{"id":21888,"date":"2019-10-21T00:31:47","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T04:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=21888"},"modified":"2019-10-21T00:41:19","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T04:41:19","slug":"meta-advocacy-for-libraries-during-banned-books-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/meta-advocacy-for-libraries-during-banned-books-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Banned Books Week Is Advocacy for Libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhy are these banned?\u201d It was my second week at a new library, and a teen patron was perusing a Banned Books Week display I had hastily put together. A sign read “Banned Books Week 2019” and featured this year\u2019s <\/span>graphic of a lightbulb<\/span><\/a> from the ALA. <\/span>There were no handouts or infographics in the display to answer his question. It was a reminder to me that Banned Books Week not only invites people to learn about why books become challenged or banned, but it also allows people to learn that books are<\/em> challenged and banned in the United States.\u00a0Founded in 1982, Banned Books Week\u00a0reaches an estimated 2.8 billion<\/a> people via mainstream media coverage<\/a>\u00a0and inspires countless displays and events across the country.\u00a0<\/span>My colleagues on the Advocacy and Legislation Committee shared with me how their libraries celebrated the week: they hosted community read-outs,\u00a0<\/span>blogged<\/span><\/a> about Banned Books Week, and crafted Instagram-worthy book displays. Posts on the\u00a0ALSC Blog<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the Intellectual Freedom Blog<\/a>\u00a0also share ideas and information for Banned Books Week programs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"two
On the left is my book display, and on the right is my colleague’s book display<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While\u00a0Banned Books Week primarily champions the freedom to read, it also implicitly advocates for libraries.\u00a0The implication is that libraries are a fundamental component of a society that values open access to information and ideas.\u00a0However, it seems that none of these awesome Banned Books Week celebrations explicitly emphasize the important role that libraries play in providing this access, especially to children. Providing access is a central tenet of children\u2019s librarianship. One of <\/span>ALSC\u2019s Core Competencies<\/span><\/a> is outreach and advocacy, which includes \u201c[ensuring] that all children have full access to library materials, resources, and services as prescribed by the ALA\u2019s Library Bill of Rights and its Interpretations.\u201d <\/span>Even so<\/span>, the <\/span>Top Ten Most Challenged Books<\/span><\/a> list published every year by the ALA\u2019s <\/span>Office of Intellectual Freedom<\/span><\/a> is mostly made up of juvenile and young adult titles. To combat the challenges, the ALA<\/span> provides <\/span>professional resources<\/span><\/a> for individual library systems to use, including <\/span>a censorship reporting form<\/span><\/a> through the Office of Intellectual Freedom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reflect on your own recent Banned Books Week programming. You may have shared reasons why some of the books on display, or being read from at an event, were challenged, but <\/span>what stories did you share about libraries that combat those challenges? It may take some digging, or you might have a story from your own library. Either way, these stories advocate for the value libraries (school and public) provide to their communities. A quick Google search led me to a story published this year by the <\/span>Comic Book Legal Defense Fund<\/span><\/a> about a library in Maine pushing back against complaints…of a Banned Books Week display!<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s meta, but, as part of our advocacy, we should also share stories about how libraries advocate for access to books. Not all library responses to book challenges are successful, but it’s important to acknowledge that we don’t just put the books on the shelf… we fight for their right to be there.<\/span><\/p>\n

****************************************************************<\/span><\/p>\n

Erica Ruscio is a Young Adult Librarian at the Ventress Memorial Library in Marshfield, MA and a co-chair of the ALSC Advocacy & Legislation Committee.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

This post addresses the following ALSC Core Competencies: V. Outreach and Advocacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhy are these banned?\u201d It was my second week at a new library, and a teen patron was perusing a Banned Books Week display I had hastily put together. A sign read “Banned Books Week 2019” and featured this year\u2019s graphic of a lightbulb from the ALA. There were no handouts or infographics in the display to answer his question. It was a reminder to me that Banned Books Week not only invites people to learn about why books become challenged or banned, but it also allows people to learn that books are challenged and banned in the United States.\u00a0Founded in 1982, Banned Books Week\u00a0reaches an estimated 2.8 billion people via mainstream media coverage\u00a0and inspires countless displays and events across the country.\u00a0My colleagues on the Advocacy and Legislation Committee shared with me how their libraries celebrated the week: they hosted community read-outs,\u00a0blogged about Banned Books Week, and crafted Instagram-worthy book…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-advocacy-and-legislation-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}