Dummy books. ‘Adults only’ sections. Libraries brace for Idaho ‘harmful’ materials law

A July 1 deadline loomed over Idaho library workers.

For months they’ve been frantically preparing for the implementation of a new state law that will allow parents to sue them over the material they let children or teens access. Statewide library groups were inundated with questions, in both virtual office hours and emails, as confusion ensued: Do we need an adults-only section? Are teens allowed to volunteer and work with adult books? Should we require anyone under 18 to be accompanied by an adult?

Libraries across Idaho are continuing to grapple with those questions as they scramble to find ways to protect themselves from liability that would also keep their buildings accessible. The law allows patrons to sue libraries for damages if they don’t move material parents considered “harmful” to children, which could include books that contain sexual conduct, nudity or homosexual content.

Some parts of the law are unclear, library workers have said, and libraries have taken different approaches on how to comply. Some libraries are being more cautious than others, fearing possible litigation they can’t afford.

With few resources and limited budgets, at least one library plans to ban anyone under 18 if they’re unaccompanied by an adult. Another plans to issue different library cards for children and adults. Two will put dummy books in place of the real ones if a material is challenged and moved to a new location.

“It really has been a struggle in the library world,” Lisa Harral, library director for the Blackfoot Public Library, told the Idaho Statesman.

Idaho library worker says advice is inconsistent

Patrons under the new law can submit a request for a public or school library to relocate material they considered harmful to an adult section. If the library doesn’t move the material within 60 days, the requester can then sue the library and claim damages.

Harmful materials include are those that have descriptions or representations of sexual conduct that “appeals to the prurient interest of minors as judged by the average person” and that are “patently offensive to the prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors.” The definition of “harmful” materials can also include homosexuality.

As libraries prepared for the law to take effect, the Idaho Library Association fielded a slew of questions in emails from library workers, while the Idaho Commission for Libraries held several virtual office hour sessions for librarians to bring questions and discuss changes they’d make to comply. The commission has also encouraged libraries to consult with their legal counsel or risk managers, but across the state, it has been interpreted in different ways.

“An attorney over here might say something, but yet an attorney over here says something completely different,” Harral said. “And so I find that another source of frustration.”

According to the law, a person could have standing to sue if, among other factors, the institution “failed to take reasonable steps to restrict access by minors to materials harmful to minors.” But library workers questioned what this means in practice, especially for smaller libraries that can’t easily block off areas. They also raised concerns about the impact on libraries that are part of a consortium, which shares resources, or on digital apps, such as Libby, which lets patrons check out audiobooks or ebooks.

“We will do everything that we can to adhere to the law, but there’s just these areas where I don’t think that our legislators fully understood how libraries work,” said Cresta Craner, the library director for the Portneuf District Library in Chubbuck, near Pocatello. “We as librarians have been reaching out trying to talk to our legislators and explain this. But I think that there were holes in their knowledge about how libraries operate.”

Librarians said they have worked hard to curate collections and provide services that are important to their communities, and hope their libraries remain a positive environment for everyone — as they long have been.

“This is a safe place for children to be,” Kaylene Christensen, the library director for the North Bingham County District Library, told the Statesman.

Gov. Brad Little, who vetoed a similar bill last year but signed this year’s bill into law, will monitor the implementation of the law and its outcomes, spokesperson Madison Hardy said in an email to the Statesman. She said Little signed the bill because he “shares the Legislature’s desire to keep truly inappropriate library materials out of the hands of children.”

Rep. Jaron Crane, R-Nampa, who sponsored the bill, said during the legislative session that the bill would require policies on challenging books in state law that not all libraries had in place, according to previous Statesman reporting. He has said the law wouldn’t ban books or bankrupt libraries; rather, it would simply keep objectionable books out of the hands of children.

Crane told the Statesman on Wednesday that he hasn’t received questions over the implementation of the bill. He said libraries must take “reasonable” steps to restrict access and that the law still provide local control by letting them determine the best ways to comply with the law.

“This isn’t about going after librarians as employees,” Crane said Wednesday. “That’s not what this bill is about, but it puts responsibility on the board of trustees to enact a policy and to take a reasonable step to restrict the material if they have it.”

Rural libraries acting ‘a bit out of fear’ for lawsuits

The Donnelly Library, a 1,000-square-foot space that became a central hub for the community when it opened about six years ago, made the choice to transition to an “adults-only” library — with exceptions. Children and teens will still be allowed in the library if they are with a parent.

“There’s just too many unknowns,” Library Director Sherry Scheline told the Statesman. “This legislation, it makes a library that has no money very frightened. And so we do have to act a bit out of fear.”

The library’s board decided the decision was necessary to protect itself, Scheline said. The library will still hold its summer activities, and parents can sign waivers to allow their child to participate. It will also offer accommodations for families who don’t sign the forms.

“I know that the rural and small libraries are all hoping and praying that the first challenge is with a large library,” Scheline said. “The small rural ones … we’re the ones that are like, ‘What do we do?’”

Other libraries that initially planned to take more drastic measures pulled back after consulting with attorneys. Staffers at the Larsen-Sant Public Library in Preston, on the Utah border, had initially thought to close off their adult section and bar children from accessing it, Library Director Laura Wheatley said. They considered moving a shelf to block off a section of the library and having a dedicated staff member to monitor it.

Instead, the library will have an updated policy for collection development and challenging materials and made some changes to how its DVD and audio collections were ordered. They were previously in alphabetical order, and staff rearranged them to have all of the children’s material together so it’s easier to sort through for kids.

Wheatley said she’s heard a lot of concerns about the bill from patrons.

“Most of them felt like the government was saying, ‘Parents aren’t doing a good enough job that the government needs to take control of that,’” she told the Statesman.

Two other libraries, Burley and Portneuf, plan to insert dummy books into their collections if they decide to relocate a book after a patron’s request. But Burley Library Director Tayce Robinson said in about 24 years, the library has received one challenge to a book.

The Portneuf District Library created an “adults only” area in its back room, a closed stack only staff members can access that is currently empty, Craner said. The dummy book would act as a placeholder, and a patron who wanted to borrow the item would then have to ask staff to retrieve it.

The Blackfoot Public Library plans to issue new library cards to all of its patrons and create a tiered system. Anyone 17 and younger can have a restricted card — meaning they can only access materials in the children’s section. A parent could also choose to get their child an unrestricted card.

“We feel that the extra effort is worth having a parent decide what is best for their child instead of the government deciding what is best,” Harral told the Statesman.

Harral said the board is also updating several policies that this law impacts, but it will further complicate the library’s work. She said the library’s 10-member board has in the past listened to any concerns patrons had with materials and took action accordingly. Accommodations were already being made at a local level for parents who wanted restrictions on their children’s library cards.

If a lawsuit is successful, the law allows patrons to sue for $250 in damages at minimum, plus additional damages or relief. For small libraries, a $250 damage claim is a significant amount, Harral said, enough money to run one or two of Blackfoot’s library programs.

Craner, from the Portneuf library, said she’s confident nothing in the library’s collection would qualify as harmful to children. She said “with confidence” that everything in the library’s collection passes the Miller test, referring to an approach from the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether something is “obscene.”

Craner said she fears legislators who passed the new law accomplished the opposite of what they intended, and stripped parents of some of their autonomy.

“Inadvertently in their quest to keep children safe, what this bill is doing is it’s taking away that parental right,” Craner said. “It’s now saying, ‘You don’t know what’s best for your child to read. Your neighbor does, or the person that lives in the next city over does that wrote in a complaint.’”