Research Guides: Banned Book Week: Banned books: The Basics

Definitions

Susan L. Webb, of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University offered, in the article Book Banning, the following definition:

"Book banning, a form of censorship, occurs when private individuals, government officials or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas or themes."

The American Library Association offers more detail to the conversation, by discussing challenged and banned books:

"A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. 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."

Who tries to ban books in America, and why it matters.

Censorship and attempts to censor have come from a wide variety of sources. In Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, Nat Hentoff writes that “the lust to suppress can come from any direction.”

The American Library Association offers statistics on book challenges reported to them regarding the books, the libraries, and where the challenges originate.

It is a fundamental position of libraries that the First Amendment protects the right to read and the right of inquiry for everyone. Book bans and challenges arise when groups or individuals believe they have the right to restrict other people's right to read and inquire.

"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, "The One Un-American Act." Nieman Reports, Jan. 1953, p. 20.

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

The Freedom to Read Statement from the American Library Association
The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.
Legislation of Concern, 2024
EveryLibrary is monitoring state legislation during the 2024 session that would limit Americans' freedom to read and think for themselves. Of most concern are proposed laws that would allow for criminal prosecution of librarians, educators, higher ed. faculty, and museum professionals.