Collection Development Policy For Gchrl Member Libraries

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Draft Collection Development Policy

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At the Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library Board (GCHRLB) special-called meeting on June 19, 2025, the board reviewed and voted on a revised Collection Development Policy, which is a foundational document that guides how libraries select, acquire, and manage materials. These policies are essential for ensuring transparency, professionalism, and equitable service to the entire community. The revisions, which were not made public before the meeting but were released to me in an Open Records Request on Friday June 20, 2025, were recommended by the GCHRLB’s newly retained attorney. The guidelines adopted in September 2024 by the Columbia County Board of Commissioners and later affirmed on December 10, 2024 by the GCHRLB, drastically altered how materials, particularly those for children and teens, were categorized and shelved. Yet, the official Collection Development Policy was never updated to include those changes. In fact, many of the new guidelines directly contradicted the policy still on the books. Two library board members began work on modifying Columbia County’s policy after the shelving guidelines were adopted, but that effort was abandoned when it became clear that any changes would need approval from the Regional Board, not just Columbia County.

What Was in the Revised Policy?

I’ve included both the original and revised policies at the top of this post. Please take a look and draw your own conclusions, as I’m not an attorney nor am I a professional librarian.

The attorney’s proposed revisions attempted to clean up some of the more legally questionable and vague language introduced by the new shelving guidelines. While still containing problematic subjective language, the changes offered a framework for re-establishing some of the original professional standards and curbing future abuse of the system. Here's a breakdown of key areas:

References to the ALA Scaled Back

Most mentions of the American Library Association (ALA) were removed, likely to appease political pressure. The ALA has become a frequent target in right-wing circles, primarily due to a tweet from a former president three years ago, even though leadership changes annually and the ALA’s core principles remain consistent. The revised policy removed the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights and Freedom to Read Statement, although it does still reference the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights once in a section about children’s materials. Importantly, it also maintained reliance on professional review sources for material selection, rather than websites like BookLooks (now rebranded as RatedBooks), which were previously used to justify removing over 40 young adult books last fall.

Content Restrictions for Minors

The revised policy introduced new language regarding materials shelved in children’s and teen areas, incorporating Georgia Code 16-12-100, which defines content “harmful to minors.” This is similar to laws in other states and has faced legal scrutiny — as when Virginia courts rejected claims that Gender Queer met that definition. (To be clear, Columbia County Library has always categorized Gender Queer as an adult book.)

The revised policy also stated that materials depicting sexually explicit nudity or legally defined “obscene” content would not be shelved in children’s areas. While this may sound impactful, materials meeting the legal definition of “obscenity” are not part of the public library collection. The policy further prohibited books containing references to sexual acts or full-frontal nudity in areas for patrons under age 12 — a change that could significantly impact access to educational resources like puberty or anatomy books. That said, the policy preserved a critical principle, when it stated, “Responsibility for the patron’s use of library resources rests solely with that patron or a minor’s parent or legal guardian.” Under this policy though, we would still have an issue with hiding the puberty/anatomy/sexuality books away, which is disturbing to many of us, because we view this as important information that actually helps to keep children safe from real-world threats.

Changes to the Reconsideration Process

One of the more reasonable changes was a restructured process for book challenges:

• Only county residents may submit a challenge for books that the library actually owns (this is already the case.)

• Only one title may be challenged at a time.

• Each county board will review no more than five titles per quarter.

Challenges would be submitted to the County Library Manager, who would bring them to the County Library Board. That board could retain, reshelve, or remove the book. Appeals could then be made to the GCHRLB for a final decision. While this new process does attempt to prevent mass abuse of the system, I have concerns about the lack of guaranteed input from professional librarians in decision-making under this version.

Columbia County Rejects the Changes — and Moves to Dissolve Its Own Library Board

Despite these revisions, some of which were clearly aimed at addressing Columbia County’s concerns — the county’s five representatives voted as a bloc to reject the updated policy. This effectively blocked the changes, despite legal counsel’s involvement and the frustration voiced by board members from other counties. It’s important to remember that Columbia County’s own legal counsel warned back in August 2023 that policies targeting LGBTQ-themed books were unlikely to hold up in court (at approximately 25:42 on the linked YouTube video.) Nevertheless, the county has continued to disregard professional and legal advice, opting instead to follow the guidance of politically connected individuals with no legal training.

According to agenda documents posted online, Columbia County is proposing to dissolve the Columbia County Library Board entirely, even though their formal withdrawal from the regional library system doesn’t take effect until January 2026. This proposal will be discussed at the Community and Emergency Services Committee meeting on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, at 8:30 AM. I can’t help but view this as a deliberate move to silence community voices, particularly those who have been speaking out against the shelving guidelines at public meetings. If the County Board is dissolved now, there will be no local public library board to address, and not much accountability, outside of Commission meetings, before Columbia County completes its separation from the regional system. It also leaves just two GCHRLB meetings where any of these decisions could be discussed publicly, which they probably will not discuss Columbia County specifically, and the county has given no indication that they’ll share updates on governance, policies, or future plans in the meantime.

