Courtesy Photograph / San Antonio Public Library
The San Antonio Public Library and the American Library Affiliation are celebrating Banned Books Week 2024.
The San Antonio Public Library (SAPL) is encouraging native readers to select from a listing of banned books as a part of the Banned Books Week, a nationwide occasion hosted by the American Library Affiliation (ALA).
The annual occasion celebrates free and unrestricted entry to data in an period when that democratic ultimate is more and more underneath risk.
Libraries all through San Antonio will function books which have confronted censorship together with Gender Queer, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Offered. Many of those banned books contact on themes of race, gender and LGBTQ+ points.
Over 4,242 books had been focused for elimination from faculties and libraries final 12 months, in line with information compiled by the ALA by way of its Workplace of Mental Freedom. This represents a 65% surge in censorship requests in comparison with 2022, and it is the very best quantity the workplace has ever documented.
“Whereas books have been and proceed to be banned, a part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the truth that, in a majority of instances, the books have remained accessible,” in line with a press release on the SAPL web site. “This occurs solely due to the efforts of librarians, academics, college students and group members who rise up and converse out for the liberty to learn.”
Renegade readers can go to MySAPL.org to browse the checklist of “illicit” lit. These with a library card can try or place a maintain on a guide of their selection by way of the positioning and decide up at any of the library system’s 28 branches.
Banned Books Week continues by way of Sept. 28, however rebels who’re intellectually curious sufficient can have a good time banned books each week.
