Every year since 1982, book stores, book lovers, and libraries across the country have spent the last days of September raising awareness and protesting censorship. Banned Book Week is also about celebrating; celebrating our freedom to read and the significance of the first amendment. Here is the short list of reasons to celebrate banned book week in 2011.

Reason number one is that most public libraries subscribe to the open book (yes, punerific) policy of the Library Bill of Rights. The Library Bill of Rights is as follows:

1. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
2. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
3. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
4. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
5. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
6. Libraries that make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

Essentially this means that our public libraries are more bipartisan than we are, more free than the “free press”, and more unbiased than the Texas school board. Sobering thought, isn’t it?

Reason number two has everything to do with what the American Library Association calls the Freedom to Read statement. Just one of the many highlights of the ALA’s Freedom to Read is that its first tenet states [emphasis mine]:

It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority.

Some of the most celebrated progressive people in our history were considered unorthodox, unpopular, and/or dangerous at some point. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel Clemons/Mark Twain, and Albert Einstein were all considered at turns unorthodox and/or dangerous. Can you imagine a world without any of them?

Another on a long list of reasons to celebrate is the increased ease and convenience with which public libraries can make literature available to the public they serve. Many libraries now have growing digital libraries accessible 24/7 on the web. E-reader owners can appreciate the check-out feature that allows them to download their favorite books in various compatible formats and read them on their devices for the same amount of time they would check out a paper or audio book. Three cheers for even more ways to freely read!

Good reads, cool t-shirts, fun activities, hilarious blog posts, and community spirit are a just a few of the ways people are sharing their love of reading and celebrating. There is something for everyone and variety is another reason to celebrate Banned Book Week.

In case you were concerned (like me) that this kind of censorship is still in an issue, you can rest easier knowing that after a peak in the 1990’s, the number of challenges per year have dropped by more than half. In 1995, there were 762 challenges. In 2010, the number of challenges topped out at 348. So while we should remain vigilant and resistant to censorship, we can celebrate the small victories.

Think libraries are all about literacy and the freedom to read? They are. But they also advocate for other important issues. Just a few of the things the ALA supports and/or is helping us with: net neutrality, broadband accessibility, copyrights and intellectual property, cultural diversity, and reading material for poor/low-income communities. Public libraries are also vital to many parents educating their children at home.

Unfortunately, funding for public libraries is under strain and/or facing drastic cuts that close library doors for good. This is why for Banned Book Week 2011, I’m encouraging everyone to join me in volunteering at a public library, donating books (especially frequently banned books), donating a few bucks to the American Library Association, and/or telling our local and state representatives how important libraries are to us. Libraries=Books=Knowledge=Power. Public libraries = power in the hands of the people.

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Here’s a riddle: What do books and corn have in common?  The answer:  overabundance. Reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (which I snatched up at my local library’s gently used book sale) started me thinking about the dilemma of having more product than market. Pollan’s description of towers of rotting bumper-crop corn piled up outside maxed-out grain elevators reminded me of the tower of boxes containing leftover donated books on the last day of the book sale at the  library in the small, Hudson Valley town where I live.

At every used-book sale I’ve been involved with, I’ve been intimately aware of this: the bibliophile’s dilemma. I have the privilege and sometimes burden of being one of a handful of volunteer book sorters to touch and review every donated book spine.  Many books find homes.  But often, like the runt of the litter left behind, some books, particularly those of a technical nature and specialized topics, do not find their way into the arms of hungry readers.

In fact, the aftermath of a book sale often is the most fraught for the book lover. Being somewhat new to this endeavor, in my first year of sorting, I was aghast to learn that some of the like-new books were recycled—never to have the chance to provide that one sentence or one paragraph to someone whose understanding might be altered forever by a nugget of wisdom or a thought never before considered.

