Banned Books Week -- does it matter?

Today's the start of Banned Books Week, an event founded by the American Library Assn. back in 1982 and observed -- and argued about -- ever since. The Times' book editor David Ulin takes a look at the annual event:

I'm ambivalent about Banned Books Week, which runs through Saturday. On the one hand, we clearly still need such a public affirmation, as the recent tumult over Sarah Palin and her "rhetorical" inquiries to the Wasilla, Alaska, public library show.

On the other, Banned Books Week offers up the sort of toothless, feel-good spectacle that makes us less likely to consider the actual ramifications of free expression.

The basic message here is one of astonishment: Why would anyone ban books when literature is such a positive and ennobling force? Yet, while I agree with that, I also believe that some books truly are dangerous, and to ignore that is simply disingenuous.

Lest this make me seem an apologist for the book banners, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I'm against restricting anything other than material that graphically portrays certain illegal acts.

Yet it's foolish, self-defeating even, to pretend that books are innocuous, that we don't need to concern ourselves with what they say. If that's the case, then it doesn't really matter if we ban them, because we have already stripped them of their power.

More in David's essay.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Photo: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Robert Kent]

David Ulin would be surprised to learn that the same ALA which sponsors Banned Books Week has been taken over by a clique which is trashing the noble ideals the organization claims to defend. The ALA doesn't want Mr. Ulin to know that militants have seized control of key ALA offices and are trying to ignore, cover up and suppress alarmingnews from Cuba, where libraries are being raided, confiscated and burned by the secret police. Many librarians jailed in Cuba have been named as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International.

Horrors like this are occurring in Cuba while the ALA is busy trying to hide these realities from the public. The ALA has ignored appeals for a return to its anti-censoship principles made by icons of liberty such as L.A.'s own Ray Bradbury, along with other celebrities such as Nat Hentoff, Andrei Codrescu and Madeleine Albright. The public need to be aware of this outrageous trampling of the principle of freedom of expression by the ALA's governing factionl

For the grim details of the ALA's abandonment of principle, readers can go to our organization's website at ( www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org).

Robert Kent
Co-chair, Friends of Cuban Libraries

[Jessica]

In response to Robert Kent's comment, I'd like to point to a website showing all that the ALA and other library organizations have done over the years for independent Cuban libraries. It is very long. Towards the end it discusses U.S. money that does go to support cuban libraries.
http://librarian.lishost.org/?p=1102

On the topic of Banned Books Week, I think it does matter. I'd like to see better events in my state that talk seriously about different kinds of book censorship and book banning.