Taking a stand against book bans - The University of Chicago Library News - The University of Chicago Library

First, the University of Chicago Library has started work to build the Banned Books Collection, an attempt to bring together all books banned in the United States, whether digital or print. We have already a quarter of the more than 1,500 banned books here in our libraries, and we will grow this collection and keep it up to date. We are building this as a research collection, to increase our understanding of book bans, but also to create a historic record. Importantly, this will also be a collection for access, available to everyone who visits our libraries, whether they come from an Ivy League institution or live a few dozen blocks south of us. We will also make this collection available to users of other libraries, through interlibrary loan....

Second, to support those who live in areas where books are banned, we are partnering with the Digital Public Library of America. For more than a decade, the DPLA has worked to widen access to books for everyone in the U.S., through the internet. Through its Palace app, the DPLA already makes two thirds of books banned available in those locations where they are banned. We will work with DPLA to increase that percentage, with the hope to eventually make all banned books available online—in partnership with authors and publishers...."