’s Magale Library, for instance, is an academic library, meaning most of the books in the library are nonfiction. This does not mean, however, that Magale Library cannot legally possess anything but academic reads. “There are not any laws that can prohibit any type of book here,” Page said.
Laws that govern public libraries and K-12 libraries tend to differ. Public libraries, just like academic libraries, can have any type of book in them. Public libraries, however, have a significantly higher rate of book challenges than do academic libraries. This also stands true for K-12 libraries.
This statistic is a direct result of public and K-12 libraries’ patrons. In both situations of a public or K-12 library, children are involved. “Most book challenges are made by parents because they believe books to be unsuited to the child’s age. Things that may make a book unsuitable for a certain age group include the amount of violence and rough language used, as well as sexual explicitness,” Page said.
All of the books featured during BBW have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections.
“By participating in Banned Books Week, I hope library users recognize the importance of the First Amendment and its impact on us as individuals. The First Amendment essentially allows for libraries to exist. Without libraries individuals would have limited access to information, denying us the freedom to learn from others and their works,” said Del Duke, instruction public services librarian and coordinator of Banned Books Week.
