Librarians have been battling censors for years, but now the fight takes them beyond banned books. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll talk about the limits to freedom -- in Central America, Egypt, Czechoslovakia, and the United States. Censorship, the good, the bad and the ugly, coming up on To the Best of Our Knowledge.

SEGMENT 1

Candace Morgan, former Chair of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee, tells Jim Fleming about the three most banned books in America and the nature of the challenges against them. Morgan works at the Vancouver Regional Library in Washington state.

SEGMENT 2:

Ivan Klima published all of his work abroad to avoid trouble with the communist censors in his native Czechoslovakia. Klima tells Steve Paulson that his work explores the consequences of censorship. Klima's most recent novel is "Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for Light." Also, Ahdaf Soueif is a feminist Egyptian who writes in English. She tells Judith Strasser what happened when portions of her novel "In the Eye of the Sun" were translated into Arabic.

SEGMENT 3:

Honduran poet Roberto Sosa tells Judith Strasser that whatever he writes about, his work is seen to be political. We also hear one of Sosa's poems read by Jim Fleming. A bilingual edition of Sosa's poetry, "The Common Grief," is available from Curbstone Press. Also, Ursula Owen, editor of the British periodical Index on Censorship, tells Judith Strasser that the United States is the least censored society in the world. Considering the dangers of hate speech, she wonders if American free speech is a little too free.

Distribution dates:

• week of 09/29/96 - hour 3
• week of 06/15/97 - hour 1