this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
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Where to Find Public Lists of Banned Books in US States? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 10 months ago by Davy_Jones@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/books@lemmy.world
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I'm curious about where I can find public lists of banned books across various states in the US. Are these lists openly accessible to the public, or do they mainly remain internal documents shared between the government and libraries?

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[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This might be useful https://pen.org/banned-books-list-2025/

I remember seeing another site that went into amazing detail about not just what books were banned, but where and for what (stated) reasons. I can't find it right now, but will post again if I do. It was basically a huge spreadsheet!

EDIT Actually, I think this was it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1am1vKU3MR1209AanJVqySFtRYe3IiB1k/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107625701392691841725&rtpof=true&sd=true

Also, some info about it: https://www.everylibraryinstitute.org/book_censorship_database_magnusson

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

https://bannedbooksweek.org/resources/#Banned%20Books%20and%20Plays

[–] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 6 points 10 months ago

I'm in NYC They do a Banned Books Week here.

https://www.nypl.org/spotlight/banned-books

[–] misericordiae@literature.cafe 3 points 10 months ago

The American Library Association posts "most challenged" lists, unfortunately not by state. Here is the top ten for 2024, and if you scroll all the way down, there's also links to the top 100 from each of the past 3 decades (if you want historical data). The ALA has an Office of Intellectual Freedom that absolutely collects all the challenged/banned book data, but I couldn't find it posted anywhere (closest is this, but more recent years are missing... can probably supplement with here).