Get Involved
How You Can Observe Freedom to Read Week
Freedom to Read Week provides an opportunity for Canadians to focus on issues of intellectual freedom as they affect your community, your province, our country, and countries around the world. Whether you are a librarian, bookseller, educator, student, or member of the community, there are lots of ways you can help mark this annual event.
See also "Get Involved" in the annual Freedom to Read Kit.
If Freedom to Read Week is officially proclaimed in your community, contact local media to be sure of full coverage in newspapers and on radio and TV.
Host Your Own Photo Contest!
A great way to get people involved is to host a photo contest in your community or school. Ask participants to submit photos about freedom of expression, which could include photos of challenged books, Freedom to Read events, the Freedom to Read Week poster, people reading or anything that promotes the written word.
Some fun ideas for contest prizes are a selection of challenged books, DVDs of films made from challenged books or gift certificates from a local bookstore. You can download the list of challenged books and magazines at www.freedomtoread.ca to get more ideas. Partnering with local businesses can be a great way to get prizes and other forms of support for your contest too.
Make sure to look into the federal and provincial laws that apply to contests while planning your contest, and be aware that the rules among provinces vary.
The Book and Periodical Council would love to see your winning contest photos. Photos submitted may be featured on the Freedom to Read website or in Freedom to Read 2009.
Submission Guidelines
Images must be 800 by 600 pixels at 72 dots per inch and should not exceed 800-900 kilobytes per image. Please label each photo with the photographer's name, address and telephone number, and remember to include each photo's title and location. The Book and Periodical Council will return images only if they are accompanied by a self-addressed envelope with sufficient postage.
Contact 416-975-9366 or publicity@freedomtoread.ca for more information.
Submission of a photograph constitutes agreement to allow photographs to be reproduced, published and/or exhibited only for promotional purposes of the Freedom of Expression Committee's Freedom to Read Week. Photographers must own all rights to the works submitted. Model releases are the photographer's responsibility and must be provided to the Freedom of Expression Committee if requested. Photographers shall indemnify the Freedom of Expression Committee for any loss or damage arising from any breach of copyright. The photographer retains ownership of all submitted images.
Involve Your Local Government
Ask your municipal or local council to declare your community a Freedom to Read Zone. The proclamation could be modelled on the draft proclamation.
Make sure that local media are alerted to well publicize the proclamation in your community.
Be sure to plan events such as those suggested below to take advantage of the proclamation.
Organize a Public Event
Follow the example of Sandpiper Books in Calgary and make a public presentation of an Intellectual Freedom Award to a local writer, educator, or other person who has made a contribution to preserving intellectual freedoms in your community or region. (Sandpiper made its third annual Freedom of Expression award to Michael Dobbin, artistic director of Alberta Theatre Projects, which performed the controversial play Angels in America during its 1996-97 season.) The award could be presented by a school, bookstore, public library, or some other appropriate organization in your community.
Arrange a reading of the entire text of a well-known banned or challenged book during Freedom to Read Week. (For example, for several years, Margaret Laurence's The Diviners was read in a number of cities across Canada, and Kevin Major's Hold Fast was read to mark the 1995 Freedom to Read Week at the Canadian Children's Book Centre in Toronto.) Ask local authors, media, politicians, and others to join in the reading. Make sure you advertise and promote the event to attract people to the reading.
Re-dedicate your library on Freedom to Read Day, which marks the beginning of Freedom to Read Week. Ask a local celebrity – a politician or author – to cut a censorship ribbon across the door. Include a proclamation in your ceremony. Lay a "cornerstone" by adding challenged materials to the collection. If your community has a town crier, an official mascot, or another public symbol, use this figure in your event in a way that presents an interesting photo opportunity to the media.
Post in a prominent position the Canadian Library Association's Statement on Intellectual Freedom.
Arrange author readings during Freedom to Read Week. Invite writers to discuss intellectual freedom issues in the context of their own work and that of other Canadian authors.
