The pressure to limit public access to books is an issue education boards and library trustees encounter regularly.

Some books are ordered off the shelves while others are quietly removed from school reading lists.

To keep up awareness and to focus public attention on the vital issue of intellectual freedom, local libraries are celebrating Freedom to Read Week from Feb. 20 to 26.

鈥淔reedom to read can never be taken for granted,鈥� says Mary Donlan, children鈥檚 librarian at Vancouver Island Regional Library. 鈥淓ven in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are frequently banned at the border, and now on the Internet free speech is under attack.鈥�

During Freedom to Read Week, library visitors will see a display of recently challenged books such as And Tango Makes Three, a picture book by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell; Negima!, a manga series from Japan by Ken Akamatsu; and the movie Borat.

In the past decade, more than 100 books and some magazines have been challenged through objections to language, philosophy and other issues about such novels as Mark Twain鈥檚 Huckleberry Finn, Harper Lee鈥檚 To Kill a Mockingbird, William Golding鈥檚 Lord of the Flies, John Steinbeck鈥檚 Of Mice and Men, Mordecai Richler鈥檚 The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, J.D. Salinger鈥檚 Catcher in the Rye, Alice Munro鈥檚 Lives of Girls and Women, and a long list of others.

Three of J.K. Rowling鈥檚 popular series 鈥� Harry Potter and the Philosopher鈥檚 Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 鈥� have been targets of censorship attempts.

For more information, contact Mari Martin by calling 250-334-3369, extension 4.

鈥� Courtenay Library