About us
A few words about us
The Banned Books Museum collects and preserves banned, burned, and censored books from around the world. We tell the stories of authors who have experienced censorship and allow the public to touch and read their books for themselves. Our museum is as politically neutral as possible, and we do not condone or condemn the content of the books in our collection or judge the authors themselves. Instead we give our visitors the skills to evaluate for themselves by supporting critical thinking, and encouraging them to interact with books that may offend them.
We opened in December 2020, and currently have more than 350 books in our collection representing over 100 different countries. In the museum you’ll find ancient texts, great pieces of literature, modern classics, and little known books. The only thing they have in common, is that they have a history of censorship. By collecting them together, we understand that literary censorship is a long-term problem and requires careful thought and sustainable solutions.
Our aim is to develop skills.
When visitors first enter the museum, often they only know a little bit about censorship. We aim to guide people through the history of book banning, so that they leave us with a more nuanced understanding of the topic and are ready to engage in conversation from a better, more informed position. This is our targeted social impact, and we deliver our message through our museum, our podcast, our social media channels, tour groups, and in-museum presentations.
We dream of a higher standard of public discourse around censorship.
We believe that getting angry and fostering outrage around individual cases of censorship is not a healthy way to have public conversation. Education is a slow process, but it remains the most effective way to build a resilient society who can talk about difficult cases with respect, prepared to re-consider their own opinions and explain themselves clearly. A good knowledge of the history of censorship enables us to have productive conversations around difficult topics like hate speech, freedom of expression, propaganda, appropriate literature for schools, and other grey-areas.