Waiting for a flight at LAX? Try reading a banned book
Travelers waiting for flights at Los Angeles International Airport can bide their time by having a meal, grabbing a drink, people watching — or, perhaps, reading a banned book.
At least that is the intention of a collaboration between the Los Angeles Public Library and LAX that will provide visitors to the eighth-busiest airport in the world with a free weeklong pass to the library’s digital collection.
Screens throughout the airport will soon invite people to read a banned book by using a QR code to get a temporary library card, which can be issued to anyone, regardless of where they live.
The card will give the reader access to bestsellers as well as books that have been taken off shelves elsewhere in the country, such as Toni Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eye” and the graphic novel “Let’s Talk about It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships and Being a Human.”
“By creating this initiative and other similar to this, we’re fostering an informed and engaged critical-thinking population and standing up for democratic values and individual rights,” said L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez on Tuesday after the council gave final approval to the proposal, which Rodriguez introduced this year.
Encouraging travelers to read a banned book may seem a minor skirmish in the broader culture wars. But proponents of free access to literature see programs like the LAX one — and Banned Books Week, celebrated from Sept. 22 to 28 — as a counterattack on efforts to ban books for reasons including their treatment of sexuality, race, violence or the occult.
LAX is “the perfect location to reach millions with this message,” said Alexia Valencia, a spokesperson for Rodriguez. “L.A. is the place where people can come and have access to those ideas and books. This is what L.A. is all about.”
Mayor Pro Tem Gracey Van Der Mark said she was not calling for a ban on books, but restricting children’s access to them without supervision. Critics disagreed.
More than 75 million travelers passed through LAX in 2023. The banned book program will expand “ways in which art, literature and other forms of free enrichment are available to the traveling public,” said Lauren Alba, a spokesperson for Los Angeles World Airports, which owns and operates LAX.
The screens inviting travelers to read the banned books could be in place “as soon as the next couple of weeks,” Alba said. The library and the airport will pay for the program using existing funds.
“The library’s mission is to champion the freedom of expression and oppose censorship,” said Jené Brown, director of emerging technologies and collections for the library. “We believe in providing access to all content, and the goal of this initiative is to support the freedom to read.”
The Los Angeles Public Library and LAX collaboration borrows from a program the library launched in 2023, Read Freely, that provides a library card and immediate access to books that have been targeted for banning. About 450 Read Freely library cards have been issued nationwide, and 120 e-books have been checked out, according to the library.
The American Library Assn. compiles an annual list of books it considers “the most challenged” after school districts or local governments targeted them for removal or restriction. In 2023, the three most challenged were “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson and “This Book Is Gay” by Juno Dawson. All three are available through the digital L.A. Public Library card.
Book bans have occurred in 33 states, according to PEN America, with Florida having the most. In Orange County, Fla., close to 700 books — by authors as diverse as Marcel Proust and Amy Poehler — have been removed from school libraries.
California is low on the list. In 2022, one book, “This Book Is Gay,” was banned in the state by the William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita.
Banned Books Week, which was first organized in 1982, has become an annual campaign by the American Library Assn., which reports that more than 4,200 books were targeted for censorship in 2023 — a 65% increase over 2022.
Greg Burt, vice president of the Christian-based California Family Council, contended that opponents of book bans mischaracterize the efforts of organizations like his to control access to some books by minors.
“We are not having an honest conversation about this topic,” he said. “It’s just slogans and rhetoric — and pretending there is no book that a minor should not have access to. We should be able to keep some material from minors without being called a book banner.”
The LAX initiative comes at a time when libraries in California are being more closely scrutinized by conservative groups. In Fresno County and Huntington Beach, review committees made up of residents have been established to evaluate the accessibility of some titles to children.
Last month, lawmakers in Sacramento passed Assembly Bill 1825, which would prohibit public libraries from banning books due to their treatment of such subjects as gender or sexual identity. The bill is on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
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