Image: San Jose Public Library - Flickr.
The Australian National University (ANU) is celebrating Banned Books Week this week by showing off a selection of books in the University's libraries that have at one point been banned, either in Australia or overseas. Banned Books Week is an annual celebration of the freedom to read, and the value of free and open access to information. Library Manager of the ANU JB Chifley Library, Meredith Duncan, said while book censorship in Australia had eased up in the last few decades since the introduction of the internet, the issue of banning books has always been controversial. Ms Duncan said Australia has a long history of banning books, particularly from the 1930s through to the 1960s. "We don't ban books the way we used to," Ms Duncan said. "The main type of books Australia used to ban were those seen as obscene. They would have been considered sexually explicit or as having very bad language.
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