There were several disturbing photos on the front page of
the Gadsden Times a couple of days ago. The images
were of Gadsden Public Library director Amanda Jackson and yours truly
pulling banned and challenged books off of the shelves of our library. These books were temporarily taken out of
circulation to the public and will remain out of circulation until September
23rd, which is the date of our first Banned Books Week Gadsden Reads Fahrenheit
451 program. On September 23rd, we will
put all those books back on the shelves from which they were pulled and
celebrate their being released back into public circulation. During the month that our banned/challenged
books are out of circulation, any student who needs any of those books for a
school assignment will be allowed to check those books out. Otherwise, those books are not available to
the general public.
Why is the GPL doing this?
That is a question that I have been asked many times in the past three
days by concerned citizens who saw the photos in the Gadsden Times of the books
being removed. My answer is this: As American citizens, we have access to, and
the right to read any book that we desire at any time we desire it. We have earned this “freedom to read” by
virtue of being a democracy, a democracy that has been defended by its citizens
and its armed forces for a very long time.
Our pulling of the banned and challenged books from our GPL collection
for a few weeks will be inconvenient, but it will not be anything like the
inconvenience that people all over the world experience every day of their
lives when they are denied access to information-a denial of access to information
that is not temporary.
This is an exercise in experiencing what it would be like to
not have access to Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Silverstein’s Where the
Sidewalk Ends and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
But it is also an exercise in experiencing what it would be like to not
have access to Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s
Little House On the Prairie and Martin Hanford’s Where’s Waldo. To Kill A Mockingbird. Webster’s Dictionary. The Holy Bible. All of these books have been challenged
and/or banned here in the United States and all over the world.
But what the GPL is doing is just an exercise. Next month all these books will be back on
the shelves of our public library, and we will go back to living our lives the
way we were living them. But if even one
person in Gadsden thinks differently about the relationship between books and
reading to a healthy society, if one person in Gadsden is more willing to stand
up for their Freedom to Read, if one person in Gadsden is more likely to call
their local library to fight to have challenged books put back on their
shelves, then we will have accomplished what we set out to accomplish for Banned
Books Week Gadsden Reads.
And as for all of the folks here in Gadsden with whom I’ve
spoken over the past couple of days, folks who saw the photos in the Gadsden
Times and were concerned that we were removing books permanently from our
collection, folks who saw the photos in the Gadsden Times were worried that
something terrible was happening in their community, I want to thank you for
your concerns and for your calls. I am
thankful that you noticed something was wrong and that you spoke up. I am thankful that you were willing to stand
up for your right to read and to fight to keep books on the shelves of your public
library. I am thankful for your
vigilance.
Banned Books Week Gadsden Reads Fahrenheit 451 is supported by funds granted through the Freedom to Read Foundation Judith F. Krug Memorial Fund.
More on our September programs soon.
