Community members will get to learn more about the impacts of censorship at a series of Richmond Public Library (RPL) initiatives next week.
Freedom to Read Week, which raises awareness about intellectual freedom, will take place from Feb. 18 to 24.
This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the campaign.
To raise awareness for the topic, RPL is inviting community members to explore its online collection of popular books that have been challenged in the past and browse its displays of banned and challenged books.
Readers can also attend the library's book club meetings to broaden their perspectives and check out the Your Next Great Read service, where they can get personalized reading recommendations from a librarian.
For Cantonese speakers, Hong Kong authors Chu Yiu-ming and Ngan Shun-kau will be holding a virtual author talk on Feb. 20 to share their writing and publishing experiences. Registration is required for the event.
Complaints about books at RPL are reviewed by a team of three librarians as well as a manager of customer experience or community engagement, and the Chief Librarian will make the final decision. Solutions include keeping the book, relocating it to a more appropriate collection, purchasing materials with opposing viewpoints and removing the book.
A total of 117 complaints were made between 1982 and 2022, with a spike recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reasons for complaint included race, religion, politics, gender and sexuality, nudity and excessive violence.
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