The Invisible Library

This week is Banned Books Week and of course, some people don’t like the word “banned”:

Judy Platt with the Association of American Publishers is a proponent of Banned Books Week. But not even she could come up with a book that has been banned.

“I can’t think of any book that has been banned across the country.”

Phil Burress with Citizens for Community Values says the event is a fraud put on by the American Library Association.

“What people need to understand is that this is the American Library Association’s way of trying to censor those who exercise their free speech rights and say that there are books in the library that should not be available to children.”

These are the same people who often don’t like the word “book” either unless it is preceded by the words “The Good” (a euphemism I’ve never really cared for, as it carries with it the implicite assumption that if this is The One and Only Good Book than whatever subject covered in all those other Books is by definition Bad).

But they’re missing the point. The ALA wouldn’t have to sponsor a Banned Book Week if idiots didn’t keep trying to ban books. That’s the operative word, trying. Because while we no longer ban books on a national level, it wasn’t that long ago that we did. Not that illiterate jackasses would know that, since they weren’t the ones trying find a copy of Ulysses or Lolita back in the sixties when those books were still being seized by customs officials.

Hat tip to Bookslut for reminding me it was one of my favorite weeks of the year.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Culture War, Library News, Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.