The VLA Intellectual Freedom Committee is proud to announce the 2018 Banned Books Week Contest awards. These awards are given to libraries in Virginia who have gone above and beyond to engage their communities with displays, events, or activities that highlight issues of censorship and intellectual freedom during Banned Books Week. The Intellectual Freedom Committee was particularly impressed by the creativity that went into this event this year, and has selected a library in each category: public, academic, and school library. 

Public: Suffolk Public Library:

"The Suffolk Public Library facilitated a week long project called, "Banning Books Silences Stories: Alt Rebels." The project was aimed to educate the public about intellectual freedom and censorship issues during Banned Books Week (BBW). The entire project was designed to get people thinking about how things would be if banning books and censorship was a normal everyday occurrence and libraries were forced to take on the role radical bibliophile rebels! During BBW, we explored and focused on banned books as seen through the lens of an alternative universe scenario where books are banned everywhere and ideas are dangerous. All of our marketing, branding, and program titles/idea was roughly based off of historic rebellions, civil disobedience, and human rights movements. Through the "Banning Books Silences Stories: Alt Rebels" project, we hoped to open the public's eyes to what freedom and censorship truly mean as well as educate the community about the unfortunate reality of modern-day censorship issues like freedom of speech and the right to access information. Throughout BBW, our goal was to offer our community a series of unique and informative programs for all ages and abilities as well as interactive displays." 

 Suffolk Public Library Banned Books Display

 

Academic: University of Lynchburg Knight Capron Library

During Banned Books week, we hosted an event called 'Reading Banned Books Rocks.' Capitalizing on the popularity of other painted rock programs in our area, we painted rocks to represent some of our favorite banned books, including Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and The Handmaid's Tale and hid them throughout the library and around campus. We attached information about Banned Books Week to each rock and directed the finders to bring them to the library circulation desk for a prize. Among other prizes, we gave away Wax Lips to symbolize the theme - 'Banning Books Silences Stories.' Because Banned Books Week falls within Hispanic Heritage Month, we painted a special rock for The House on Mango Street, which also came with a copy of the book. This program was fairly easy to execute, but it made a big impact. Many of our students spent the week trying to find our rocks and it started a larger discussion about banned books, censorship, and the freedom to read! 

 University of Lynchburg Knight Capron Library

 

School: VBCPS Ocean Lakes High School 

This is a collage of our Banned Books celebration. First, we created a book display featuring some of the banned books in our library. We created a collection in Destiny Discover so that students could access the books more easily and then we also created a censorship collection where students could use interactive tools, etc. to find out more about banned books from around the world, etc. On the books, we typed up the reasons why the book was challenged and wrapped them in caution tape. For instance, The Diary of Anne Frank was banned in Alabama for "being a real downer." We also used our green screen to represent a police line up so students and staff could get caught reading a banned book. We shredded damaged banned books and had a contest for students to guess the book. Lastly, we created Yes/\No questions about books and censorship and encouraged students to respond.  

 VBCPS Ocean Lakes High School