Book challenges are not a new phenomenon, but today's intellectual freedom landscape presents unprecedented challenges for library workers and educators. To explore these complexities, we developed a semester-long First Year Seminar at Wake Forest University titled Who's Afraid of the Big Banned Books? Through this course, we engaged with Gen Z students in dynamic discussions about censorship, intellectual freedom, and the broader societal impact of book bans. Using I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Winston Salem's most famous poet, Maya Angelou, as a case study, our class analyzed historical examples of book challenges and bans, including the social and political context of these book challenges. We compared this analysis of historic book challenges to current examples selected from challenges being tracked by NCLA's Intellectual Freedom Committee to look for trends in censorship efforts in the United States over time and elements that are unique to the intellectual freedom landscape today. While we were familiar with these issues, our Gen Z students' perspectives deepened our understanding in unexpected ways. In this session, we'll share key insights from our experience and discuss how they can inform library messaging, advocacy strategies, mission statements, and outreach efforts for all library types.
