The Seattle Public Library Gives Students Free Digital Access to Books Getting Banned Across the United States

Accord­ing to a new report pub­lished by PEN Amer­i­ca, the “2022–23 school year has been marked to date by an esca­la­tion of book bans and cen­sor­ship in class­rooms and school libraries across the Unit­ed States.” PEN Amer­i­ca has tracked “1,477 instances of indi­vid­ual books banned, affect­ing 874 unique titles,” dur­ing the first half of this aca­d­e­m­ic year. That marks an increase of 28 per­cent com­pared to the pri­or six months, Jan­u­ary – June 2022.” The book ban­nings are tak­ing place in con­ser­v­a­tive-lean­ing states (main­ly, Texas, Flori­da, Mis­souri, Utah, and South Car­oli­na), and over­whelm­ing­ly, they’re tar­get­ing “sto­ries by and about peo­ple of col­or and LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als.”

For­tu­nate­ly, Amer­i­can pub­lic libraries are push­ing back. As men­tioned last sum­mer, the Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library launched Books Unbanned. This ini­tia­tive pro­vides Amer­i­can stu­dents, no mat­ter where they live in the U.S., free access to 500,000 dig­i­tal books, includ­ing books banned by stu­dents’ local libraries. And now the Seat­tle Pub­lic Library has joined the effort, rolling out its own ver­sion of Books Unbanned. “We believe in your right to read what you want, dis­cov­er your­self and form your own opin­ions,” writes the library. “Teens and young adults ages 13 to 26 liv­ing any­where in the U.S. can access our entire col­lec­tion of e‑books and audio­books.” To get start­ed, stu­dents can fill out the form at the bot­tom of this page (click here), and then explore these curat­ed lists of banned non-fic­tion books and banned fic­tion books.

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Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library Gives Every Teenag­er in the U.S. Free Access to Books Get­ting Cen­sored by Amer­i­can Schools

The New York Pub­lic Library Pro­vides Free Online Access to Banned Books: Catch­er in the Rye, Stamped & More

The 850 Books a Texas Law­mak­er Wants to Ban Because They Could Make Stu­dents Feel Uncom­fort­able