Book Banning and Best Response Strategies

A panel with SIBA Booksellers and PEN America's Freedom to Read and Digital Safety teams

During the last year, SIBA bookstores have reported widespread efforts to ban books, including in-person and online harassment over their inventory choices, book displays, and events.

In this session, Sabrina Baeta of PEN America's Freedom to Read team and Jeje Mohammed of PEN's Digital Safety team discuss what’s happening in our territory, and best practices when dealing with these kinds of situations. SIBA Booksellers D.J. Johnson (Baldwin & Co., New Orleans, LA), Mitchell Kaplan (Books and Books, Coral Gables, FL) and Kandi West (WordsWorth Books, Little Rock, AR) talk about their experiences confronting book bans in their communities.

Also available is the slide show presentation Banned in the USA: What You Need to Know

The video and slide show can be accessed at SIBA's Banned Books Resources page: https://sibaweb.com/page/BannedBooks