Preservation Week: April 27 - May 3, 2014

A journal you kept during your freshman year of high school. Letters your parents wrote each other after they first met. The quilt your grandmother made from scraps of family garments. The picture from your first day of kindergarten. These are examples of a person's cultural heritage. 




Preserving historic documents, images and artifacts is not only the purview of museums and library special collections.  Your personal collections matter, and are worth conserving.

The American Library Association partners with other non-profit entities such as the Library of Congress, Institute of Library & Museum Services, as well as corporate sponsors, promotes Preservation Week . 

Preservation Week  "was developed to  promote the understanding and importance of care for personal and community cultural heritage collections, whether they be books, documents, photographs, textiles, paintings, sculptures, furniture and decorative arts or whatever any person or community collects."

For information about preserving your personal and/or family's heritage, sign up for one of these no-cost webinars:

• Low Cost Ways to Preserve Family Archives
• Preserving Scrap Books

Judy Blume - Library Champion

The phrases "beloved children's author" and "Judy Blume" often go together. Generations of readers have loved her books, which include the Fudge series, the groundbreaking Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, and many others. Her books have been a frequent target of censorship attempts, which has prompted her to be an outspoken supporter of Freedom to Read efforts by the American Library Association.

Judy is the spokesperson for this year's National Library Week: April 13-19, 2014.

In an interview with American Libraries magazine, Judy responded to a question about censorship and libraries:

I think of libraries as safe havens for intellectual freedom. I think of how many times I’ve been told about a librarian who saved a life by offering the right book at the right time. Yet librarians often have to be fearless. They have to be ready to explain to an angry person or group why they aren’t going to remove a book just because someone says they should. They stand up for their readers’ rights. Don’t try to threaten them because they won’t back down. They are my heroes.

If you want to follow Judy on Twitter search for @judyblume.  Rumor has she's enjoying this bit of social media immensely!

Top 10 Banned Books of 2013

What does the Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilky, "The Bluest Eyes" by Toni Morrison, and "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie have in common? They are the top three books challenged somewhere in the United States during the past year.

                                                                                                     
The American Library Association's Office For Intellectual Freedom has just released their annual list of the top 10 out of the 307 challenges reported during 2013. The list includes reasons challengers gave for their opposition to the title.

Wondering what it means for a book to be "challenged" and/or "banned"? Here's what ALA has to say:

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.  A banning is the removal of those materials.  Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.  Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection


To see what other books made the Top Ten List, click here.  

In the fall, these titles and many others will be honored during  Banned Books Week, which celebrates the freedom to read. Meanwhile, read a banned book, because you can.

Banned & Challenged Classics

2000-2009 Top Banned/Challenged Books