Dulaney-Browne Library will celebrate banned books week by displaying a collection of banned books at the circulation desk this week.
Banned Books Week was founded in 1982 by the American Library Association and draws national attention to the harms of censorship.
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions,” Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said in 1953. “It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”
Dr. Victoria Swinney, director of the Dulaney-Browne Library, echoes Douglas’ sentiment. Swinney said she is excited to participate in this awareness week.
“This week is important because it allows us to focus on the ways that banning reading material affects our lives, and the danger that censorship poses on democracy.” Swinney said.
There is a difference between a book that is banned and a book that has been challenged.
“A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group,” the ALA said. “A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.”
Many books that we are familiar with today have been banned at various points in history. Some notable titles that have been banned or challenged include James Joyce’s Ulysses, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, the Bible, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The categories of justifications for banning or challenging the works range from being too provocative to being racially offensive.
Despite the public’s rapidly changing standards of acceptable social norms, books are still being banned and challenged. As recently as 2003, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Online Books Page, “a U.S. district court prohibited the sale of Irwin Schiff’s The Federal Mafia, a book that claimed Americans could legally opt out of paying income taxes.”
While the OCU library focuses on collecting books that are most beneficial to students conducting research and writing reports for their field of study at the University, the library does stock banned and challenged books within their collection.
Books are chosen by their relevance and depth of knowledge on the subject, and the library staff does screen books for extremely offensive content that could potentially distract from learning, Swinney said.
Jeri Jones, mass communications sophomore, is against censorship and feels that it is counterproductive.
“Once our children leave their protective bubbles and go out into the real world, they are finally exposed to uncomfortable topics and are left wondering how to handle them,” Jones said.
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