Celebrating the Freedom to Read: HLA’s 2025 Initiatives

by the HLA Community Engagement Committee

Promoting the freedom to read lies at the heart of every library’s mission. This principle ensures that people of all ages and backgrounds can explore ideas, encounter new perspectives, and find stories that reflect and expand upon their own experiences. 

Each year, Banned Books Week (BBW) elevates and celebrates our freedom to read and invites us to reflect on the harms of censorship. BBW brings together librarians, educators, writers, publishers, and readers to affirm that access to stories/ideas is essential to a healthy and democratic society. 

HLA is proud to contribute to BBW 2025 through two initiatives that uplift local voices and emphasize our commitment to intellectual freedom. 

Video Series Featuring Local Leaders
​HLA invited a range of local voices to share short personal reflections on why they believe intellectual freedom should be cherished and defended. Among those who shared statements are: 

• Sara Ackerman, Author
• Stacey A. Aldrich, State Librarian
• Derek Kobayashi, Vice-Chair of the Hawai‘i Access to Justice Commission
• Carlos Peñaloza, Chancellor at Leeward Community College
• Mark E. Recktenwald, Chief Justice (ret.) of the Supreme Court of Hawai‘i
• Jenny Silbiger, State Law Librarian
• Sabrina Thomas, Library and Learning Commons Director at Hawai‘i Pacific University

These snapshots will be shared publicly through HLA’s social media channels during Banned Books Week 2025, and underscore the power of diverse perspectives in resisting censorship. We invite you to view these stories via this HLA Youtube channel playlist.

Community Reflections on Padlet
HLA has also launched “Why I Read Freely” via Padlet, a digital wall of voices that gathers local insights from community members. Contributors can respond to prompts like:

• Why does the freedom to read matter to you?
• What’s a book that changed your life? How did it do that?
• What would be lost if certain stories disappeared from our shelves? 

Submissions can be made online through the end of October, with full contributor details available at bit.ly/freetoread808.

About Banned Books Week
Banned Books Week was started in 1982 by Judith F. Krug of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, in coalition with publishers, booksellers, and writers’ organizations. The annual event, observed nationally this year from October 5-11, draws attention to ongoing/increasing challenges to books in classrooms and libraries – many of which are related to race, gender, sexuality, history, etc. These attempts to censor undermine the core tenets of a civilized and educated society, and are ultimately attempts to silence voices, restrict perspectives, and narrow our understanding of the multi-faceted world we live in. 

Standing Together for Intellectual Freedom
By encouraging curiosity, dialogue, and access to diverse viewpoints, Hawai‘i’s librarians and information professionals ensure that our libraries remain places where everyone can learn and explore without fear of restriction. 

HLA extends a heartfelt mahalo to all who continue to champion these values, in small or large ways, and to those who contributed to our BBW initiatives this year. Together, we celebrate not only the books themselves, but the essential freedom to seek and share the ideas that define who we are as a collective, diverse community. As a community, we are free to read and we are free to think. Let’s continue to protect that freedom for all, remembering that “Free People Read Freely.”  

With aloha - HLA’s Community Engagement Committee