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è������ President Nicola Pitchford joined students, faculty, and staff – along with the general public – to attend and participate in the University’s Banned Books Week inaugural read-a-thon on September 21 at the outdoor classroom next to Guzman Hall on campus.

Participants were invited to read (no more than five minutes) an excerpt from a challenged book of their choosing to show their appreciation for the authorship and readership of these works of literature.

According to the Banned Books Week initiative's website, “Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read.”

The campaign first started in 1982. “Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community – librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types – in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular,” the website continues.

“We all have seen in the news or heard on TV the reemergence of censorship of books in libraries and schools across the country,” says Louis Knecht, University Archivist and Reference and Instruction Librarian in Dominican’s Archbishop Alemany Library. “Banned Books Week is a celebration that was generated by the American Library Association to resist censorship attempts of banning books while also celebrating our first amendment right to freedom of access to information and free speech.”

For more information about Dominican’s Banned Books Week event, contact Knecht at (415) 458-3728 or email louis.knecht@dominican.edu.