Divided Library Board Postpones Decision on Challenged Book
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
Perhaps they were just accustomed to keeping it down in the library.
The 29 citizens who attended Monday night’s Anderson County Library board meeting were civil, and used their indoor voices at the first meeting of the board since Anderson County Council approved a resolution to add two-at large seats to the seven-member panel in the near future. (See story on application process here).
On the agenda was a November complaint from Anderson County resident Phillip Morse over the book “Melissa” (original title“George”) by Alex Gino. A local committee of five librarians reviewed the book and determined the book was appropriate as a juvenile fiction selection. In January Morse appealed the decision to the library board.
Anderson County Library Director Annie Sutton said the group made their decision based on the status of the book and positive professional reviews and public recognition since its publication in 2015, including multiple children’s book awards and nominations.
“There are scarce high-quality materials on the subject of transgender youth, and there are few books like this one that fill a need for sensitive accurate portrayals of the experience of transgender children,” said Sutton, who added that less than one percent of the books in the Anderson children’s library cover this topic.
“Most importantly, the child's parent/guardian has ultimate responsibility for monitoring and approving their child's usage of library materials,” said Sutton. “While they may object to certain materials in the collection, they may not restrict access to those materials by other library users.”
Sutton said the three copies of the challenged book in the library have been checked out 42 times.
The six people who participated in the public comments portion were fewer and less theatrical that those at the past two county council meetings, with five using the time to praise the library and warning against banning or moving books to places children who need them might not find them and one expressing a desire to move the book to the library’s late teen section.
After a series of motions and 3-3 votes, the board, which was missing Dist. 2 Board Member Pinkey Rinnix who was out with the flu, could not reach a consensus and moved the decision on the book to the next board meeting May 13.
The novel in question, “Melissa,” is the story of a fourth-grade girl who is struggling to be herself to the rest of the world, which sees her as a boy. The central theme of the book is childhood alienation and finding acceptance. But for critics, the story is part of an agenda to promote transgender issues.
Sutton said including a broad collection of voices is key to the mission of public libraries.
“Having a diverse, accessible collection of materials is the foundation of the Public Library and our jobs as librarians,” Sutton said on Monday. “Doing so is not pushing a leftist agenda. We are tasked to provide materials written by authors, published by reputable publishers, and reviewed by professionals. Reading levels are determined by publishers, or more importantly by parents who decide what is best for their children.”
“Libraries have always requested guidance from parents. When I was a child over 35 years ago, my mom reviewed my book choices, and some items I was not allowed to read,” said Sutton. “She dismissed them either because she did not believe they were appropriate for my reading level or she did not approve of the subject matter. That was her right to do so, as it is now the right of our patrons’ parents.”
Current Anderson County library policies do not allow children under the age of 12 in the library without an accompanying adult. Children are not allowed to check out books without parents present.
Public libraries have become a target for such groups as the Freedom Caucus, led by S.C. Rep. April Cromer, R-Anderson, who has aggressively gone after Anderson School Dist. 1’s school libraries with accusations which proved costly to the district. After another group, Moms for Liberty, requested all documents records including emails that mentioned “critical race theory,” “LGBTQ,” “gender,” “racist,” “diversity,” and/or “hate,” they were told the documents could be provided, but the cost of gathering, copying and providing printouts of the materials would be passed along to the group. The group instead, asked Cromer to request the documents, which required hundreds of hours’ time to gather more than 17,000 pages of documents and left the school eating the costs of the time and printing and delivering the hard copies of the requested files..
Last week, S.C. Rep. Thomas Beach, another Freedom Caucus member, wrote a letter to S.C. Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver, which called for the firing of some school librarians and accusing them of “grooming,” a charge routinely leveled against LGBTQ people and those who support them.