![]() The library sent out a press release announcing the program during National Library Week, but Higgins said that participation started out “pretty slowly.” Early news stories from outlets including CNN, Teen Vogue, The Verge, The Hill, and Mental Floss helped raise awareness, and eventually, it went viral on Twitter. We want to make sure that we make that personal connection with them.” “Basically, we follow up with them, and we have a small team here…of librarians and other library workers, who respond to each one…. They “talk to us about the challenges that they’re facing in their communities, what libraries mean to them, how important it is to have a broad spectrum of reading material available to them in their communities and how that’s being challenged,” Higgins said. From the outset, verification has been an individualized process, but teens and young adults simply have to email or reach out to BPL via on Instagram to explain why they need a BPL library card to obtain one. In April, the library launched Books Unbanned by expanding that program to offer free access to anyone age 13 to 21 who was been impacted by book bans. will still do Banned Books Week, book displays, and will still support authors who have been challenged and were banned and that kind of thing, but we were wondering if there was a way to directly support people” impacted by bans.īPL already had a program offering out-of-state residents the opportunity to obtain a BPL card and borrow ebooks and other content from the library for a $50 annual fee. “We were discussing things that we can do as a library…maybe more of a direct intervention in this conversation. ![]() “So, we wanted to see if there was a way to support those librarians and school administrators and teachers” in communities facing book bans throughout the United States. ![]() “This seems beyond the pale to us,” Higgins said. and other silly things people say, by Stacy and Erik Drageset. “We started to pay attention to stories about the increase in censorship efforts” in communities around the country, Higgins said, citing examples such as the list of 850 books that Texas state lawmaker Matt Krause sent to K–12 schools statewide last fall, asking superintendents to inventory their collections and notify his office if the schools or their libraries held any of the titles, which the letter said “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” The huge list of titles ranges from Between the World and Me, the recent bestseller by Ta-Nehisi Coates, to John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, to Tim Federle’s YA novel The Great American Whatever and children’s books such as "Pink is a Girl Color". BPL Chief Librarian Nick Higgins recently talked to LJ about how the idea for the program originated and how it has grown during the past six months. Since April, Brooklyn Public Library’s (BPL) Books Unbanned program has offered free library cards to teens and young adults across the United States who live in communities impacted by book bans, enabling them to access the library’s collection of more than 500,000 ebooks, e-audiobooks, digital magazines, and more.
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