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The Ozark-Dale Public Library has been closed for the past week as the staff works furiously to ensure that books in the children and young adult sections comply with new policies passed by the board.
The board passed the revised policy on July 17 in an effort to ensure the library can continue receiving state aid from the Alabama Public Library Service, which formally added new state aid requirements on July 15.
Director Karen Speck told APR that the staff is skimming the books for “sexually explicit content” and other content “inappropriate for minors” by cross-referencing five different websites about each book.
“If something comes up, then we look further into the book,” Speck said.
The new policies at the Ozark-Dale library pull definitions of “sexually explicit” and “inappropriate from minors” from state and federal law. While book challengers have targeted books with “gender ideology” as inappropriate for minors—Ozark Mayor Mark Blankenship notably demanded all LGBTQ books taken out of the youth sections—the Ozark policy takes the state law that only applies to sexual content.
The updated policy also adds language noting the diverse “political persuasions, sexual orientation and gender identity” of its patrons and the library’s commitment to their needs, with new language clarifying that to include recreational, informational and cultural needs.
“So we have to put that in there,” asked board member Monica Carroll. “We have to put sexual orientation and gender identity in there? Or did the Ozark library just decide to do that?”
A public records request from citizen Adam Kamerer revealed that Carroll had responded to Blankenship’s questions about “what can we do with these (LGBTQ) books?” by saying “I’ll bring a match.” After Kamerer revealed the exchange, Carroll made a public apology, stating that she made the comment out of frustration with the situation.
Speck said the children’s, juvenile and young adult sections total more than 8,000 books that must be reviewed. The library is indefinitely closed until staff can complete that work. However, the library remains open only as a cooling center for those who do not have a cool place to be during the summer heat.
While the library remains closed for now, it received a welcome surprise Tuesday when Dale County Commissioner Chris Carroll, husband of Monica Carroll, made a motion to increase the library budget by $5,000—more than a 10 percent increase on the library’s $46,000 request.
Speck told WDHN news that she was shocked by the increase, noting it had been a decade since the library has gotten any raise from the county. The increase will help raise the pay for 12 employees, 10 of which work at the library part-time.
Most commissioners approved the raise, with the exception of commissioner Adam Enfinger. According to WDHN, Enfinger said he was “unsure if the library had taken he correct steps to relocate books” because, if they had, “the library wouldn’t have ben shut down for an unknown amount of time because this would have been done a year ago.”
