Counting down to Freedom to read week 2010

I made this list recently for my Acquisitions students (we were talking about Collection development/Materials policies this week, and got into discussions about book challenges), and I thought I would re-post it in full here.

Here are some recent book challenges that made news, and some related literature about book banning and censorship:

• Statements: OLA Statement on the Intellectual Rights of the Individual, CLA Statement on Intellectual Freedom, ALA Freedom to Read Statement
, CILIP statement on intellectual freedom, access to information and censorship 

• Another excellent resource: Freedom to Read (Canada’s Book and Periodical Council)

  Also publishes the List of Challenged Books and Magazines: This selective list provides information on more than 100 books and magazines that have been challenged in the past decades. Each challenge sought to limit public access to the books in schools, libraries, or bookstores. Some challenges were upheld; others were rejected.
• Backlash: Annoyed Librarian: "Celebrate 'Banned' Book Week"
  Excerpt: "it's not like we're in any danger of censorship in any meaningful sense. As a comparison, think about the stupid suicide book in Australia. It seems that book was actually censored, and that kind of thing just doesn't happen in America. To defend the presence of some stupid kid's book in a classroom against some rube in Bumflap, GA is one thing, but to claim that by doing so you're fighting "censorship" for our freedom is just sad. [...] [The ALA's definition of censorship] is designed to support the ALA's skewed meaning of terms. This definition doesn't even account for the definition of censorship as "government's prior restraint on publication," which is a basic meaning of censorship that everyone but the ALA understands. "Change in the access status of material," in addition to sounding like it was written by a tone deaf committee, does not cover cases of the government refusing to allow a book's publication. In other words, it doesn't cover cases of actual censorship. A state censoring a book doesn't "change its access status." It keeps the "access status" exactly as it had always been."
• School media specialist self-censoring their acquisitions (School Library Journal): SLJ Self-censorship survey; Interpretation of survey results
• Various Canadian schools pull To Kill a Mockingbird
• Scholastic Censors Myracle’s ‘Luv Ya Bunches’ from Book Fairs
• Oral sex? Not in my dictionary!
  
• Robert Munsch’s latest grounded by terrorist threats
• Ottawa and the sex manuals!... Original links to Citizen articles no longer work: some stuff here, here, here and here.
  
• Even the library’s board members want something pulled from the collection...
• Christian group sues for right to burn YA book about gay teen
• Book banning for idiots: Whaddya mean, there are two Bill Martins?
• [edited] Whoops, forgot one: Texans like their Romeo and Juliet with less, um, sexuality.