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Changes to the Alabama Public Library Service state aid requirements have libraries across the state pondering policy changes to keep the money flowing.
The Huntsville-Madison County Public Library board of directors met on July 16 to discuss the recently approved APLS changes and discussed the challenges they present for libraries.
While some libraries such as Ozark-Dale and Autauga-Prattville have already taken action in an attempt to comply with the new code, HMCPL board members indicated they are taking a more measured approach.
“We’re wrestling with it, we want to figure it out and we want to do it the right way; but at the same time, I don’t want to sacrifice our smaller branches and those populations that rely on the library that can’t run out and buy (a book) from Barnes and Noble or Amazon,” said Kevin Gray, board chair. “If some of these regulations, for us to be compliant, are going to deprive them of access–I think as a board, we’re not here for the state of Alabama. We’re here for the Huntsville-Madison County community.”
Gray noted that the board is watching the ongoing litigation against the Autauga-Prattville Public Library for current policies that patrons allege are unconstitutionally vague and overbroad while engaging in viewpoint discrimination.
“We could go in now and adopt some language not knowing how that’s going to turn out, and the district court rule that as unconstitutionally vague,” Gray said. “… and I don’t know if APLS isn’t looking at a similar situation.”
Board member Melissa Thompson gave the board a rundown of the code changes, pointing out potential unintended consequences of the new language. For example, Thompson said, nonfiction research materials are generally located in the adult section so high school students doing book reports on historical figures would now need parental permission to check out books from the adult section to help them do those assignments.
Gray said some of the system’s more rural libraries also will struggle to create distinct divisions between youth and adult sections in one-room facilities.
Board members also touched on the lack of direction on material “inappropriate for minors,” which the new code requires libraries to address but provides leeway on defining those materials.
In Ozark, the library defined inappropriate minors in a way that only addresses sexually explicit material, while the Prattville policy still appears to consider books with “mature themes including sexual orientation and gender identity” as inappropriate for minors.
Gray said the library board will be bringing new policy in time to qualify for state aid, so long as the policy can be drafted without creating a detriment to the community’s libraries.
The HMCPL system gets about half a million dollars in state aid each year, but is also one of the systems that can most afford to go without state aid thanks to generous donations from its member cities and county commissions. The overall library system budget exceeds $8 million.
The board also handled a reconsideration request on “All Boys Aren’t Blue.” The memoir includes sections with graphic details of the narrator being sexually abused by a cousin and later details consensual sexual experiences in his college years.
Thompson said the passages detailing those college sexual experiences would lead her to agree that the book should be moved to the adult section. Gray said he would vote to keep the book in a 16- to 18-year-old, but voted to move it to the adult section since young adult is more broadly shelved for patrons 13-18.
Vice Chair GW Boon said the book resonated with him as a Black man, although he is not queer like the author and protagonist. He noted that the graphic sexual passage does not come until 200 pages into the book, meaning there’s a lot of context to the author’s story before that point. Still, Boon said he could understand and even agree that the graphic passages are questionable for younger teens.
Boon and three other board members ultimately voted to keep the book where it is, supporting the decision of a review committee. Only three members voted to move the book, so the book will remain on the young adult shelf and cannot be challenged for the next three years.
