As a large academic library in the United States, censoring, challenging, and banning books is out of the question. Our collection development policies allow us librarians to add pretty much anything to our collections that we can think of, budget permitting.
So why do we insist on observing Banned Books Week every year? Why do we find it increasingly significant to raise awareness and to educate our students, including graduate students from the School of Communication & Information (whether working in our libraries or not) about the freedom to read and the devastating effects of censorship?
The Books We Read crew has demonstrated in many ways that we stand with banned books. Sometimes we partner with other groups, sometimes we have on-campus events or exhibits, but most importantly, we have written several posts to explain our reasons. Enjoy this digest of banned books from Books We Read.
Banned Books Week exhibit in Carr Library, 2023
New to Banned Books Week?
Start with some of our perennial resources to familiarize yourself with what Banned Books Week is all about and how you can get involved.
- Guide to Banned Books: Curated by New Brunswick librarians, this LibGuide provides an overview of challenging books and a brief summary of events at Rutgers-New Brunswick.
- Introduction to Banned Books: A recap of our 2020 events, this post will walk you through the various reasons books can be challenged or banned from the perspective of literature, written by Nicholas Allred.
- Banned No More: Nancy Kranich, instructor at SC&I and former ALA President, takes a closer look at book bans and their dangers on democracy.
- Banned or Challenged: If you ever wondered about the differences between the two terms, Judit H. Ward’s post will shed some light from a unique perspective.
- The Banned Books of Rutgers Special Collections and University Archives: Archivist Tara Maharjan collected some famous examples available at Rutgers. How many of them have you read?
Students about Banned Books
Banned Books posters created by SEBS students on display in Douglass Library, 2023
- Rutgers students stand with the banned: A library instruction class turned into a Banned Books Week event, having impact not only on the students in the classroom, but on many other library users through the exhibits in four libraries.
- Browse a sample of posters created in the Fall 2023 Academic Mentoring classes held from September 25 – October 3.
- See also Banned Books Students Read (2019-2022), Poster Gallery 11 from book recommendations by SEBS students.
- Banned Bestsellers: SC&I students often discuss the topic as part of their coursework. Julie Rossano lists some examples. Again, have you read them? Did you know they were banned?
- Slaughterhouse Five: Recreational Reading to Research Paper: One of those happy accidents: when you can turn your passion into a topic of your course paper, as detailed by Lindsey Jones.
Special topics from Books We Read
Banned Books as a Parenting Tool: Viewed by 6,000+ readers, the top post on the Books We Read blog roll was written on the topic of banned books by Becky Diamond.- What is a Zine? If you are not familiar with the term and its relationship with censorship, art librarian Megan Lotts will introduce you to the intriguing world of zines.
- The Library Book: As librarians, we like to give you more about the context and the history of librarianship, as Becky Diamond does in this post kicking off Banned Books Week in 2022.
- What is Samizdat? That’s probably a word that most of the readers are not familiar with in 2024. Growing up reading Samizdat books and other underground publications, Judit H. Ward introduces the term with well-known examples. Have you read these books?
- Intellectual Freedom Stories from a Shifting Landscape: Not necessarily about book bans, this post reveals how a scandal put Rutgers on the map of ugly censorship cases.
- The Judy Blume Rest Area: A Lesson in Free Speech and Democracy: Written in between two Banned Books Weeks, this post celebrates a rather conspicuous landmark of the freedom to read in New Jersey.
Related posts and resources
- Banned Book Week 2023
- Banned Book Week 2022
- Banned Book Week 2021
- Banned Book Week 2020
- Browse all posts related to Banned Books