Texas County Would Rather Close their Library Than Return Banned Books to Shelves

If you’ve been following e book banning information, you acknowledge the title Llano County, Texas. They come up often in our Censorship News Roundup, together with for banning In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, barring group members from observing what ought to be public library board conferences, firing the library director, and extra. Llano County library customers additionally misplaced entry to OverDrive, which gives ebooks and audiobooks to libraries, as a result of the board couldn’t choose particular person titles to take away from it. In reality, it has so openly in opposition to in opposition to the position of a library board that seven residents sued them for violating their First Amendment rights.

Earlier this month, decide Robert Pitman dominated in favor of the library patrons, ordering that the dozen just lately banned books — together with Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, They Called Themselves the Ok.Ok.Ok.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen by Jazz Jennings, and My Butt is So Noisy! by Dawn McMillan — be returned to cabinets.

In his resolution, Pitman mentioned that “the First Amendment prohibits the removal of books from libraries based on either viewpoint or content discrimination” and that “evidence shows defendants targeted and removed books, including well-regarded, prize-winning books, based on complaints that the books were inappropriate.”

Now, Llano County’s commissioners are holding a gathering April 13 to determine whether or not to shut the general public library completely slightly than return these 12 books to the cabinets.

As Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, put it:

“Rather than return twelve books to the library’s collection that reflect the lives and experiences of LGTQIA+ and BIPOC persons, the members of the Llano County Commission and its Library Board are prepared to fire the dedicated staff of the Llano County Library System and deny Llano County residents access to all the information and community services that the library staff provides, simply to prevent anyone from reading certain books that these officials don’t ever have to read.”

The board has additionally appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to keep Pitman’s injunction.

Closing the library slightly than returning books is excessive, however it’s not unprecedented. Jamestown, Michigan voted to defund their library in November after a smear marketing campaign accused librarians of being “groomers” for carrying LGBTQ kids’s books. Despite donations from throughout the nation, the library will possible quickly shut with out dependable funding.

I can’t assist however hear echoes of different civil rights battles, too. In 1959, when Prince Edward County, Virginia was ordered to desegregate its public faculties, the city as an alternative shut all of them down. White college students attended personal faculties, which weren’t ruled by the identical guidelines. For Black college students, although, there was no formal choice for their schooling, and for 5 years, they’d to journey or homeschool.

At the identical time, when public swimming pools have been ordered to be desegregated, many cities shut them down completely, together with in Montgomery, Alabama. Wealthy white landowners constructed their personal personal swimming pools, the place they might dictate who was allowed in.

The thought of shutting down a public establishment completely slightly than enable all its residents to use it’s not a brand new tactic. It reveals the insidiousness of those attitudes, although — the willingness to minimize off your nostril to spite your face. The Llano County Library Board, like Fifties Prince Edward County and Montgomery earlier than it, would slightly take away this public good from each resident slightly than enable BIPOC and queer individuals illustration there.

Of course, this solely proves Robert Pitman’s resolution was the right one. The Llano County Library Board shouldn’t be solely prepared to take away everybody’s entry to a sure title primarily based on a single criticism, however it’s additionally contemplating eradicating entry to the whole assortment in addition to the opposite providers the library gives slightly than observe a decide’s orders to enable residents their First Amendment rights.

This battle is way from over, and I hope that the Llano County residents combating for their rights will quickly lastly ready to entry the library — and library board — they deserve.

Read extra about this story at Publishers Weekly.

Find extra information and tales of curiosity from the e book world in Breaking in Books.