The Fairhope Public Library board of trustees is sticking to its guns, unanimously agreeing not to move 10 books that the Alabama Public Library Service deemed sexually explicit during a vote formalizing FPL’s ineligibility for state aid.
“My feeling is if you give into something like this, it’s a slippery slope to something more,” said Randal Wright, president of the FPL board.
The vote by APLS in January put an exclamation point on a months-long battle between the local library and the state agency. FPL has already lost a little over $20,000 in state funding and stands to lose $40,000 in the coming year.
That has been offset by private donations, which currently total $98,000. The state aid is also a relatively small portion of the library’s overall budget, with the City of Fairhope contributing $1 million.
Board member Andy Parvin remarked that even if the library moved the books, there’s no guarantee the library wouldn’t be right back under the microscope.
“Obviously, the light is on us,” Parvin said. “We are a small part of the city, and we don’t want to be known and for Fairhope to be known as that ‘rebel’ library. The city requires (state) funding and having relationships on the state level. We have to be sensitive to that. But at the same time, if we want to move the books, they will move the goalpost.”
The board members reviewed several books after the APLS updated its code to preclude “sexually explicit” materials in youth sections. Two board members each read a few of the challenged books and in April made recommendations on whether to move those books. The board ultimately moved seven books and kept 10 in place. The board deemed that the books as a whole are not sexually explicit, but a definition from APLS is more granular: even a prohibited word would trigger the book to be classified as sexually explicit.
“My question is where does it stop?” said board member Dan Stankoski. “Who is the final arbiter of this? At some point, you have to say, ‘that’s it.’”
One of the other concerns facing the library was how state eligibility would affect the library’s ability to participate in the county’s courier service, which allows Baldwin County residents to borrow and order books from any library in the county. Indeed, the library has been without courier service for a week after the Baldwin County Commission found them in breach of the existing contract for the courier service.
The county appears to have resolved that issue though, approving a new courier service agreement on Monday that does not include language requiring participating libraries to be eligible for state aid.
The county voted Tuesday morning to establish a new Memorandum of Understanding with county libraries to participate in the couriers service that does not include the requirement to be eligible for state aid.
That requirement had been lifted from a previous arrangement when the Baldwin County Library Collective operated the courier service, as state aid flowed through that entity to all county libraries. With the county now funding the courier service directly, state aid is not used toward the service.
Opponents of Fairhope’s continued shelving of the books in youth section called on the county commission last week to cut the library out of the courier service.
The new MOU includes terms that would make moot the possibility of youth from other Baldwin County libraries ordering books shelved in the Fairhope teens section without parental consent. Books requested outside the home library’s collection must be order by an adult, or a minor with express permission from a parent or guardian. The MOU also requires books be circulated in accordance with the receiving library’s “established rules, procedures and circulation standards.”
Continued inclusion in the courier service could bolster the library’s resolve to keep the books where the library board feels they are properly placed.
