Carleton’s MacOdrum Library has been hosting a number of events in honour of Freedom to Read Week, being held across Canada from Feb. 26 to March 4.
According to Wayne Jones, Carleton’s librarian, Freedom to Read Week allows libraries to make a statement about the importance of freedom of expression and anti-censorship.
“There are still books that are still being banned [and] challenged, in Canada and elsewhere, and what we do is we take a list of those books, we have people read from them publicly, and we have people demonstrate publicly that this is a right in a free society,” Jones said. “Having more information is better than having no information.”
The MacOdrum Library has held events for Freedom to Read for several years now, such as discussions on common causes of censorship, as well as reading excerpts from commonly banned books.
While removal of reading materials is rare in an academic library like Carleton’s, public libraries are often petitioned by concerned individuals or groups concerned about public exposure to controversial works.
“It’s a very common thing in public libraries,” Jones said. “For example, for some parents to object to certain books that are in their public library, and then make cases to their public library board that it should be removed.”
The Freedom to Read project, organized by the Book and Periodical Council of Canada, has a list online of fiction and non-fiction works challenged in both Canada and the United States. Prominent books in Canada include: A Clockwork Orange, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Contes pour buveurs attardés, Bridge to Terabithia, and the Harry Potter series.
While no government in Canada can official ban the circulation of a particular book, it can be removed from public facilities or removed from school curricula, Jones said.
“Sometimes it’s because, for example, there are books that are removed because some parents feel that the language is too strong for certain kids,” Jones said. “But sometimes they’re removed because it’s a book about a gay couple that’s raising a child and some people disagree with that as a fact and they want the book removed for that reason.”
According to Jones, the MacOdrum Library has only had one notable example of a request for removal of a particular work: a video game called Rage, cited for violence and misogyny. The library refused to remove the game from its stocks.
“The fact that we have something that has offensive content in the library is no way in which we’re endorsing the content or support the content, it has nothing to do with that,” Jones said. “The reason it’s here in the library, is because it’s used for academic purposes here, we have video game designing courses here that people can take, so there are technical reasons why this video game might be useful for some of the students.”
As part of Freedom to Read Week, the library hosted two public readings of controversial works, one on Feb. 28 and the other on March 2. Three exhibits on the banning of books were also displayed on the main floor of the library.
– Photo by Luke Carroll