Donating the unsold books is sometimes successful and sometimes not. The diversity of the individuals and organizations that accept book donations speaks to the difficulty of “getting rid” of the unsold books. This year, children’s and juvenile titles went to Catholic Charities and to a teacher in Appalachia. A teacher of juvenile offenders at a maximum-security prison carted away three or four boxes. Veterans got into the game as well, when our congressman’s spouse took a few boxes for distribution.  At last year’s sale a counseling facility for abused women took five or six boxes. A local low-security prison sometimes accepts paperback adventure and mystery (no pornography or male nudes, thank you) but in limited quantities. A local nursing home will accept large-print titles.

Larger charitable organizations, such as Goodwill, accept books in manageable quantities:  five or six boxes at a time over time. And the ultimate salvation: Salvation Army. For the past two sales, the regional headquarters in Albany took a pickup truck’s worth of boxes of books.

But even there, the dilemma rankles:  Will the books ever have the chance to fulfill the authors’ intent: to educate, to entertain, to open up a mind?  Or do all those painstakingly chosen words ultimately end up being bleached away, pulped, and obliterated anyway?

Like much in our wasteful consumer society, the same question abounds:  Why is there not a better, more efficient, and meaningful system for transferring the wealth—whether food or the printed word—to those who need it the most?

Pondering this dilemma sent me to the Internet, where I found a jumble of organizations committed to the mission:  Books Behind Bars, Book Aid International, Books for Africa, Bridge to Asia Books Program, and Books for International Goodwill to name just a few.

Adopt a Library, a clearinghouse for matching libraries searching for book donations and book donors, sounded particularly interesting. The work of the organization has been so successful that it has been officially recognized by Congress through creation of the Adopt a Library National Day.

One organization listed on the Adopt a Library website intrigued me.  And how could it not?  The Camel Library.  The name itself sets the mind wandering.  Founded in 1996, in that year just three camels plus a librarian trekked with as many books as could be loaded on each animal’s back (about 200) to deliver them to nomadic tribes living in the impoverished region in Kenya’s northeastern province near the Somalian border. Today the organization’s transport system has increased to twelve camels, affectionately dubbed the camel mobile.  The determination and dedication of those volunteers to deliver what is now more than seven thousand books is truly inspiring.

And though my imagination is caught by the exoticism of the camels carrying their intellectual burden to excited children and adults who would otherwise have no access,  and caught too by the image of the books being laid out on a blanket under the acacia trees for readers to excitedly peruse, my heart is caught by needs closer to home, particularly the needs of some of America’s most chronically overlooked and ignored groups:  reservation-residing Native Americans.  Seeking your help, many tribal colleges and reservations are posting their wish lists on the Adopt a Library website.  To all of you bibliophiles out there:  Take a look, share the bounty, and resolve the dilemma.

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When e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook hit the market, I have to admit to being less than thrilled. An avid reader, I couldn’t imagine reading without the feel of crisp pages at my fingertips, the smell of binding, dusty library shelves, the excitement of acquiring a favorite first edition, and the ever-expanding surface space this lifelong passion inhabited in my home. And then I found the enormous free online libraries that appealed to both the technogeek and the bibliophile in me.

Being a frugal person out of necessity and principle, I started running out of excuses not to get an e-reader around the time gas prices jumped–and so did the cost of just about everything else. I stopped avoiding the advertisements on Amazon.com and decided to take a look. Two things really appealed to me from the onset: the number of e-books available online and the environmental impact, or lack thereof.

When I was growing up environmentalism consisted largely of planting trees (ostensibly to replace all the trees we were cutting down for paper products), avoiding aerosol products (gotta love big 80’s hair), and not littering. Save the Rainforest wasn’t just a slogan, it was the driving force behind environmentalism in my childhood years. It’s so deeply ingrained that I still cannot refuse a donation to a Save the Rainforest charity. While books aren’t the only threat to rainforests, the e-reader allows me to feel like I’m contributing in yet another way to a greener planet.

