Banishing the Banning of Books

Banned Books Week 2004 -- September 25 to October 2

An annual bookseller favorite, Banned Books Week is sparking dialogue and great enthusiasm this year with a variety of events around the country. Under the shadow of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, Banned Books Week 2004, the national celebration of First Amendment Rights, has never been more important to booksellers, librarians, and many others. Sponsors of Banned Books Week include ABA, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the American Library Association (ALA), along with the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of College Stores. The Center for the Book of the Library of Congress also endorses Banned Books Week.

Booksellers have galvanized opposition to Section 215 of the controversial USA Patriot Act, which obstructs bookstore and library privacy, and ABFFE president Chris Finan has noted that "the July 8 [tie] vote in the House of Representatives on the Freedom to Read Amendment demonstrates that reader privacy has emerged as an issue of national concern.... Banned Books Week this year provides us with a wonderful opportunity to drive home the message that reader privacy is an essential element of First Amendment freedom."

Many events have been planned around screenings of Reading Your Rights, a 26-minute documentary film about the reader privacy controversy. It focuses on the efforts of the Denver police to force Joyce Meskis, the owner of Tattered Cover Book Store, to turn over the purchase records of a man suspected of illegally manufacturing methamphetamine in 2000. Two years later, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Tattered Cover did not have to release the records. Reading Your Rights portrays the conflict between the police and a bookseller who are both trying to do the right thing to protect their community. Its message is, when the rights of government conflict with First Amendment rights, the choices are never easy.

In recognition of Banned Books Week, Reading Your Rights was broadcast on the Denver PBS station on September 26, and Finan will be showing it as part of the Montana Festival of the Book in Missoula on October 1. Cat MacGilvray, public relations director of the bookstore Bound to be Read in Albuquerque, New Mexico, scheduled a screening of Reading Your Rights for September 30, followed by a discussion led by a member of the ACLU of New Mexico.

"We [store staff] need to know about this too," MacGilvray told BTW. "It affects us."

In conjunction with Banned Books Week, last Monday, Bound to Be Read "had an event called 'Your Right to Write' for a local teacher who was dismissed over his work with a very popular high school poetry group," explained MacGilvray. "Bill Nevins, the teacher, and Samantha Clark, a member of the National Writers Union, discussed what freedom of speech means to them. A lot of high school students attended."

Throughout the week, the store has displayed banned books along with the Top Ten Book Sense Banned Books list and is holding drawings for banned books and banned books paraphernalia provided in the Banned Books Kits from the ALA.

At Inkwood Books in Tampa, Florida, co-owner Leslie Reiner told BTW that they also have displayed the posters and buttons provided in the Banned Books Kit. "I pulled this year's banned books for a display -- that proved startling to many customers because they thought that banning books was something that had happened a long time ago."

Reiner said that Inkwood held a screening for Reading Your Rights on September 29 during an event cosponsored by the Greater Tampa chapter of the ACLU and by Tampa: Safe and Free, a group formed to work for the repeal of the Patriot Act. The store also will donate a percentage of the week's sales to ABFFE, Reiner said.

Hearthside Books in Juneau, Alaska, and Maria's Bookshop in Durango, Colorado, were among the other bookstores observing Banned Books Week with screenings of Reading Your Rights and with discussions.

At Bestsellers Bookstore and Coffee Co., in Mason, Michigan, owner Jamie Robinson was brimming with ways to recognize Banned Books Week. "We contacted our weekly newspaper," she told BTW, "and they ran an extensive opinion article on Banned Books Week and free speech. [The author] used lots of the titles I had given them from our ALA Banned Books Kit. At the store, we have all the posters in the windows, and the Top Ten Book Sense Banned Books flier at the display.

"I created bright orange bookmarks with 'Elect to Read a Banned Book' on them, to put in every book on our display, with a brief explanation of why the book was challenged. I also created a 'Top Ten Silliest Reasons to Ban Books.' I have a 'Dare to Take the Banned Book Quiz,' with 10 questions about banned authors to hand out." (See below.)

For a visible way to demonstrate the nation's fragile handle on the Bill of Rights, the Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, has been taking orders for the Disappearing Civil Liberties mug on its Web site at www.mysterylovers.com/

"We couldn't think of a more appropriate way to educate book lovers and to support free speech this year," co-owner Mary Alice Gorman told BTW. A former ACLU director in Pittsburgh, Gorman is passionate about the fight against censorship, but also maintains a lighthearted approach, hence, the trick mug.

"If I didn't have a sense of humor, I couldn't face the news every day," said Gorman. The mug, which retails for $15, $5 of which goes to ABFFE, is described on the mysterylovers.com site: Stand up for your rights and then sit down for a cup of coffee with this mug that says it all as key sections of the Bill of Rights disappear as your pour in hot coffee or tea."

"The response has been phenomenal," Gorman said. "Orders from all over the country have been [yes] pouring in. We have featured it on our weekly e-mail in the 'What's New,' column two weeks ago. Word has gotten around, and people are very excited. As a bookseller, I hear so many stories about children who have books taken away and removed from classrooms and libraries, based on complaints from people who have often never read the books themselves. Reading is a vital activity; the dangers of limiting it are insidious. ABFFE does a great job fighting censorship."

The Disappearing Civil Liberties mug will be available on November 1, said Gorman. "In plenty of time for our next big holiday -- National Bill of Rights Day on December 15. Hopefully, in 2005 we can offer a Bill of Rights mug that's permanent." --Nomi Schwartz