This website is a component of a CUNY Graduate Center Digital Humanities capstone project. It uses datavisualization software to explore book banning trends across the United States. It’s intended to serve as a resource for parents, students, educators, librarians, and even authors who are interested in understanding how often and why book banning attempts have changed over the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years across the United States, with a closer look at Florida and Maine. These audiences will be able to search by the title or author of a book to learn where, why, and by whom (parent, educator, district member) the book was challenged. While many book banning attempts are not successful, the interactive tools will also display whether the book ended up being removed from a school classroom or library. This website also further explores iconic 20th century books that faced removal attempts, along with a timeline of notable Supreme Court and federal rulings related to First Amendment rights. The technical specifications and additional background on this project are discussed in the capstone paper.

This site was created by Amanda Filchock (MA Digital Humanities Student) at the CUNY Graduate Center. The website was created for a capstone project. The author claims no ownership right to the images used on this site.

A glossary of common terms and phrases encountered on this site is available here.