Adrienne from the Henrico County, Virginia Public Library sez, "Every year we participate in National Banned Book Week, a week that celebrates the written word and the free exchange of ideas, as outlined in the First Amendment to our Constitution. We invite you to volunteer as a reader of a banned or challenged book. This is our way of celebrating that our community has the right to read freely. The Banned Book Reading Room will be open for three weeks (September 26--October 17, 2009), longer than the National Banned Book Week, because last year's Room was so popular! Ever since the written word has existed there have been those who would prevent others from reading material considered "objectionable" -- everything from the Harry Potter series to the American Heritage Dictionary. Join us as a volunteer reader! Call 364-1400 x5 for more information."
The Banned Book Reading Room at Twin Hickory Library! (Thanks, Adrienne!)
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Ah, the banned book week -- surely the lamest idea in the name of a good cause I can think of. The thing is a total scam.
You think "Wow -- banned books! Fight the power, man!" Then you find out that the book wasn't actually, you know, BANNED. It was just that some do-gooder in podunksville asked the local one-room library to take it off their shelves. And the library said no. At any time during this epic drama, the good citizens of podunksville could have walked next door to Barnes & Noble and paid $12.95 for the same book. Wow - that's one mighty effective "ban."
- Alaska Jack
PS My creds, FWIW: My mom's a librarian, my wife's mom is a librarian, and I am a near free-speech absolutist.
Jack,
Yes, there's some hyperbole in the idea. But its really more of a symbol of the willingness to keep allowing such speech.
The meaning behind it is significant - here is something some people object to. But because it is our right, we're sharing it anyway.
It's an important concept in regards to intellectual freedom.
You just gotta look at the event in the abstract, not the strictly literal. I think most people at this point know there's nothing wrong with, for instance, Tom Sawyer (arguably beyond a little racism, anyway).
hey, henrico! I live there, sort of.
Zikman- So you're a zombie?
Intellectual honesty cuts both ways. If we want to tell the music industry that murder on the high seas is an absurd analogy for copyright infringement, we also have cut the bullshit about comparing books that some people don't think are age appropriate for children (whether or not they are correct about that) to actual banning of books. It's an insult to people who lived in places like the former Soviet Union where books actually *were* banned. As in if the secret police found them in your apartment you could be imprisoned or executed.
Twilight?
Really?
Oh sure, the librarians are all for free speech when you're reading Harry Potter. But just try pulling out one issue of Hustler's Taboo in that display window and suddenly they get all Third Reich on your ass.
Jack,
The basic concept of Banned Books Week is so elegantly simple it might have eluded you. "Celebrate the freedom to read". That's a freedom that many people on this planet do not have and that millions of Americans take for granted. The idea that any person can walk into any library and pick up "Night" or "Twilight" or "The Guide to Getting It On" or "The Bible" and read as they like is astounding and radical. And that it costs a pittance to support such institutions and that a huge organization representing an entire class of degreed professionals are devoted to this simple notion of free access to knowledge is as close to a secular miracle as you can get.
What a wonder that so few books do end up being banned. That librarians and parents and library boards fight to keep books on the shelves, and that communities continue to support "objectionable" material regardless of the political climate. It's a marvelous thing, worth talking about, worth celebrating.
Really Jack, just because the Brits haven't landed invasion forces in 200 odd years doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy the fireworks.
yes, well... sort of
When do we get a week for all the books that remain unpublished/out-of-print --- even just a day for the grand scale of censorship that goes on to keep the world of media neat and tidy and fit for [insert sinister power of choice here]'s mind-numbing, reality-tunneling agenda??????
I'm so glad were free... ...free to read any book that fits into the narrow criteria of a closed industry. As if anything truly radical or earth-shattering is still on the shelves ANYWHERE... let alone has a chance to be published. *dusts off his collection of the complete works of Bertrand Russell*
Perhaps I am older then some of the other posters but I remember books that were banned in this country or were subjects of high court rulings just to be published. Look the history of the works of Henry Miller and even Joyce's Ulysses.
The most important speech to protect is the speech you don't agree with. Which is one of the things that I think Banned Book Week keeps in our collective minds. I'm a hardcore free speech advocate. Only placing a limit when it's a 'fire in the theater' or 'in-sighting a riot' sort a situation. I even support peoples right to hateful speech. It simply makes them easier to identify as douches. So whether a book is actually banned or merely threatened by the narrow-minded I support this gesture.
You mean like "On the Origin of Species" or the journalism of Greg Palast or the "Turner Diaries" or "The God Delusion" or the Disinformation Guides? Those are just some of the books I've helped patrons find in my career. Sure, I literally washed my hands after handling the "Turner Diaries" but the patron got the book they wanted without my judgement.
Just because a library does not have a book on their shelf doesn't mean they can't get it for you, often for free and faster than you think via Inter-library loan. Try it some time, even the most radical treatise from the tiniest press can often be tracked down.
I participated in something very similar back in 2003 at one of the bookstores on Cary Street in Richmond proper. It was actually kinda fun to sit in a big, comfy chair and read the first few chapters of 'Brave New World' aloud to anyone passing by & willing to hear.
I was going to rant about the short pump area of 'Henrico', but, well, it's too early in the day for that level of vitriol. Suffice to say that this particular library is not really in the best spot for doing what it's doing, geographically speaking - it doesn't really get a lot of passers-by.
Oh, and in case anyone is curious and doesn't want to follow the links, the area code is 804.
