SE displaying banned books
by Brian Shults, se news editor

    Banned Books Week, Sept. 21-27, draws attention to the most frequently banned books across America.

   SE Campus library has set up a stand giving students the opportunity to view a list of frequently banned books, as well as the chance to check them out and read them.

   “The value of reading is the ability to absorb knowledge and form opinions. I don’t think it’s necessary to read every banned book, but libraries like to advocate the freedom to read and let people know they can read them if they wish,” Janet Key, SE library director, said.

   Key believes students can grow intellectually through reading.

   “If you don’t read, how are you going to learn about things and from that learn values? The value of reading is the ability to absorb knowledge and form opinions,” she said.

   Even in the 21st century, there are still those who attempt to deprive others of the opportunity to read the books they wish, Key said, She illustrated her point with two examples.

   Recently, the University of North Carolina made a book exploring the messages of the Koran part of the curriculum. It caused an uproar across the state from certain religious groups opposed to students reading the book for a grade, Key said.

   “If they (the students) are not allowed to read the book, how are they supposed to form a judgment and understand different ideas?” she asked.

   “To see students challenged by reading and being exposed to different ideas is good, because in America people have the freedom to read what they want,” she said.

   A banned book at the top of this year’s list is Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, one of Key’s personal favorites.

   “Just because one person might not like the ‘witchcraft’ in Harry Potter does not give that person the right to take the privilege of reading it away from someone else,” she said.

   Key suggested a solution to someone’s disapproval of a particular book.

   “The beauty of books is if you don’t like something you read, at the end of the page you can close it and put it back,” she said.

   Banning books has been a regular occurrence throughout America’s history despite our attitudes against censorship, which are expressed in some of the country’s most sacred and fundamental documents, the American Library Association (ALA) said.

   “Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met,” an ALA representative said.

   Over the course of America’s history, one of the most regularly banned book is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, a satire about American slavery and the country’s subsequent Jim Crow laws, which curtailed the civil rights of the recently freed slaves. Finn is a regular on the list, but other less obvious titles have regularly made their way onto the list including The Bible, according to ALA materials.

   The banning of books is not confined to one genre that might have explicit (or even subtle) profanity, sexual depiction and/or innuendo and violence; it afflicts all types of books, from the sacred to the profane, according to ALA.

   It is not out of the question that if people allow the banning of one book, others would quietly follow suit until the world would be back in the time before Guttenberg invented the printing press.

   Key and Kathy Burks, SE librarian, collaborated on the display. For more information about Banned Books Week, visit www.ala.org.