Ala. governor wants state funding tied to library policies
Gov. Kay Ivey asked the Alabama Public Library Service to make funding for local libraries contingent upon conforming to policy changes Ivey said will protect children in libraries.
“Libraries should be a place for exploring a wide variety of viewpoints and ideas,” Ivey wrote in the letter Wednesday. “At the same time, however, libraries must not be a place to expose children to inappropriate content without the knowledge and consent of their parents.”
The letter comes amid right-wing attacks on the content in libraries in Alabama and around the nation, often on books acknowledging LGBTQ+ people or containing LGBTQ+ themes.
Book challenges are at a 20-year-high, according to the American Library Association.
INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT NOT SPECIFIED
Ivey’s letter did not specify what content she considered inappropriate. In an email Wednesday, Ivey spokesperson Gina Maiola pointed to an earlier letter from Ivey, which included books with LGBTQ+ content. The letter also referenced two young adult books from the Ozark-Dale County Public Library for sexually explicit content, but those books also contain LGBTQ+ content.
The Alabama Public Library Service agreed to catalog potentially inappropriate books after a proposal from John Wahl, head of the Alabama Republican Party and a member of the governing board of the service.
The governor sent a letter to Alabama Public Library Service Director Nancy Pack on Sept. 1 expressing concerns about content. Pack responded in a Sept. 12 letter saying many libraries required or encouraged parents to be present when children checked out books.
“The policies underscore that parents bear the responsibility for their children’s use of library resources and the selection of materials,” Pack wrote. “This approach reflects a common strategy in libraries to balance child safety and access to the resources while encouraging parental involvement and responsibility.”
Ivey wrote Wednesday that Pack’s response did not satisfy her.
“The local library policies you submitted generally fail to support parents hoping to protect their children from inappropriate content,” she wrote.
State funding for local libraries should be based on the existence of policies related to the location and relocation of materials inappropriate for children, as well as advance approval for displaying, recommending or otherwise actively promoting books by staff, the governor wrote.
“Gov, Kay Ivey’s concerns, as outlined in her Oct. 4, 2023, letter, are taken with the utmost seriousness, and the Alabama Public Library Service is actively engaged to address the issues she has raised and recommendations she has made,” wrote Ryan Godfrey, communications and public relations manager for the Alabama Public Library Service, in a statement Thursday. “We want to assure the public that our commitment to support Alabama’s libraries remains unwavering as we work to formulate a plan to address these issues.”
In response to the local controversy, the board governing the Ozark Dale County Library created a staggered library card system, restricting some book checkouts based on the age of the child.
‘WEIRD AND HAZY AND A LITTLE BIG BROTHER-ISH’
Matthew Layne, president of the Alabama Library Association, said in an interview Wednesday that much of what is in Ivey’s letter is in place in a lot of libraries.
Libraries, generally, already have content review policies and avenues to speak with concerned patrons, he said. Libraries and librarians aren’t always perfect with their book selection, he said.
“As a librarian, I really welcome that opportunity to sit down and have a discussion with a patron about why the particular book is on the shelf, and what their issues are with this particular book,” he said.
Layne mentioned two concerns he had about the letter. The term “sexually explicit” was used throughout, but it didn’t receive a clear definition, he said.
“Certainly, there can be some kinds of salacious type stuff that occurs in books, but my concern is that they are equating sexually explicit with anything having to do with a LGBTQ+ family, and so I think we’re going to need a definition of what they consider sexually explicit,” he said.
He was also concerned about the section about actively promoting to children and its scope. Layne’s not sure if that means a librarian would need preapproval to recommend a book about a dragon if a child says they like dragons.
“It just gets kind of weird and hazy and a little Big Brother-ish as far as who is deciding that,” he said.
Librarians are not trying to push specific books but are rather trying to get the right book to the right patron, Layne said.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether you think Bill O’Reilly hung the moon or whether you think John Stewart hung the moon, like, if those are the books you’re looking for, then then those are the books, or something similar, that we’re going to find and get you access to,” he said.
In his one-year term, Layne had hoped to focus on amplifying resources libraries can provide, such as HomeworkAlabama, a tutoring program offered through libraries, he said. Instead, he has spent much of his time responding to book challenges.
Those challenges have the potential to affect librarians serving their communities, Layne said.
“When you’re having to reconsider how your collection is displayed, you’re not necessarily considering, ‘What can I do to teach job training and career skills to teenagers?’” he said.
Read more at AlabamaReflector.com.