University Library News Release
Date: September 23, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeanette Smith, NMSU Library, (575) 646-7492, jcsmith@lib.nmsu.edu
Students Featured on NMSU Library's Banned Books Week Poster
"Read" posters featuring New Mexico State University students holding books that have been banned will be displayed during Banned Books Week at the NMSU Library. Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year.
Observed since 1982, this annual event reminds Americans not to take the freedom to read for granted. This year's celebration marks Banned Books Week's twenty-seventh anniversary, from September 27 through October 4, 2008.
Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular, and it stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.
Books that have banned include Forever by Judy Blume, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak.
Besides the "Read" posters, which will be displayed near the reference desk in Zuhl Library starting September 29, there will also be a display of reference books that have been banned, including the dictionary. A display of additional banned books with explanations of why the books were banned will appear in the lobby of Branson Library.
Posters will appear on the ends of book stacks in Zuhl Library that contain banned books. The banned books on these shelves will be wrapped with tape similar to the "caution" tape found at crime scenes. The posters will also appear on easels in the lobbies of both libraries, and Banned Books Week brochures will be available.
Banned Books Week is sponsored nationally by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Association of American Publishers and the National Association of College Stores, and it is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
For more information on the NMSU Library's Banned Books Week activities, visit Branson Library or Zuhl Library or contact Tracey Thompson at (575) 646-8093 or thomtd@lib.nmsu.edu.
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