Eastern Michigan University's Halle Library is raising awareness of book censorship while supporting students' right to access challenging ideas through literature.
This year’s Banned Books Week theme is “Protecting the Freedom to Read.” The commonly challenged books, according to PEN America, focus on LGBTQ+ themes or address sexual abuse.
Kelly Getz is EMU’s STEM Librarian. She says reading can help people better understand themselves and others around them. She says some organizations and governments want to bar others from reading about those experiences because those books might be against their own beliefs.
“And what we do here is really to try to help students understand that they have the right to read. By making these books available to them, it helps bring that awareness, and it brings an awareness of the issue of people censoring or challenging books.”
Getz says libraries should protect students’ liberty to choose what they want to experience through books.
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