Librarians Fight Censorship with Banned Books Week
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read (September 25−October 2, 2010) It gets the most attention this one week each year, but luckily for all of us, librarians fight against censorship, and for freedom of expression every day of the year. According to the ALA website: "Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week 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." According to the First Amendment Center: "People trying to ban books from libraries do not usually regard their efforts as censorship. A member of the community, school board member or parent objects to, or 'challenges,' a book, requesting its removal or sequestration so that students may not have free access to it. Most frequently, books are challenged because they contain profanity or violence, sex or sex education, homosexuality, witchcraft and the occult, 'secular humanism' or 'new age' philosophies, portrayals of rebellious children, or 'politically incorrect,' racist or sexist language. The American Library Association has documented more than 6,000 such challenges in the United States between 1990 and 2000." More from the ALA site: "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." Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
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Who Knew? Librarians Write Books, Too!
New book highlights librarians' writing about writing
Writing and Publishing: The Librarian's Handbook (American Library Association, 2010), was prompted by a desire to acknowledge the many contributions by librarians who write and to encourage beginning librarian-writers. A great benefit from writing, as observed by the well-known writer and teacher, Natalie Goldberg, whom I studied in one of my creative writing classes, is: "When we write we begin to taste the texture of our own mind."Librarians tend to be creative people and what other profession than Library and Information Studies could be more encouraging for writers? We are surrounded by books, technology, and people providing the opportunity not only to write for the profession but also poetry, novels, short stories, creative nonfiction for children and adults. My first novel, Lily’s Odyssey, was recently released, and its first chapter appears in Best New Writing 2010; it was short listed for the Eric Hoffer Prose Award.
Published librarians were requested to submit two 1900-2100 word unpublished articles to show their writing range, and were encouraged to follow Gustave Flaubert’s advice to help readers: "Whenever you can shorten a sentence, do. And one always can. The best sentence? The shortest."
It was a pleasure editing and working with the forty-seven creative librarians willing to share their hard won success. The innovation of the contributors never failed to surprise, and made me feel proud of being a librarian. Often the most original ideas come from necessity and when challenged. It is debatable whether creativity can ever be taught, and Joseph Campbell observed, "You can't have creativity unless you leave behind the bounded, the fixed, all the rules." While we may not be able to tell students how it happens, we can show them examples, encourage it, show we value it, and consider it fun. Our own attitude towards creativity is vital in providing an atmosphere that encourages exploration to show students as noted by Daniel Boorstin: "The most promising words ever written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita -- unknown territory."
There are ninety-four articles, such as: Writing for Tenure; Becoming an Expert: Find Your Niche; Writing with Colleagues: Strategies for Getting the Work Done; Librarian Writing Groups; Working with Book and Journal Editors to Revise Your Manuscript; Preparing for Publication: Strategies for Identifying Potential Library Journals; The End of the Beginning: Learning from Rejection; Self-Publishing; Twenty-Five Years at BookExpo; Publishing Mystery Fiction; Writing for Reference Books; and Tips for Compiling a Publishable Bibliography, among many others.
Book reviewer Kathy Barco related: “Even if you don't aspire to becoming a media darling, you're sure to find some aspect of publishing described in this book that will make you say ‘I could do that!’ Think of this book as a cure for those I Just Can't Seem to Get Motivated Blues. Something in it is bound to inspire you. I know you're thinking: ‘Yeah, Kathy, but did it inspire you to do anything?’ Well, as a matter of fact, I just read Corinne H. Smith's article, Confessions of an Amazon.com Reviewer and it inspired me quite a bit. How? You're reading it! Breakfast New Mexico Style, A Guide to More Than 100 Favorite, Fancy, Funky, & Family Friendly Restaurants.
In the Foreword, Bob Blanchard, Adult Services Librarian, Des Plaines Public Library and contributor to Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians (McFarland, 2008) notes:
“Being the creative and innovative people that they are, librarian-writers may not necessarily limit themselves to writing about their profession. Many also write short stories, novels and poetry, expanding not only their imaginations but also entertaining or edifying the reading public. This is another facet of librarians sharing their thoughts and ideas.
“The book you have before you is a unique collection of articles by and about librarians whose work has been published in one form or another. Here, the writers talk about their writing processes, the thinking behind their works and their feelings about sharing with others their experiences in the library and literary worlds. I hope you enjoy the compilation -– and, in the nature of librarianship, that you share it with a colleague.”
In the Afterword, Wayne Jones, Head of Central Technical Services, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, editor of the Ontario Library Association's Access and E-Journals Access and Management (Routledge, 2008) notes:
“Of course, there’s always a good reason not to be writing. You have work to be done during the week and perhaps into the weekend. There are family and friends, obligations, events, chores and errands and responsibilities. Somewhere in the midst of a hectic 21st-century life you may be able to carve out some so-called free time, but perhaps the last thing anyone wants to do then is to be thinking about work again. And not only thinking about it, but also analyzing your thoughts and fashioning them into clear, concise, comprehensible words.
“However, if there’s a single theme that I could contrive to cover the nearly 100 pieces in this book, it’s that this achievement is demonstrably possible. Yes, you have to start somewhere: pick your topic, do your research, and write your first sentence. And then you have to power through the temptation, the raging urge, to leave the thing unfinished, to do something else productive instead or just to relax a little. Persevere. Write a first draft, read it over, have an informed colleague read it over again for you. Stand back, give the process a little time, and then have at it again, writing, rewriting, editing, making your work the best it can be. Oh, and the end result: final draft submitted, the decision of the editor, and finally your hard-fought and well-wrought prose published. Or you could keep it simple and direct: start a blog and have your first posting on the web before you go to bed tonight.”
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About the author:
Writing and Publishing: The Librarian's Handbook, is Carol Smallwood’s 23rd published book. She is under contract with new projects for Scarecrow Press, McFarland, and the American Library Association. Various poems are forthcoming and recent ones have appeared in such journals as Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. See the trailer for her recent book, Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M6m7PXGQIU.