On Tuesday, 10/24, Valerie Moore, Outreach and Engagement Librarian/Associate Professor, and Dawn Sterning, Manager of Library Services presented their experience with this project for the Illinois Library Association's (ILA) annual convention in Springfield, IL. The program listing is here, and the presentation slides are here, as well as below. The presentation was titled, "One Book, One Community: How One Community Shared the Experience of Reading Art Spiegelman’s Graphic Novel, Maus."
The presentation description was, "While planning an exhibition visit from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, my co-planner and I began discussing a One Book, One College program since a hosting requirement was thematically appropriate, free programming. During the course of this planning, a school board in Tennesee banned Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus, due to "inappropriate language" and a drawing of a nude woman.
We were hosting the exhibition with the intent of educating about the Holocaust. As a library, one of our duties is defending the right to read, and fighting censorship. Rather than silencing this story, we selected Maus as the text for this program. We also began networking with a group of local library directors for collaboration and this One Book, One Community program was born. Just on our campus, the text made an impact in drawing classes, psychology, communications, philosophy, and of course English. In the end, we reached at least 375 readers with this program, across multiple disciplines, and the community.