It has been a week of fun celebrating Banned Books Week here at Mercer Law!
In mid-September, we worked to create a fantastic display of banned books and interesting facts about Banned Books Week. Our display included popular titles such as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. We also made a point to include some unexpected titles, like Jack London's Call of the Wild (which was banned in Yugoslavia and Italy for socialism).
Of course, the display wouldn't have been complete without some cool infographics, like this one:
For those interested in additional Banned Books Week statistics, feel free to check out the resources available on the American Library Association's website.
We also had a fun event for the Mercer Law community to participate in: the "Guess the Banned Book" contest. A banned book was shredded—(gasp! we promise it was used and had lived a long, happy life)—and put in a jar that was then placed at the Circulation Desk. Students, faculty, and staff were invited to guess the title of the shredded banned book. Our winner, Katherine Twomey (2L), won a $100 Amazon gift card after she was the first person to correctly guess that the title was Gone with the Wind! As an added bonus, we even let her keep the cool jar with the shredded book inside.
A fun-filled celebration wouldn't be complete without free stuff! We had free library-related stickers in different spots around the law library for students to show their love of reading. I set up a "sticker station" on the table outside my office, and heard "oohs," "ahhs," and lots of laughter as students sifted through the different designs. We hope to see these stickers popping up on reusable water bottles and laptops of our students that like to spend time in the library!
This was an incredible celebration of Banned Books Week at Mercer Law Library. We were so excited to see the students getting involved by competing in our shredded book contest, collecting stickers, and stopping to check out our display. We have tons of ideas for activities throughout the rest of the semester, and we can't wait to share them with the Mercer Law community!
P.S. We might just need to buy another jar!
0 Comments.