&Banned Books Week celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2012. Click

Banned Books Read-Out Breaks Record

The that was the centerpiece of this year's Banned Books Week concluded with a bang, setting a record for the number of readings from banned books. Over 650 people recited from their favorite banned books in bookstores, libraries, and their own homes. Bookstores contributed more than 90 videos of their customers and members of their staffs. They were joined by Whoopi Goldberg and many authors whose books have been challenged, including Judy Blume, Lauren Myracle, Jay Asher, and Chris Crutcher.

Most of the bookstore videos features customers like reading from Alvin Schwart's Scary Stories at Vintage Books in Vancouver, WA, and reading from Lady Chatterly's Lover at Poor Richard's Bookshop in Gastonia, North Carolina. of Eagle Harbor Books on Bainbridge Island in Washington recalled her role in opposing a challenge to Snow Falling on Cedars. of Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston joined her staff in dramatizing the threat of book censorship.

Other bookstores that participated in the read-out included Beach Books (Seaside, OR), The Book House (St. Louis, MO), Boulevard Books (Brooklyn, NY), the Cornell University Bookstore (Ithaca, NY), Hickory Stock Bookshop (Washington, CT), the King's English Bookshop (Salt Lake City, UT), the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Bookstore (Edwardsville, IL), UConn Co-Op (Storrs, CT), the University of Oregon's Duck Stores (Eugene and Portland, OR), and Village Books (Bellingham, WA). All of the bookstore videos can be viewed on .

Children's Art Auction Raises $37,000

This year's Banned Books Week also saw the culmination of the auction of original children's book art that began at BookExpo America in May. The second phase of the auction, which ran on eBay, involved more than 70 pieces of art by the leading artists and illustrators working in children's publishing today. The bidding began slowly but grew stronger each week. The final week of the auction brought the total for the BEA and online auctions to over $37,000. "We are enormously grateful to the artists and bidders who participated," said Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE). Proceeds from the auction will help fund ABFFE's efforts to defend the free speech rights of young readers.

ABFFE Joins Online Privacy Petition Drive

Booksellers have played an important role in determining the privacy of reader records. But there are other serious threats to privacy that can have a chilling effect on our First Amendment rights. Protections for the privacy of our electronic records have not been updated since 1986. As a result, the government can read email, access private photographs and documents, and track mobile phones without obtaining a search warrant from a judge. ABFFE has joined a petition drive in support of legislation updating the (ECPA). To sign ABFFE's petition click .