Local library launches new app in time for Banned Books Week

September 30, 2021

WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News Staff,

JACKSON, Tenn. — Banned Books Week, founded by the American Library Association, is a week to celebrate challenged books — books that some have tried to keep out of your local library.

To celebrate, the Jackson-Madison County Library is encouraging you to check out some of those materials and participate in the conversation of banned books.

“It’s the Public Library’s job to continue to circulate those things, and to make sure that censorship doesn’t happen because reading and hearing other people’s stories unites us as a culture, whereas censorship can divide and create barriers that we don’t want,” said JMC Marketing Manager Kelly O’Moore.

To find these challenged books, there’s a display set up at the front of the library.

“It’s kind of nice to bring some of the materials from the stack to the front of everyone’s consciousness, you know, because they might not find them otherwise,” O’Moore said.

And if you’re thinking about checking out one of these books, or finding another one, you can actually do that right now, whether you’re on the go, at work, or at home. Because everything you would be able to access through the library’s website is now available in one click.

“You know the saying, ‘there’s an app for that.’ Well now there’s an app for the library,” said Zoe Pride, JMC Library’s technology services manager.

The new Jackson-Madison County Library App is one of the first library apps in Tennessee. The app allows you to easily access anything you would be able to find on the website.

“It kind of breaks down those barriers where people are having to search and access the website or the library, versus just a single click and you’re in the app,” Pride said.