How many libraries in Idaho celebrate Banned Books Week?  How many don’t, and why don’t they?  I’ve been creating displays to for Banned Books Weeks ever since I began working with teens at the library.  Several of those years, the YAC (Youth Advisory Committee) helped with theme, design, and execution.  This year, however, the entire staff of the Jerome Public Library worked to make this year’s display the biggest and best we’ve had yet.

It is a self-guided time-line tour of burnings and bannings through history, and we’re very proud of it.  You can see a slide show of some of the time-line stops and hanging quotes at our website.  (The slide show is for you, Liesl) We’re excited because the Times-News is going to print a story about it, hopefully drawing people in to take the tour and start the important conversation.  That conversation usually goes something like this:

Customer: “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!  Why in the world is that on the display?”

Me: “A librarian in Boulder, Colorado had placed it in a locked cabinet because she thought it espoused a poor philosophy of life.”

Customer: “How ridiculous!  It is just a fun story.”

Me: “That’s censorship, something that violates our library’s collection policy.”

Customer: “Oh, here’s the Harry Potter Books.  These should be banned!”

Me: “Well, the idea is that each person, and each parent, choose for themselves and their own children what is right for their own family, but not other people.  That way we can serve our whole community, and not infringe on anybody’s first amendment rights.”

Customer: “I never thought of it that way.  You are so right, and I’m going to write a great big check to the library foundation and rewrite my will with the library as the beneficiary and then the library will be the coolest place ever…”

O.K. So that last part, that doesn’t happen.  I can dream, can’t I?

If you haven’t read Jamie LaRue’s book The New Inquisition yet, this week is a good time to get your hands on it.  It is really good info, highly entertaining, and memorable.