New rules proposed for children's books in Alabama libraries

Dec. 2—Proposed rules pushed by Gov. Kay Ivey that would place various restrictions on "inappropriate" books for children, including where public libraries shelve them, amount to censorship, according to a local director.

"If you're taking items that are geared for young adults and you move it to the adult section, then it is a form of censorship because you are withholding information to be easily accessible to the target audience," said Lawrence County Public Library Director M. Rex Bain.

The Alabama Public Library Service (APLS) board voted on Nov. 16 to publish and receive public comment on the new rules that Ivey recommended in October.

Other proposed changes to the APLS rules include requiring advance approval to recommend, display, or promote material to children or youths, and approval from a library's governing board via an open, public meeting before giving public funds to the American Library Association.

Proposed new language in the Administrative Code governing state aid for libraries was attached to the clause prohibiting denial of service based on age, race, sex or creed:

"Exercising discretion in the location of sexually explicit material or other material deemed by the public library board to be inappropriate for children or youth does not constitute a denial of service on the basis of age."

APLS has been under pressure for months by some state leaders and groups such as Clean Up Alabama to restrict or remove so-called "pornography" from children's sections of state libraries and disassociate from the American Library Association (ALA) after its president, Emily Drabinski, referred to herself as a "Marxist lesbian" in a since-deleted tweet shortly after her election to the position in April 2022.

"I've seen a lot of misinformation out there saying that the ALA is a Marxist organization and that's just patently untrue," said Bain. "A president doesn't have unlimited authority. You've still got executive councils and things like that, so there are checks and balances on everything."

Prior to Nov. 16, APLS executive director Nancy Pack, under the specter of losing state aid, sent a memo to the board recommending APLS discontinue its institutional membership with ALA.

APLS ultimately decided to remain with ALA until membership fees come up for renewal in March before reassessing its affiliation, according to APLS public relations manager Ryan Godfrey.

State Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said he believes APLS should withdraw from ALA "because there's a real division in the values that we have in Alabama compared to those in other states."

Alyx Kim-Yohn, circulation manager at the Madison branch of the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library and a member of Read Freely Alabama, a grassroots group opposed to censorship, said she attended the APLS meeting and felt cautiously optimistic after the board's vote.

After the proposed changes to the Administrative Code are published on Jan. 31, Kim-Yohn explained, there will be a 90-day public comment period to address any concerns or issues. She said Read Freely Alabama is prepared to comment. At the end of the comment period, the APLS board will vote again to either accept the changes or make amendments. If the board votes to make amendments, the public comment process starts over again.

"I do want to think that at least the board is listening to the people," she said. "There are resources that APLS staff would lose access to that aren't guaranteed to be supplemented by state funding."

Bain was concerned that withdrawing from the ALA could affect the service of libraries statewide.

"They (ALA) offer a lot of resources, a lot of classes, a lot of bulletins and alerts about what's going on legislatively and things like that, so how would that impact the state libraries' abilities to provide good service?"

Sherry Sakovich, director of the Decatur Public Library, said she believes most libraries rely on the ALA for training and access to trade information.

"The ALA is to librarians much like the American Medical Association is for physicians," she said. "It's a trade organization. I know that a lot of public librarians rely on ALA for getting the most up-to-date information or trends about their profession."

Orr said his understanding is that individuals can join the ALA at will and would retain that capability even if the state were to withdraw its membership. Prior to APLS' decision to remain with the ALA through March, Orr called disassociating from the ALA a good first step in preventing outside groups from influencing state decisions.

"I have not gone through every library in the state and examined the children's section of each library, but there ought to be certain standards that we have to make sure that inappropriate literature, books or whatever, are not in the children's section," he said. Orr said he's heard from various constituents on the issue.

In an appearance on "The Dale Jackson Show" in September, Orr expressed concern over "porn" in library children's sections.

"We do not have pornography in the children's section of our library," Sakovich said.

Bain said he wasn't aware of any material in his children's section that meets the definition of porn.

"There's no pornography anywhere in any of our libraries, not even in the adult sections," said Kim-Yohn. "There are no sexually explicit materials in kids' sections, so when the conversation comes down to sequestering these materials, it's really talking about sequestering LGBTQ and BIPOC (Black, indigenous and people of color) materials that a very small subset of the population just doesn't want their kids to have access to."

Like Bain, Kim-Yohn said Read Freely Alabama calls relocating material for youths out of the children's section censorship, as it disturbs one of the basic tenets of public libraries: free and equitable access.

She said calling material "sexually explicit" is a euphemism used to unfairly target materials about gender identity and gender transition.

A representative for Clean Up Alabama could not be reached for comment. — Funding concerns

Sakovich said the library saga, now going on for months, has local directors concerned about funding and is drawing away valuable time that could be better used to serve their communities.

"The bigger frustration, too, is some of it (the proposed changes) is very nebulous. It's not concrete. 'Harmful materials' — well, what's considered harmful? Where's the cutoff?" she said.

"I think everyone's trying to figure out if they're going to have to make changes to how they do things or policies or whatnot in order to maintain state aid."

Sakovich said the Decatur Public Library, which saw 12% growth in the past year with over 184,000 materials checked out, relies on state aid to continue operating.

"I would really hope that Gov. Ivey and our local officials really take the communities that they serve into consideration, because pulling state aid would be pulling a lot of really valuable services from the communities that public libraries serve directly," she said.

"Last year alone, we conducted 135 early literacy programs attended by over 2,800 little ones who read over 30,000 easy-reader books."

Sakovich said Decatur Public Library, like most or all other libraries in the state, has an existing system in place for users to file challenges against objectionable material. She said her library staff have received virtually no challenges in recent years.

Nor has the Lawrence County Public Library.

"As far as I know, for most libraries, there's a process for a reconsideration form if someone has a problem with something in the library," Bain said. "That's the process you go through. I've been here 10 years and in the 10 years I've been here, we've not had a single challenge to any of the items we have in our library."

Kim-Yohn said the Huntsville-Madison library system has received a handful of formal book challenges. She called the proposed changes to the Administrative Code an extra step in the book reconsideration process.

"The Administrative Code describes what libraries need to have in writing to submit to the APLS for state funding, but it doesn't actually say what those policies should look like," she said. "That's left up to the individual library boards to decide.

"Now we have to figure out what 'inappropriate' is in a sweeping sense, rather than any kind of case-to-case basis or outside of the work we already do. The vagueness of it feels like a trap."

Orr said, because the library controversy is an "emerging type of issue," he doesn't foresee an across-the-board, quick solution that makes everyone happy.

"It will definitely take time to work our way through this issue, but it is one that needs to be addressed," he said. "We need to go down that road and do our best to get it right."

— david.gambino@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438. @DD_DavidGambino