This last week the library celebrated Banned Books week.   Did you know there is a difference between books that have been challenged(a complaint raised about) and books that have been banned(blocked from anyone reading)?   Over history, books have been challenged and/or banned for many reasons from political to personal.   In fact, ALA keeps a list of the top 100 banned/challenged books.  Sometimes the reasons a book is challenged also change over time as our societies change.

Commonly asked questions that we hear:

Does our library “ban” any books?   No, we don’t.

Do we ever have book challenges?  Yes, sometimes we do.  When we do, we have a committee that reads the book(including students), checks it against district criteria and book reviews, and makes a recommendation.

Do you think it’s harder to ban “books” or ideas with so much internet access across the world?  It is definitely much more difficult in our current technological world to ban the ideas found in books or to ban books themselves.  Some countries do still restrict access to the internet or to book titles, but the internet makes it very difficult for this to be successful anymore.

So, celebrate your freedom to read during Banned Books week!  And check out our display in the library!