As recently as January of this year, I was visiting a book store and/or the local library several times per month. I still like to encourage a love of reading with my own children so I haven’t given up the library entirely. But having an e-reader has certainly allowed me to cut back on costly car trips. Needless to say, less traveling is easier on the pocketbook and the environment.

When my husband bestowed upon me a Kindle to call my own, I discovered a laundry list of benefits. Here are a few:

• The lightweight, compact nature of the e-reader is kind of amazing for this mother of four. Parents who are accustomed to packing any number of necessities and supplies into the car and/or the diaper bag can relate. (Also students who lug around heavy school texts)

• No more losing my place when bookmarks mysteriously disappear. (folding page corners is a pet peeve of mine) The e-reader remembers my place so that I don’t have to.

• Whereas I’d never graffiti a paper book with highlights and notes in the margins, I can do so guilt-free and with abandon on my e-reader. And I do!

• Time is of the essence. That’s why I love that I can browse for books and essays from my e-reader and have them uploaded to the device in seconds.

• Several days of reading on a single charge, low CO2 emissions. This was one of my only concerns, environmentally speaking. Despite regular and daily use, I recharge my Kindle once a week for approximately one hour. See this report for detailed analysis of environmental impact of e-readers vs. books.

• Easy on the eyes. The Kindle’s “ink technology” and lack of backlighting makes reading eerily (gratefully, in my case) similar to the paper page. I can also toggle text size with immediate results.

That said, I was a little conflicted reading an article about the impact of e-books on the publishing industry. It would seem publishers are not happy with being rendered virtually useless by e-readers. It’s not that I’m a huge fan of publishers, but I am a fan of jobs in a struggling economy.

I also think publishers can serve an important purpose; namely as a kind of filter for the vast array of literature on the market. No one likes to spend money on a poorly written book with more plot holes than pot holes on a rural back road. Some publishers have a better reputation for filtering than others, which can be of real benefit to authors. Still, reading is mostly a matter of personal taste and there’s just no accounting for it sometimes.

As a would-be writer, I find avoiding several “middlemen” in the publishing world immensely attractive. An author could [in theory] self-publish straight to electronic format, set their own price, and be wildly successful. They would never “sell out” because e-books are limitless. After everyone gets a piece of the action, I could make .35 cents per .99 cent e-book and still rake in over a quarter of a million dollars by selling a million copies. Think it hasn’t been done? Meet John Locke.

It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme by any means. An author may still want to invest in a good editor and Uncle Sam will be around for his cut. There are also personal taste and market trends to contend with. However, self-publishing in electronic format has the potential to provide savvy authors with more creative and financial reign over their work.

After all is said and done, I am enjoying my e-reader much more than I originally thought I would and the perceived cost-benefit ratio helps alleviate the not-so-considerable guilt at having abandoned dead tree reading so easily.

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Food desert neighborhoods are a real problem in America. Here’s a solution and another item for the good government file, from The Baltimore Sun:

An innovative, city-operated food-delivery program in Baltimore aims to tackle the longtime problem of neighborhoods that lack supermarkets…by bringing fresh produce and healthy supermarket fare to residents through a free delivery system that operates with the click of a mouse from the library.

The Virtual Supermarket Project offers library laptops where residents can order groceries online from [a local supermarket] and pick them up at their neighborhood library the next day.

“We know in communities around this library and in Washington Village residents must choose between shopping at corner stores that lack fresh produce or pay a premium for a ride outside their neighborhood, and we know this is not a fair choice,” said Olivia D. Farrow, Baltimore’s interim health commissioner. “Most city residents enjoy access to full service, competitively priced grocery stores. The residents of East Baltimore and Washington Village deserve no less.”

In the neighborhood surrounding Baltimore’s Orleans Street library, healthy food is a luxury. There’s a Burger King and a cluster of corner stores and carryouts, but not a single supermarket within walking distance. It’s no wonder, say health officials, that the neighborhood has one of the highest mortality rates in the city with alarmingly high rates of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

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