Pacific Beach/Taylor Branch Library is participating in San Diego Public Library’s Books Unbanned program resisting book bans while promoting intellectual freedom among young readers.
The Books Unbanned program offers free digital library cards to readers aged 12-26. With the card, the library’s online collection of banned or restricted eBooks and eAudiobooks are available for free. No matter where you live in the U.S., Books Unbanned cardholders can check out up to three books at a time, and put up to three books on hold, from a collection of the most frequently banned or challenged books.
Books Unbanned is open to readers across the nation since many communities are facing challenges to books that someone has deemed objectionable. Despite the endless benefits learning with freedom offers, there’s an increasingly influential and coordinated effort to challenge and ban books in public and school libraries across the country, according to the Library Foundation SD, a nonprofit supporting excellence in the San Diego Public Library system through philanthropy, advocacy, and outreach.
The foundation notes the banned book effort nationwide disproportionately targets books offering diverse perspectives, such as those from people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community. According to the American Library Association, these efforts breed ignorance, misunderstanding, and hate and are associated with violence and threats against libraries and librarians.
Such book bans are a slippery slope to censorship and the stifling of diverse views. Libraries contend intellectual freedom and representation of diverse perspectives are strengths that should be celebrated, not stamped out.
So, in response to increasingly aggressive threats to intellectual freedom, the Library Foundation SD has joined the San Diego Public Library and partners to launch Books Unbanned in San Diego. This campaign made possible through the generosity of library supporters, resists book bans, promotes intellectual freedom, and helps cement libraries as a place where everyone belongs.
“Books Unbanned is not paid for from the library’s budget,” noted Christina Wainwright, PB Library manager. “Instead it is supported by donations to the San Diego Public Library Foundation (SDPLF). For every challenged/banned title that is purchased for the digital Books Unbanned collection, the foundation buys at least one copy for local readers, too, so that these titles are available for San Diego’s readers.”
PB Library is committed to the Books Unbanned program. “The PB Library is participating in Banned Books Week from Sept. 22-28 by raising awareness with local readers about what books are being challenged, and why,” said Wainwright. “All week long in our lobby, we have jigsaw puzzles featuring diverse and banned books. We will hold a Banned Books Bingo and Craft event on Sept. 26 with players each getting a bingo card featuring the names of books that people have tried to censor.
“At the end, participants are invited to create a Banned Books Challenge Card, where they can write in the titles they want to challenge another reader to explore. I’m hoping that, instead of challenging a book, our community’s readers will instead challenge themselves to read a book that someone has tried to remove from libraries.”
As to the importance of the Books Unbanned program, Wainwright concluded: “Libraries are where you find the stories that help you grow. Sometimes they are a mirror of your existence. And sometimes they give you a window into a life you haven’t lived. We need to respect readers enough to allow them to make up their minds about the stories that move them. It is OK for me to decide for myself that I don’t like a book, and to decide not to read it. However, it wouldn’t be fair for me to deny everyone else access, simply because I didn’t like that book.”
