Library to display banned books

WESLACO — Library patrons will soon stumble upon books that, while sealed for a purpose, will educate readers across all spectrums on the value of democracy, education and art.

On Sept. 9 South Texas College will present to its students and the community "Sealed for Your Own Protection," a banned books exhibit to be displayed at the Mid-Valley Campus library located on 400 N. Border Ave. in Weslaco.

Since 1982, the American Library Association has celebrated "Banned Books Week" during the last week of September to remind Americans to appreciate and defend their democratic freedom to read.

Phyllis Evans, instructor and chair of the department of visual arts and music, coordinated the exhibit and produced the artwork to highlight books that have been banned, challenged or censored from public culture and education due to social, political, moral or religious reasons.

"(The exhibit) is designed to celebrate these books and their importance and the right that we have to read them and hopefully not take that right for granted," Evans said. "It’s one of the best things about being an American. It’s in our constitution."

Working alongside Evans for the past five months has been her colleague Sofia Vestweber, library art gallery associate, who has organized the project twice. The first was exhibited in September 2008 at the Pecan Campus.

"We’re very thrilled to have this exhibit here at STC… and now it’s going to the Mid-Valley Campus in Weslaco," Vestweber said. "It’s a celebration of intellectual freedom- freedom to read what you please and to have that ability to do as you please."

For the exhibition, Evans enveloped 30 vintage books with encaustic, a mixture of beeswax and resin, and stamped the plastered pages "Sealed for Your Own Protection," a message to potential readers from an unidentified authority that the contents of the book are deemed socially unacceptable to read.

"The way she’s exhibited them, all covered in encaustic wax, it really gives us a sense of how it might have felt to not be able to read that book," Vestweber said.

To further educate viewers about the books and the reason for their ban or censorship, Evans placed a library catalog card on the inside covers detailing the history of each book, some of the texts dating back to the eighteenth century.

Inspired by the 2006 German film "The Lives of Others," Evans deliberately placed a black and white image of a human eye on the frontispiece of each book, visible through a carved hole on the cover, as a symbol of a reader being closely watched by the government while trying to gain access to its forbidden pages.

Set in the East Germany of 1984, "The Lives of Others" narrates the fictional drama of the German Democratic Republic secret police monitoring artists, writers and musicians- free-thinkers that have a tendency to be subversive, Evans said.

"Part of what (the film) is about is the importance of the arts and this idea that it’s never a good thing to restrict people’s access to anything," Evans said. "I think sometimes people don’t think as much as they should about how fortunate we are to have the right to say, read, draw or paint anything that we want."

Many of the books on display are books that gave been challenged by public educational systems, parents, and religious organizations, Evans said.

"I was appalled when I found some of the things that were on these lists," Evans said. "Some of the books would just stun you."

Banned literary works to be exhibited range from classic utopian novels to modern-age tales, including "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss, "The Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine, "1984" by George Orwell, "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin and "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger and "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.

With such books interspersed among library shelves and between stacks, "Sealed for Your Own Protection" will be on display until Oct. 31 so that students and the public can discover the rich and intricate history of literature in the United States, Vestweber said.

"We’re here to serve the students and community and we’re delighted and thrilled to have her exhibit," Vestweber said. "It’s a very thought-provoking, compelling and brilliant exhibit."