Libraries

Banned and Determined: WIU Libraries Host Banned Book Celebration

Book on blue background with restricted symbol on top warning about banned books

In honor of Banned Books Week, the Western Illinois University Libraries will host its 8th annual "Banned and Determined" event, an evening of readings from censored, banned, and challenged books, on Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 7 pm in the Leslie F. Malpass Garden Lounge.

According to Krista Bowers Sharpe, reference librarian, the program will feature Western faculty, staff, and students reading from works that individuals, at various times and places, have tried to suppress. Featured this year is a mix of books for young and old, of fiction and non-fiction, both humorous and serious – works that will be read from include Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, and Francesca Lia Block’s Girl Goddess #9.

Banned Books Week this year spans September 27 through October 3, 2015. This annual celebration of controversial reading is sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA). For more information, please visit: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek.

“Western Illinois University Libraries’ faculty and staff encourage all readers to join with the ALA in celebrating the freedom to read during Banned Books Week and at all times,” Bowers Sharpe said. “Banned and Determined” is free and open to the public.

For additional information, please contact Christina Norton, Marketing Librarian at CA-Norton@wiu.edu or at (309) 298-3298.