Intellectual freedom at home and abroad is, without a doubt, under attack by those who would see books and magazines taken off the shelves of libraries—and those representations of society erased from the public consciousness.

This year, the Calgary Public Library is celebrating Freedom to Read Week through a new video campaign to promote intellectual freedom, and by highlighting books that have been demanded to be banned or banned elsewhere.

That video, Page, was filmed at the Central Library and features a stop motion character that interacts with books from the library to encourage patrons to find their own stories.

“Our production team at the library, I think they saw this opportunity to use a really fun and engaging method of storytelling to open up this dialog on what can happen when we have access to different ideas, different books, of course, and how that can really change the trajectory of your own story, and how that can impact you,” said Leanne Hooper, Service Design Lead for the Calgary Public Library.

She said the reason for choosing to do a video this year was to make the concept of intellectual freedom more accessible, especially for youth.

“Even within the video, you do have a mix of a larger chapter book and then children’s books as well, so, it really makes it accessible for all members of a family or all members of our community,” Hooper said.

Although the video is cute and light, the message it promotes is a serious one.

In 2024, 97 books were challenged in Canada.

At the Calgary Public Library, according to The Canadian Library Challenge Database from the Canadian Centre for Free Expression, eight books were challenged through either vandalism or direct complaints. Seven of those books were about LGBTQ2S+ people.

Previous years saw programming events like Reading with Royalty drag storytime challenged by the public, and ultimately postponed because of safety concerns for patrons and staff.

None of the books were removed or relocated due to the complaints, something that Hooper said is a result of the library’s steadfast commitment to intellectual freedom.

“At the library, we work to provide the widest possible access to information resources. It’s really important within our organization that you can have access to a multitude of information, a multitude of stories, that you can see yourself in a story, that you can also engage in a perspective that is different from yours within the in the items and resources that we offer,” she said.

Hooper said that also extended to the places within the library, and that having a wide range of resources was essential to that mission.

“I think certainly that’s a way of building empathy, of understanding those perspectives that are different than your own, and so it’s really important to us that we that we give people that access,” she said .

“It’s important that in finding something for everybody, you may find things on the shelf that you disagree with. It’s OK to find things that maybe aren’t your cup of tea in a variety of ways. We welcome that dialogue. We welcome the question that you may have about ‘why does the library have this?'”

Freedom to Read Week kicks off on February 23 and runs to March 1.

The Calgary Public Library CEO is set to present one of the books challenged by the public to Calgary City Council on Feb. 25, at the regular meeting of council.

The library will also be joining other libraries across Canada in a digital day of action on Feb. 24 to promote intellectual freedom.

For more details on the Calgary Public Library’s Freedom to Read Week, see www.calgarylibrary.ca/library-news/explore-your-freedom-to-read-with-page.