Banned Books Week Mid-Week Updates

I am jumping in mid-week to share more Banned Books Week Coverage. But before that, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, If you are doing any promotion or displays this week, everything you do should focus on the books that are being challenged RIGHT NOW! Do not spend your time with classics and why they were challenged in the past. 

Here is a reminder form the post I did Friday about how to celebrate the Freedom to Read this week.

As always, please go to Book Riot's Censorship coverage at least a few times a week, every week here.

EveryLibrary Institute is doing a lot of the real work to help libraries fight attacks on the freedom to read. You can go here for all of their work, but specifically, for Banned Books Week they released the results of their report on voters onions about Book Banning and the news is good. Click here for all of it and it is immediately below:

Some of the key findings were as follows: 

• Nearly all American voters (92%) have heard at least something about book banning.
   
• Half of voters believe there is “absolutely no time when a book should be banned.”
  
  
• Only 8% of voters think “there are many books that are inappropriate and should be banned.” 
  
  
• 31% of Republicans think there is absolutely no time when a book should be banned. 
  
  
• 75% of voters will consider book banning when voting for legislators. 
  
  
• 50% of Voters find the legislation being created to regulate Americans’ access to books most concerning.
  
  
• Voters have favorable feelings about their libraries (69%) and librarians (66%) and their schools (53%) and school librarians (62%).

• Only 18% of voters support banning books that focus on race and CRT, and only one-third of voters support banning books that discuss sexuality.

The poll was conducted by Embold Research, a nonpartisan research firm. Embold surveyed 1,123 registered voters from August 31st-September 3rd with a margin of error of 3.4%. The survey looked at the differences in beliefs among voters segmented by age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and 2020 presidential vote. 

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Now that we know people don't want books banned, we need to convince those people to go vote or, even better, run for office.

In less good news, PEN America released a report "Banned in the USA," specifically during this week to draw as many eyes on to it as possible. It is an update to the April 2022 report they also released. All of the information is here. READ IT.

Please make sure you take time to look at these 2 important and nuanced reports. You need to understand the issue so you can explain it to your patrons. This is not about Catcher in the Rye or Huckleberry Finn being challenged. This is about an organized effort by well funded political groups trying to decide for EVERYONE what books are are allowed for you to read.