The year has flown by and here we are on the first of December. As many of us dive head first into exams and final projects why don't you take a moment to start the count-down to Christmas with the first Banned Books Video Advent Calendar created by the Entresse Library in Espoo and FAIFE (Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression).
Day 1, Banned Books Calendar from Entressen kirjasto on Vimeo.
Day 1, Banned Books Calendar from Entressen kirjasto on Vimeo.
From the IFLA blog:
The project's participants include leading figures in the library world, who introduce their favourite banned books: IFLA President Ingrid Parent presents Timothy Findlay's The Wars; Finnish IFLA President-Elect Sinikka Sipilä presents Mika Waltari's The Egyptian; Kai Ekholm introduces Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Executive Director Jill Cousins of the Europeana Foundation expounds on James Joyce's Ulysses. Other books include Art Spiegelman's Maus, Hitler's Mein Kampf, Boccaccio's Decameron and Walt Disney's Donald Duck.
"We wanted to show that books have been censored for centuries for daring to defy the Catholic Church with its Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Puritans, judicial systems and politicians," Ekholm notes. The purpose of the project is to promote public debate. Viewers can have their say on whether the books were banned for a sensible reason. "Books are still being burned, but the focus now is on online censorship. Sad examples include Turkey and Hungary in Europe and, on the world stage, China, where 450 million online citizens live in a closed intranet without access to Facebook or various Google searches. Perhaps next year's calendar will focus on banned web pages."
Following the tradition of the Advent calendar, each day between December 1st and December 24th a new window will open and a new book will be presented on several sites throughout the world.
