Obscene books in the children’s and young adults’ sections of libraries is an ongoing debate among library patrons, liberal librarians, and conservative taxpaying citizens across America.
Earlier this year, Matanuska-Susitna Borough Manager Mike Brown suspended the existing Library Challenged Materials Policy process until further review, after community meetings on certain books became loud and contentious.
Now, the Assembly will consider creating a library materials review committee, modeled after the one created by the Mat-Su Borough School District. That school district policy is not without controversy, and has drawn a lawsuit from the Northern Justice Project and the ACLU for pulling books off the shelf in order to be reviewed by someone other than the school librarian.
The purpose of the proposed committee is to allow library staff to focus on providing services, while incorporating community into the review process, and provide libraries with a better understanding of the attitudes and opinions held by the community, the draft ordinance says.
The citizens advisory committee would serve in an advisory capacity only and would not act as a policy-making or decision-making body, according to the ordinance under consideration.
The suspension of the library book policy by borough Manager Mike Brown came after a Jan. 18 meeting, in which people requested that two books, “Red Hood” by Elana K. Arnold and “Identical” by Ellen Hopkins, both of which contain sexual material, be pulled from the young adult fiction section. A borough committee ruled at the time that the books should remain. These two books have been controversial across the country.
“Identical” is described by the publisher Simon & Schuster as having two protagonists who are identical twins: “Raeanne is the aggressive twin, the one who is sexually promiscuous—giving sex in return for drugs; she craves sexual attention from anyone, including her father. Kaeleigh is the quiet one, the one most like her mother, and the victim of her father’s sexual advances.”
“Red Hood” is a fantasy novel about sexual abuse and has sexually explicit passages graphically describing rape.
“The meetings have devolved into a shouting match and name-calling that is not producing a positive outcome for our community,” Brown wrote in his suspension of the library review policy. “I acknowledge the value of having a process for patrons to challenge material, but until such time as we can come up with a different approach, there is no value in continuing to put materials through the current process.”
The Mat-Su Borough Assembly meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the Assembly Chambers, 350 East Dahlia Ave., Palmer.
A very long time ago, libraries did things like have restricted sections regarding explicit or controversial materials.
They were there, just not in the primary stacks. Minors had to have parental permission to access them.
Nothing was censored, except by the parents. These things just weren’t out in primary stacks. The only censorship was done, if it was done, by parents of minors.
This used to be common sense. But common sense isn’t common anymore.
Masked: all Alaska public libraries already require parents to monitor their child’s behavior in the public library, including monitoring the books their child checks out.
Not the point. The point is said material should be segregated and available upon request.
Let’s let kids be kids without explicit material
Leo: Let’s let parents make decisions about what books their own child gets to read, not the government.
SA, does SA stand for Satan’s Assistant? Just wondering. Anyway, you are so hell-bent on introducing the children to sex with their parent’s consent. I have said this before to you and will say it again: you want a library like that with that kind of smut material in it? You guys need to open your own library that is funded by you and your twisted friends and purchase your own books. You are in a minority, but yet you want to be treated like a majority. NO. You are a minority and you will stay that way. Get your own library and leave the public libraries alone.
“Northern Justice Project” Keeping Alaska’s children safe from conservatives!
How sad that the borough and the city mayors are bowing to the sick minds that want to twist our children’s thinking. These libraries are funded by EVERY taxpayer. The sick minded people need to open their own libraries, pay for their own books, follow the laws and let anyone and everyone in who wants to go in. When the MAJORITY of taxpayers say that we DO NOT WANT these sick books to be within easy reach of our children, the cities within this borough and the borough need to respect the majority of taxpayers wishes. IF an agreeable-to-all-parties resolution cannot be founded, then let the taxpayers decided if they want to continue paying taxes for these libraries or not. We should not be forced to pay taxes to support a business that is going to destroy our children. If meetings get loud and ugly, it means that the cities and the borough have failed miserably at their jobs of providing the level of service that they are being funded for. This really is a sad situation that something so morally wrong is being forced on all of us.
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