This year, Banned Books Week is September 18 – 24. Hosted by the American Librarian Association, this event celebrates the freedom to read and brings attention to current censorship efforts that exist in schools and libraries across the United States.

Why are books banned or challenged?

Book censorship occurs when groups or organizations limit access to materials they deem too unorthodox or inappropriate to be circulated. It is common in public schools and libraries where children are the target audience. According to the ALA, books have been challenged or banned if:

1. 1. 1. the material was considered to be “sexually explicit”
      2. the material contained “offensive language”
      3. the materials was “unsuited to any age group”

The Library Bill of Rights states “librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.” Banned Books Week aims to promote controversial books and ensure students’ right to intellectual freedom!

Reading challenged and banned books with ibiblio

Classics and new publications alike can be targeted by censorship efforts. ibiblio provides access to many challenged and banned literary classics, such as the books listed here provided by Project Gutenberg!

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Ulysses by James Joyce

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

To learn more about censorship and banned books, check out the Banned Books Week 2022 website and view more frequently challenged books on this page from the American Library Association.

John Henry: The Steel Driving Man

Created by UNC students, this website hosted by ibiblio provides an introduction to the legend of John Henry using resources from the Southern Folklife Collection. You can listen to music inspired by the folk hero, read news about John Henry in academic scholarship, and explore extra materials for more learning if you’re interested.

The Legend

John Henry, a hero in Southern folklore, is known to be a formerly-enslaved man born in the mid-19th century who became a laborer for the railroads after the Civil War. As the story goes, John Henry was challenged to race against a steam drill to test his strength as a steel-driver; he heroically defeats the machine, but dies from overexertion shortly after completing the challenge. The legend originated in oral tradition around the 1870s and evolved into numerous versions as it spread across the country. You can read different versions of the legend here!

The Man

The real John Henry is thought to have been born in either North Carolina or Virginia and was a singer, banjo player, and dedicated laborer. During the Reconstruction era, John Henry was hired by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway to hammer holes into rocks and was known as the most powerful man to work the rails, hammering 10 to 20 feet of rails every day (head to this page on the site to learn more about the steel-driving process). He died shortly after racing against a steam drill from either exhaustion or a stroke.

The Music

An inspiration for laborers for many generations, John Henry is a symbol of strength and perseverance who has been embraced by countless groups as a working-class hero. You can listen to popular songs inspired by the folklore here, and make sure to read through the analysis if you want to learn more about the musicians and populations who were moved by John Henry’s story!

More Folklore

If you like the legend of John Henry and are looking for more folk stories, head over to the folklore tag to browse similar items in the ibiblio catalog.

Interested in learning about a different language, or even learning some vocabulary and basic phrases? ibiblio hosts a few websites that are designed to teach languages to English speakers. Here is a collection of online dictionaries and informational sites that will help you learn about different languages and their culture and history!

Learn Tamil

Tamil is a language that is primarily spoken in India and Southern Asia and has over 66 million speakers worldwide (Britannica). It is the oldest language in the Dravidian language family and its earliest form has similarities to ancient Sanskrit.

Learn Tamil is a resource suitable for students of all ages who want to learn Tamil. The guide starts with an introduction to the Thamil Alphabet and works through verbs, cases, numbers, negatives, and other vocabulary. There is also a resource page where you can find links to games, movies, and books that will help you learn Tamil.

Catalan Dictionary

Catalan is a Romance language that is native to Spain and regions near the Pyrenees Mountains (Wikipedia). It uses the Latin alphabet and has about 9.5 million speakers worldwide. Most Catalan speakers are bilingual and speak both Catalan and Spanish.

This is an open-source English-Catalan dictionary with over 20,000 entries and a conjugator tool for conjugating verbs. Users can search for words in English and view results in Catalan, or vice versa.

Koine Greek

Koine Greek, also known as Biblical Greek, was the main form of Greek from about 300 BCE to about 600 CE (Wikipedia). It was often used in writing and it is most widely known for its use in the Christian New Testament and the Septuagint, which is the first Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

The Little Greek website provides pronunciation guides, verb tables, and grammar and vocabulary resource recommendations. There are also examples of Koine Greek being used in biblical translations so users can see what the phrases would look like in English.

More Resources

ibiblio hosts sites that provide information about Gaelic languages, Old English, and Japanese, and more. You also can browse the Languages and Culture tag, which features over 15 unique languages and has materials for learning about cultures from all around the world!