Rights and liberties that aren't vigorously defended are soon lost. Because we live in one of the freest nations in the history of the world it's easy to take our rights and liberties for granted, and to assume that there is no need for us to stand up for them. If someone were to try to impose an outright legal ban on books they found offensive, those of us who love liberty would certainly take a stand against it. But few of us are willing to go out of our way to voice an objection when a parent complains about a book in a school library. We just don't see it as a serious threat to our rights. But Madison warned that it is more likely for our liberties to be lost by gradual encroachment than by sudden usurpation. Therefore, we must resist any encroachment on our liberties, no matter how small or seemingly trivial. If I could recommend only one banned book to read during Banned Book Week it would have to be Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" -- a banned book about the banning of books. Perhaps the most important lesson found in Bradbury's classic dystopian novel is that the ban on books will not come from a totalitarian government that wants to suppress dissent, but from ordinary people who want to suppress ideas that they find offensive, disagreeable, or unpleasant. If we were to allow each citizen to ban any book that he or she didn't like, we would end up living in a society in which all books were banned. That's why we can't allow anyone -- not even a single concerned parent, who is acting out of the purest of motives -- to get away with suppressing even a single book, no matter how vile or dangerous that book may be. In most cases I despise "slippery slope" arguments because the slope is rarely ever quite as slippery as the arguer wants you to believe; but slippery slope arguments are apt in those cases where a line must be drawn somewhere, and there is no logical place to draw it other than at one extreme or the other. And this is one of those cases: We, as a society, can decide that all books ought to be protected against efforts to ban them, or else we can decide that people ought to be free to challenge any book they don't like and try to get it banned. There's no logical "middle ground" where we can say that some books ought to enjoy a priori protection against any challenge while others ought to be vulnerable to challenge. If we allow people to challenge one book we must allow people to challenge any book. If we allow people to challenge Hustler magazine then we must also allow them to challenge the Bible; because (let's be honest here) some people are more offended by the Bible than by Hustler. Either both ought to be open to challenge (and a potential ban) or both ought to enjoy absolute protection against any such challenge. We, as a society, cannot allow a challenge to one while shielding the other against such a challenge unless we are willing to abandon the fundamental liberal values that our society was founded upon: that every member of our society has an equal claim on certain unalienable rights and liberties, including the freedom of thought, conscience, and expression; and that our government and legal system exist in order to secure and protect those rights and liberties, and to guarantee equal justice for all. If we allow even one book to be banned -- even if it's the most vile, dangerous, offensive, and unpopular book ever written -- we are spitting in the face of Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Locke, Mill, and all of the other champions of liberty throughout history who have given us the freedom we enjoy today. If we aren't willing to take a stand for liberty, we don't deserve it.
My mom's a librarian
Good to hear that she's keeping busy since she resigned the governorship.
Greg,
For future reference, paragraphs are your friend. Well, not so much your friend as our friend.
That's not a very fair attack Antinous. You're saying his idea shouldn't be considered because of the of where he's from and the characteristic of that location's governor - which is in fact irrelevant to the discussion.
Note that he used a "FWIW" in his comment about the librarian connection. That doesn't mean "therefor I am correct", it essentially means "I think it's relevant but that's my opinion" in this case
Attack? I thought it was a joke..
Unless of course Alaska Jack is really Sarah Palin's son.
Sorry about that. It was a "stream of consciousness" post; and my consciousness doesn't normally stream in paragraphs. :-)
Jack, Fortunately for you, so is BB. Thanks for adding SO VERY MUCH to the discussion.
What's going on in that poster? Is that a bespectacled squid reading a book on the armchair behind the woman? Maybe a creative way of combining a reference to "Harry Potter" with one to "Call of Cthulhu"? More importantly, whose decision was it to have that woman reading "Twilight"???
Brainspore:
At one time, Henrico carried Playboy at their Tuckahoe branch, available for checkout by anyone with an adult (18+) card. You would need to ask at the desk for the issue or issues you wanted. I don't know if they continued the subscription when they moved into their new branch a few years ago. Granted, there's a world of difference between the two publications, but speaking as a librarian (but not a Henrico one), I don't care what you read in the library. And it's not any other patron's business, either.
I think we should support as many other books to read. Because the precipitation data present a tool for a variety of our knowledge. If do not like to read books and then put into a person in the most backward.
Note.
I write in Thai and the google translation into English.
I think its a great idea. Unless it is a bunch of Harry Potter books. I just torrented 14 banned books ranging from "How to dissapear and live for free" to a police guide on how to effectively pick a lock. Im 20 and im moderately intelegent. Intelegent to know not to use this information illegally but at least i have the knowledge. Also its interesting to find out that people actually had these books published at one point in time. One of the books "21 was to silently kill someone" was mad back in the 1950's if im not correct. Again I will never put into action the stuff I read but Im still interested non the less of the type of material that was allowed back then.
F.Y.I.- Im working towards getting my PhD in Psychology and my masters in Criminal Justice. I want to counsel for the criminally insane or mentally disturbed so my mind set is a little more tollerant of most of the "entertainment" that has been distributed on the internet.
I wonder where I can get a copy of the "banned" book Farhenheit 451 in order to excercise my rights like Anon says? From my local library or bookstore? Order it on Amazon? Perhaps from the library in my own home. (Wwho doesn;t own this book or didn't read it in high school?)
I am with Alaska Jack on getting some perspective on "banned" book week.
I will finish this comment just after I get the door for the secret police.
When I was 15, I went to the library with my much older aunt. She turned me loose, and I went to the young adult section.
When she saw what I had selected, she was appalled. "I didn't want you to pick THOSE books," she said. "I wanted you to pick some of THESE books (Harlequin romances)." The librarian stuck up for me, but to no avail.
Censorship is more than "some do-gooder in podunksville asked the local one-room library to take it off their shelves."
Let me read what I want. BD