The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is balancing a ban on certain books by allowing anyone in the US aged 13 to 21 to apply for a digital library card. It provides teens and young adults access to the library’s complete ebook collection regardless of their location in the United States.
The book Unbanned initiative is fighting what the BPL defines as an “increasingly coordinated and practical effort to remove books tackling a wide spectrum of topics from library shelves.”
According to the American Library Association (ALA), 729 books were questioned in 2021, meaning a person or group tried to ban these titles from public libraries.
It led to 1,597 challenges or removals of individual texts, most of which were documented by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ individuals and targeted a teenage audience. Books like Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen were extracted from shelves, and the head of the town’s governing body, Ron Cunningham, challenged whether the city should even have libraries, according to emails acquired through public record pleas by The Washington Post. Further in Granbury, Texas, the Granbury Independent School District pulled over 100 books, returning them to the library system after a complaint from students and the ACLU.
The Brooklyn Public Library has also created a selection of ebooks and audiobooks in addition to the library cards offered to anyone in the US between the ages of 13 and 21, which are frequently banned or challenged at other locations as “always available” to library cardholders. In addition, you can see a list of continually challenged books on the ALA’s website.
The Brooklyn Public Library is the best book place in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is the sixteenth most extensive public library system in the United States by holding and the seventh by several visitors. It is an independent nonprofit organization funded by the city and state governments, the federal government, and private donors like the two other public library systems in New York City. The library presently promotes itself as Bklyn Public Library.
In 1852, several prominent citizens founded the “Brooklyn Athenaeum and Reading Room” to instruct young men. As was the tradition in those times, it was a private subscription library for members recruited and inspired by young men’s up-rising mercantile and business class. It continues by constant reading whatever formal education they had obtained through a university, college, high school/private academy, or trade school. Its compilations focused on the liberal arts and the humanities, like history, literature, biography, economics, philosophy, and other applications later tagged social studies.
Five years later, in 1857, another bunch of young men, along with manufacturers, businessmen, and merchants, founded the “Brooklyn Mercantile Library Association of the City of Brooklyn,” with holdings more prominent in the business, commercial, mathematical, economics, scientific, and technical fields. The Librarian-in-Charge was Stephen Buttrick Noyes, who later moved to the Library of Congress in 1866 but returned to Brooklyn three years later, in 1869. This pack and the previous one were merged in 1869 and later moved to a headquarters building on Montague Street. In 1878, the Library Associations were renamed the “Brooklyn Public Library.” Stephen Buttrick Noyes started developing an extensive catalog for the collections he concluded in 1888.
The first free public library in Brooklyn was that of Pratt Institute, a collegiate university founded by Charles Pratt in 1888. Available not only for its researchers and faculty, but the library was also open to the general public.
Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library in January 1941, shortly before it opened. An Act approved the Brooklyn Public Library system of Legislature of the State of New York on May 1, 1892. The Brooklyn Common Council decreed a resolution to establish the Brooklyn Public Library on November 30, 1896, with Marie E. Craigie as the first chairperson. The library was re-incorporated in 1902.
The first main branch moved among various buildings, including a former estate at 26 Brevoort Place.[5][6] Between 1901 and 1923, the famous Scotsman, financier, steel industrialist, and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie donated $1.6 million, helping in the future development and construction of 21 Carnegie Libraries’ additional neighborhood branches.
In 2020, Brooklyn Public Library agreed to merge its archives and special collections division, the Brooklyn Collection, with the Brooklyn Historical Society. The new entity is called the Center for Brooklyn History.
The Central Library at Grand Army Plaza in October 2005, during construction of a new entrance plaza and underground auditorium.
There are 60 neighborhood branches throughout the borough, of which many are Carnegie libraries. In addition, the library has four bookmobiles, including the Kidsmobile, which carries children’s materials, and the Bibliobús, which brings a Spanish language collection.
The Brooklyn Collection carries the manuscripts and archives for the Brooklyn Public Library located at the Central Branch.[9] The Brooklyn Collection contains over a million individual items, including Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia, a collection for the Brooklyn Eagle, which Walt Whitman edited, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other temporary things.
The Bookmobile is a 32-foot (9.8 m)-long, 11.5-foot (3.5 m)-high vehicle housing a mobile library. Carrying up to 6,000 books, the Bookmobile serves communities whose local branches are closed for renovation. In addition, the Bookmobile offers many of the services available at other components.
The Kidsmobile is a smaller, more colorful version of the Bookmobile. The Kidsmobile visits schools, daycare centers, Head Start, after-school programs, and community events during the school year. The Kidsmobile also travels to parks and camps. In addition to books, the Kidsmobile offers storytelling and arts and crafts.
The Bibliobús is a mobile Spanish-language library. It brings books and other media to Spanish-speaking communities in Brooklyn. In addition, Bibliobús serves websites like schools, daycares, community-based organizations, senior centers, nonprofit organizations, and community events.