“'Banned, Challenged & Censored' is a collaborative piece between Cole, Sara Williams, a retired MSU-Bozeman Library tech, creative artist and folk and classical violinist and Collin Letts, a sculptor who co-founder the Bozeman Sculpture Park. It will be unveiled during a reception and reading at the Bozeman Public Library as part of the events for Banned Book Week.on Tuesday, Oct. 2, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the library’s Large Community Room."
This quote is excerpted from article that appeared in today's Bozeman Chronicle. Apparently there is a sculpture that celebrates books that have been banned.
What I wanted to note is the idea that any book should be in the library. This, of course, is not true, because libraries censor all the time. In fact, it's their main activity. Every day libraries select books and reject others based on whatever criteria they deem appropriate. Therefore, you will not find certain reading materials in libraries, like child porn, Aryan Nations literature, or books on how to perform a female circumcision or lynch a black.
Of course, I am not advocating such things, but it is hypocrisy for Ms. Beswick to say she supports all books when she most certainly does not.
"The sculpture will stay at the library for a month and a half before traveling to public libraries in Butte, Billings, Missoula, Helena, Kalispell and Great Falls. The sculpture is “booked,” if you will, through October 2013. Cole said he is trying to find more willing to take it on, free of charge. The $7,500 needed to build “Banned, Challenged & Censored” and cart it around the state was given by more than individual donors and a grant from Humanities Montana.
“'We as a library will defend the right to have any book in the library,' said Paula Beswick, director of the Bozeman Library Foundation that partnered with the artists on the project. 'Having the sculpture here visually highlights that mission.'”
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