Ask a writers' association to provide one of its members to speak at your library, school, or bookstore during Freedom to Read Week. Encourage writers to talk about how important this freedom is to authors.
Arrange a panel discussion with local personalities, politicians, writers, artists, and teachers on "Key Books in Your Life." Ask panel members to talk about a banned or challenged book that has had a strong positive influence in their lives. Invite the media.
Organize a panel discussion on an intellectual freedom issue that is particularly important in your area – access to environmental information, graphic AIDS awareness pamphlets, ineffective access-to-information laws, or explicit rap music lyrics.
Organize in your school an essay or speech contest on censorship issues. Have the winners give their speeches or read their essays as part of Freedom to Read Day. Encourage local media to publish the winning entries.
Play banned music; music as well as literature has been targeted by censors. Provide taped or live challenged music in your lobby or program room – for example, the work of 2 Live Crew, jazz, music by Jewish composers (banned by the Nazis), k.d. lang (banned by some radio stations for her support of vegetarianism), or bagpipes (banned as an instrument of war in Britain in 1745).
Establish a standing committee on intellectual freedom drawn from the school and/or community to monitor intellectual freedom issues and to plan special activities year round.
Use Our Clip-Art
Photocopy the clip-art included in the Freedom to Read Kit to make "shelf-talkers" (cards to insert between books on the shelves in your school or public library or bookstore to catch the patrons' attention) for books included on the Challenged Books List, or other books challenged in your community.
Use the clip-art to produce your own bookmarks for Freedom to Read Week. Include a list of historically controversial books available in your library or bookstore and some critical comments made about them, or excerpts from the CLA Statement on Intellectual Freedom, or similar statements.
Set Up Displays – Use Our Poster
Set an "I read banned books" reading goal in your school or public library. Fill a display area with banned or challenged books from its collection and videos made from challenged books. Insert a brightly coloured paper marker in each item, and set up a thermometer graph. As materials circulate, collect and count the markers, and then mark on the thermometer the number of titles borrowed. Present the hundredth – or thousandth – borrower with a poster from our Freedom to Read Kit, or with a copy of a banned or challenged Canadian book, or another suitable prize.
Support censored writers. Ask PEN Canada and Amnesty International for information on banned or imprisoned writers. Mount a display featuring their stories, and provide a stack of preprinted postcards with supportive messages for library patrons to sign.
Use the Freedom to Read poster as a centrepiece for a display in your bookstore, school, or library. A display could include books challenged in Canada or books controversial throughout history.
Wrap a number of banned books in a thick metal chain and bind it with a lock – the bigger the lock, the better. Set the pile on the information desk or some other prominent place in the library or bookstore.
Wrap banned books in plain brown paper and rip an opening just large enough to reveal the title of the book.
Collect press clippings about censorship issues present or past. Cover a wall or display area with these clippings.
Distribute Publications
Distribute copies of the Challenged Books List. Highlight books in your own collection in information you distribute on intellectual freedom, Canadian banned or challenged books, prison literature by censored writers, prize-winning challenged books, controversial children's materials, or similar topics. Place the lists in local bookstores, schools, and libraries.
Contact the Media
If your school newspaper reviews books or your library provides a book review column in the local newspaper, during Freedom to Read Week review famous banned or challenged books.
Write a press release announcing Freedom to Read Week and send it to local newspapers and radio and television stations. A sample press release is provided in the Freedom to Read Kit 2004.
Arrange for a photo in your local newspaper of school or library board members and staff or civic officials hanging a Freedom to Read poster or banner, unveiling a framed copy of the CLA Statement on Intellectual Freedom, or sitting in a mock jail for circulating banned books.
Use a Quiz
Create your own quiz based on the information on challenged books and historic events contained in the Freedom to Read Kit.
Have a Daily Trivia Contest. Display a trivia question related to challenged books on a chalk board or bulletin board. Have a different question every day.
Share Your Experiences
Use the Case Study Form the to let us know about challenges to any books in your library, school, or community. Be sure to inform local media of the details of the event.
