Censorship and the TCC Library

"to censor is to supress or delete anything considered objectionable" Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed.
In a country where the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedoms of speech and press, censorship actions evoke strong reactions. Who should decide for others what information they should or shouldn't have access to ? Books, plays, radio, movies, television, newspapers, cyberspace . . . all have been subject to censorship events. Some countries are far more liberal then the US in their tolerance of profanity, nudity and dissident speech, while others are more restrictive. Who decides for you ?

BOOKS AT THE TCC LIBRARY

Banned plays : censorship histories of 125 stage dramas

Fahrenheit 451

Impounded : Dorothea Lange and the censored images of Japanese American internment

Literature suppressed on political grounds

VIDEOS AT THE TCC LIBRARY

Battle Over Citizen Kane

Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords




EBOOKS AT THE TCC LIBRARY

Censorship & cultural regulation in the modern age

Censorship of the American theatre in the twentieth century

Children, cinema and censorship: from Dracula to the Dead End Kids

Policing cinema movies and censorship in early-twentieth-century America


ARTICLES ONLINE

WEBSITES

Banned Books ~ http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/banned-books.html
Summary: Books ranging from Black Beauty to the Bible have at one time or another been banned. This University of Pennsylvania site features an expanded essay on the history of book banning and full-text of the books banned.


Banned Books Week: American Library Association http://wwwala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm
Summary: Harry Potter. The Chocolate War. Of Mice and Men. No, this is not a reading list for a class - it's from the list of the most frequently challenged books of 2000. To find out more about challenged and banned books and "the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them," visit this site

BEACON FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ~ http://www.beaconforfreedom.org/
Summary: "Beacon for Freedom of Expression is an international database on censorship of books and newspapers, and literature on freedom of expression, produced by the Norwegian Forum for Freedom of Expression." Search this international database for censored publications or publications on
censorship.




Censorhsip Exhibition. University of Virginia Libraries ~ http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/censored/intro.html

Summary: "Books, films, music, and works of art have been suppressed, altered, expurgated, bleeped, blackened, cut, burned, or bowdlerized. As you move through the exhibition, we invite you to consider whether or not there are restrictions which you might impose on the First Amendment. Are there situations in which you might support the suppression of materials or ideas?"


THE WHY FILES ~ http://whyfiles.org/181internet_filter/index.html
The Supreme Court says libraries must filter Internet porn or lose bucks. Censorship? Or a common-sense protection for kids? Do the filters work, or do they block innocent junk like The Why Files"

The Free Expression Policy Project ~ http://www.fepproject.org/
Brennan Center for Justice, NYU School of LawSummary: Visitors to the Free Expression Policy Project site can gain valuable insight on copyright, free speech, and media democracy issues. This informative site provides policy reports, commentaries, fact sheets, court and agency briefs, and more!


Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents Reporters Without Borders (RWB) http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542
Summary: "Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they're tremendous tools of freedom of expression. Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest. Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicize it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles." (RWB)

Human Rights Watch World Report 2002: Special Issues and Campaigns: Academic FreedomHuman Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/wr2k2/academicfreedom.html(HRWSummary: "Extremism thrived in countries where assaults on academic freedom fostered a climate of
ignorance and intolerance. In Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban's first actions were to shut down most
higher education and ban women and girls from attending attending school." (HRW) For more on how
academic freedom fared in 2001, visit the site.

Culture Shock: Who Decides ? How and Why?Definitions of Censorship, PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/whodecides/definitions.html

TCC DATABASES WITH SPECIAL COLLECTIONS ON CENSORSHIP

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Opposing Viewpoints ~ SIRS Leading Issues
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