Free Expression

Booksellers can get inspired for next year’s celebration of Banned Books Week by checking out a collection of more than 80 photos of bookstore displays from this year’s event.

A plan to read a children’s book about a transgender girl to a Wisconsin elementary school class was cancelled in late November, when school officials were threatened with legal action. However, the attempted censorship appears to have backfired, writes ABFE Director Chris Finan.

Some of the students involved in campus protests over racial discrimination have demonstrated hostility toward the free speech rights of others. Should booksellers side with a minority that is trying to make itself heard or condemn those who violate the very rights that make protest possible? asks ABFE Director Chris Finan.

Media Coalition, whose members are eight media and entertainment trade associations, including ABA, has been defending First Amendment rights since 1973. Its latest challenge to a law threatening those rights was filed this week on behalf of Garden District Book Shop and Octavia Books, among others.

ABA has joined two New Orleans bookstores in filing a legal challenge to a new Louisiana law that requires website owners to post a page where customers must indicate whether they are 18 or older before accessing material that is “harmful to minors” because of its sexual content.

P.J. Boox opens with unique business model; Greenlight celebrates sixth anniversary, best bookstore honor; Tattered Cover’s Joyce Meskis hailed as First Amendment hero; Books Connection holds grand reopening; Brick and Mortar series spotlights indie booksellers

In 1915, Boston booksellers were part of an anti-vice group that reviewed books with sexual content and dictated whether they were to be removed from bookstore shelves. In this first article in a series, ABFE Director Chris Finan looks at how booksellers moved from banning books to today’s celebration of Banned Books Week.

Booksellers have always enthusiastically supported Banned Books Week, and respondents to a recent survey on this year’s event shared several reasons for their strong support, as well as ideas for future celebrations.

McNally Jackson to open new location in 2017; Kepler’s offering GiftLit book subscriptions; Spellbound becomes party central; Scuppernong gets the Banned Books Week blues

The American Booksellers for Free Expression is asking booksellers to evaluate this year’s Banned Books Week by replying to a brief survey.

Media Coalition has created a foundation that offers individuals and other entities the opportunity to make tax-deductible contributions to help further its work protecting the public’s right to access the broadest possible range of information, opinion, and entertainment.

Nationwide, bookstores are putting their own unique spins on Banned Books Week (September 27 to October 3) with creative even

Ink Spell Books collects donations for fire victims; An Unlikely Story featured on TODAY show; Books Inc. video celebrates Banned Books Week; Michael Barnard marks 20 years at helm of Rakestraw Books

There will be an explosion of activity on social media when Banned Books Week launches this Sunday, September 27. To help get the ball rolling, the event’s sponsors have announced several ways in which everyone can use the Internet to promote the freedom to read.

In his latest column, ABFE Director Chris Finan discusses why ABA has filed an amicus brief in the latest ACLU challenge to an NSA surveillance program. Reader privacy is at stake.