Banned Books Week
The Banned Books Week ( week of banned books ) is an annual campaign of US libraries, publishers and booksellers against the censorship of literature, especially the removal of books with controversial content from libraries. It relies on the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ( First Amendment ), the restrictions on freedom of expression prohibits.
background
Hundreds of complaints are filed in the United States every year aimed at removing certain books from library holdings. The reasons given include explicit depictions of sexuality or violence , vulgar language and the treatment of topics such as homosexuality , drugs or suicide . The holdings of schools and school libraries, but also of public and academic libraries, are most frequently affected. Increasingly, religious groups have also challenged books for allegedly promoting occult practices. The trials against the books in the Harry Potter series , which have been among the most frequently criticized books since their publication, caused a particular stir . Complaints of this kind also concern classics from world literature , including books by James Joyce , Ernest Hemingway , Mark Twain , George Orwell , Aldous Huxley , John Steinbeck , F. Scott Fitzgerald , JD Salinger and JRR Tolkien .
history
The Banned Books Week was started in 1982 by the librarian Judith Krug. Since then it has taken place every year in the last week of September. One of the main sponsors is the American Library Association , which annually publishes a list of successful and attempted removals of books from libraries.
International significance
The human rights organization Amnesty International takes part in Banned Books Week by drawing attention to people who are being persecuted for publishing, distributing or even reading banned books.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mapping Censorship. (No longer available online.) In: Banned Books Week. Archived from the original on November 28, 2011 ; accessed on November 29, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Number of Challenges by Year, Reason, Initiator & Institution (1990 - 2010). In: American Library Society. Retrieved November 29, 2011 .
- ↑ Sonja Bonin, Jochen Leffers: Books poison cabinet: What US students shouldn't read. In: Der Spiegel . September 28, 2006, accessed November 29, 2011 .
- ↑ Top 100 Banned / Challenged Books: 2000-2009. In: American Library Society. Retrieved November 29, 2011 .
- ^ Banned and Challenged Classics. In: American Library Society. Retrieved November 29, 2011 .
- ↑ Dorothy Samuels: Judith Krug. In: New York Times . April 14, 2009, accessed November 29, 2011 .
- ^ Banned Books Week 2011. In: Amnesty International USA. Retrieved November 29, 2011 .
