Banned Books Week, 2001

Banned Books Week @ your library^®

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Flyer telling about Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week is celebrated every year as a reminder of our essential freedom to choose what we read. The theme for 2001 is "Develop Yourself: Expose Your Mind to a Banned Book." The dates for Banned Books Week are September 22 - 29, 2001.

Text of the beginning of the First Amendment

Banned Books Week is a good time to contemplate the importance of our First Amendment Rights and the importance of the intellectual freedoms that we share. Libraries play a significant role in providing information to the citizens of our country so that they can be well informed and can exercise their intellectual freedoms. For more information on First Amendment Rights go to http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/first.html.

Display for Banned Books Week

The American Library Association has a Web site with links to information on censorship, notable first amendment cases, quotations, 100 most challenged books and more. This can be found at http://www.ala.org/bbooks

Graphs and charts as part of the Banned Books Week display

The Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association has posted some charts that show the following:

	From 1990-2000 the largest category of challenge by type was "anti-family."
	From 1990-2000 the institutions that experienced the most challenges were schools followed closely by school libraries.
	From 1990-2000 the largest group to initiate challenges was "parents."
	In the span of years from 1990 to 2000, the years 1994 and 1995 saw the most challenges. In the year 2000 there were 646 challenges.

Display including a Toni Morrison poster

To find a list of the most frequently challenged books from 1990-2000 go to http://www.ala.org/bbooks/top100bannedbooks.html.

Display featuring a poster titled Celebrate the Freedom to Read

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." Noam Chomsky

Another poster celebrating the Freedom to Read

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us." Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

Poster listing some of the books that have been banned

"Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment." This statement from the American Library Association Library Bill of Rights can be found at http://www.ala.org/work/freedom/lbr.html.

Mrs. Galloni in front of the Banned Books display

Join in with the Richard Bland College Library staff as they "reel you in with banned books @ your library™".

library@rbc.edu | Last Update: July 8, 2008