Librarians at Valencia College will share about their college’s representation of ALA’s “Banned Books Week” program. The week included a speaker addressing the diversity suppression in literature choices due to book banning. The library team added an initiative called “Open Mic Reading” which allowed students to express their favorite passages from banned books they had read. This program also included a contest between staff and faculty members as well as a display of several banned books in special wrapping paper that were available to be checked out to students and the public. For marketing purposes, staff wore buttons, hung posters and used social media to spread the word to over 4,000 people across the college about “Banned Books Week”. Students, public and staff showed up for this event and the overall majority assessment was very satisfactory.
Banned Books Week, Valencia College, West Campus
Nardia Cumberbatch and Beth King, Librarians
Banned Books Week is an outreach service that we provide at Valencia College, West Campus, to promote library and literacy skills and lifelong learning. It was a fun week that included a speaker, contest, display, and an open mic session. Our second Banned Books Week was held September 27 – October 3, 2015 and celebrated the freedom to read with a focus on banned young adult literature and diversity. Programs included a speaker, a contest for faculty and staff, book displays, an open mic session, and stickers and bookmarks for checking out banned books. This effort supported the FCS and AFC educational missions by supporting intellectual freedom and reading by promoting awareness of the freedom to read without censorship. Banned Books Week was an effort on the part of the entire library faculty and staff. We have further refined our programming and best practices in providing a week long themed program that supports community outreach.
Speaker
The American Library Association Banned Books Week 2015 theme was Book Banning, Young Adult Literature and Diversity Expression. Our speaker, Dr. Yolanda Hood, Department Head, Curriculum Materials Center, University of Central Florida, spoke on the practice of book banning and how this may cause diversity suppression in literature choices, especially for teens. The lecture included hands-on, think-out-loud activities incorporated with brief book talks. Light refreshments were served. The event took place on Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 11:30 am – 12:45 pm in Room 6-202, in the West Campus library. The entire Valencia community was invited to hear this fascinating presentation. The speaking event was well attended by students, faculty, staff, and the public.
Open Mic Reading
A new initiative was added this year on October 1, 2015, in 6-202 of the West Campus Library to replace the student contest. An Open Mic event was held where student volunteers from several classes read passages from their favorite banned teen novels. Employees were also welcome to attend. Pizza was provided. This was very successful in getting students more involved in Banned Books Week.
Faculty and Staff Contest\
Which West Campus Faculty or Staff member has read the most banned or challenged books? Faculty and staff were invited to enter the contest electronically via an email Qualtrics survey prepared by librarian Regina Seguin. The prize was a reader’s gift basket of Banned Book items. Faculty and staff were asked how many banned books they have read from our list. The Faculty Staff Banned Books Challenge winner was Yvonne Spottke, Security Officer, who read 28 of the 29 titles we listed.
Displays
At the end of September, young adult books on the banned and challenged list from the West Campus Library collection were put on display by part-time librarian Sara Gomez on the 2nd floor of the library in building 6. During Banned Books Week, anyone checking out a book from the display received a Banned Books Week sticker and bookmark. Banned Books wore special wrappers when checked out.
Marketing
The marketing effort included the librarians wearing buttons all week, sending an Atlas blast to all students, posting to the marquee at the entrance to the campus, posting to Axis TV, hanging posters on campus, and highlighting the event in various campus publications from the student newspaper to faculty and employee newsletters. A special effort was made this year to outreach through social media. The speaker was promoted with an entry on the college event calendar, across social media inviting the campus community as well as the public, and promoted on community blogs. We submitted our events to the Bannedbooksweek.org national page.
Assessment
Assessment of our Banned Books programming was informal and was done by speaking to students as they checked out books, and/or attended the speaking and open mic event. It is hard to definitively measure the impact on students by promoting reading but our traffic increased in the library due to the participation in the events. Students came with their entire classes to the library for the speaker and for the open mic event.
Our Banned Books efforts were developed as a way of making reading relevant and to promote awareness that challenges to intellectual freedom still exist today. Our marketing department sent news of our events out to 4,000 people across the college and followed up with a report on the outreach. There was a good response to the programming on social media including the speaker, which was a Facebook Event, and lively interaction when pictures of the event were posted during and following the event. A survey was done following the open mic session of the classes that attended. A majority was satisfied with the event and named their favorite part, described their experience of presenting, and suggested improvements.