Banned Books Week

During Banned Books Week and all year 'round, the Garfield County Libraries defend your freedom to read!

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. BBW highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections. Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society.

The American Library Association (ALA) is one of many organizations sponsoring Banned Books Week. For more information, visit the BBW page on the ALA web site.

The ALA compiled information on book bans and challenges into the following Google map. For more information on a specific challenge, click on the corresponding blue marker. Or, click here to view Book Bans and Challenges, 2007-2011 in a larger map (you will leave the GCPLD site).