Surrounded by stacks of books, students, faculty and community members gathered in the Weber Reading Room at the NDSU Library.

Kent Sandstrom, Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, stands and introduces himself. He holds his book up, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and said, “(It) was banned for obscenity, sexual references and a disrespect for authority,” which garners a laugh from the audience.

Sandstrom, in addition to other community members, were a part of the NDSU Library’s first Banned Book Slam. The Slam is one way NDSU is celebrating Banned Books Week, an annual event hosted by the American Library Association. Libraries and communities across the country bring awareness to reading censorship.

“Banned Book Week can create a discussion, an openness and awareness of others, and empathy and understanding of diverse backgrounds,” Amanda Booher said, coordinator of the Banned Book Slam. “It’s also a great time for people to get excited about reading for pleasure, breaking away from reading academic textbooks.”

The theme for this year’s Banned Book Week was diversity. With this in mind, Booher and associates chose a diverse array of individuals to read their favorite passages from banned books.

Many of the speakers were from NDSU but some were from the community.

“We tried to choose people with diverse backgrounds,” Booher said.

Included in this year’s Book Slam were Tim Alvarez (Vice President of Student Affairs), Chelsea Pace (Assistant Professor of Movement, Theatre NDSU) and Erin Balerud (Library Stacks Supervisor), reading from an array of books: “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The House of the Spirits” and “East of Eden,” respectively.

“No one should restrict a meaningful experience with a work of art,” said Balerud before beginning.

The Banned Book Slam was not the only event taking place during Banned Books Week: the library also hosted “Blind Date with a Banned Book” and featured art installations by the MU Gallery curator, Anthony Faris.

Blind Date with a Banned Book has novels on display covered in paper, with reasons they were banned on the front. Readers are encouraged to take a chance and choose a novel solely based on what’s written on the front.

The art installations also create an interaction between readers and their books. “Author’s Origin” encourages readers to research their author’s home and the place they write about in their book.

“We hope this gets readers to consider the cultural influences of the writers and their perspective as they wrote the book,” Booher explains.

“The Vanishing Influence” features an impressive wall of book titles and authors. When you’ve read a book on the list, you white it out, until the wall is completely blank. This powerful visual representation of banning books allows readers to fully understand the impact of erasing books from society.

Booher hopes the art installations, as well as “Blind Date with a Banned Book” and the Banned Book Slam, bring awareness to not only the library, but also to the powerful impact books have.

“It’s about creating a conversation,” Booher said, “and celebrating the right to read whatever you want.”