Final Thoughts

The proposed revisions to the Collection Development Policy weren’t perfect, but they offered a path toward clarity, legal compliance, and a more manageable challenge process. Columbia County’s decision to block them, and now to dissolve its own library board early, is part of a broader trend where political control is prioritized over public transparency and professional standards. At the heart of this, one question remains: Who decides what’s available in your public library — trained professionals serving the whole community, or a group advancing a political agenda?

I hope our county government understands - we’re not going anywhere. We will keep showing up and we will continue advocating for libraries that serve everyone!

Karin Parham

CEO, Freedom To Read Coalition of Columbia County

Present: David Davis, Windy Bedingfield, Amanda Hullum, Hillary Millar, Pat Goodwin

Absent: Dr. Sandra Carraway, Austin Rhodes

Approval of Agenda: Removed Katherine Cook and added Megan Chamberlain. Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Approval of Minutes: Approve: Yay 5, No 0

Treasurer’s Report: Will report when receive through open records

Library Manager Report:

• Circulation Data (

• Summer Reading Program in full swing

• Ventriloquist/ Magician next week

Regional Library Director Report:

• Annual circulations for region: 501,225

• 4009 new library card users

• 6-month budget approved - New financials will be issued by the State closer to January.

Friends of the Library Report:

• $1,114 Revenue in May (mostly from book sales)

• $3208 in expenses (summer reading program, tax prep fees)

Speakers:

• Kaitlin Giddens

• Karin Parham

• Priscilla Bence

• Howard Johnson

• Marlena Bergeron

• Megan Chamberlain

• Annie Cook

Board Members Present: Bill Tinley (Chair - Burke), Windy Beddingfield (Treasurer - Columbia), Richard Flakes (Burke), Hillary Millar (Columbia), David Davis (Columbia), Pat Goodwin (Columbia), Kim Kay (Warren). Late: Amanda Hullum (Columbia)

Also in attendance: Amanda Ham (Regional Director), Devin Morris (Amanda’s Assistant), Julie Walker (State Librarian), Glen Kennedy (CC Deputy County Manager), John Luton (CC Community Services Director), Austin Rhodes (member of CC Library Advisory Board)

Call To Order: 10:30AM

Approval of Agenda: Yay 7, No 0

Approval of Minutes: Yay 7, No 0

Treasurer’s Report:

• On track with budget for this year: in the last month of FY 2024.

• FY 2025 starts July 1

• Approve Treasurer’s Report: Yay 7, No 0

Director Report:

• Attended Director Training in May

• Summer Reading Program has kicked off across region

• Zoo Atlanta pass has been discontinued

New Business

• Approval of Budget

  • Proposed budget is 7/1/2025-12/31/2025: split in have due to CC leaving region as of 1/1/2026. Approved: Yay 7, No 0

Millar: What is info retrieved?

Ham: Databases

• Signatory Authority 0 sign for funds being disbursed for region

  • Amanda & Devin. Approve: Yay 7, No 0

Davis: Are these positions bonded?

Ham: No, they are not bonded. We are working with the State and Julie Walker because our Region was set-up a little differently from other regions.

• Approval for Director Salary: Approve: Yay 7, No 0

Public Comments:

• Anna Muza: Read a Tweet from a profile “Maia Poet” on X as representing someone who has “detransitioned.”

• Karin Parham: Criticized the creation and application of the guidelines during recent Reconsiderations and book categorizations of books regarding the human body, basic reproduction and sexuality. Asked for guidelines to be rescinded.

• Marlena Bergeron: Criticized the guidelines and Columbia County’s recent decision to remove itself from GCHRL. Also criticized individuals who have only come to the library to seek out books to challenge in an attempt to tear down the library. Asked for the guidelines to be rescinded.

• Ayman Fadel: Discussed GCHRL board members role in previous times vs now. Discussed the ideals of the public library and its history in the US. Also noted that not all countries have public libraries as a resource. Asked for the guidelines to be rescinded.

• Kaitlin Giddens: (while holding a sleeping toddler). Recounted that some of her favorite YA books from when she was a teen have now been moved to the adult section. Discussed that YA books are for teens, address topics that real teens face and that references to sex do not mean that the book is “porn”.

Board went into Executive Session: Yay 7, No 0

Board came out of Executive Session: Stated they discussed the guidelines but there would be no vote.

Adjourn: Yay 8, No 0

Call To Order 11:45

Invocation by Hillary Millar

Roll Call: Amanda Hullum, Hillary Millar, Windy Bedingfield, Pat Goodwin, Austin Rhodes. Missing: Sandra Carraway

Chairman Remarks:

• Announcement: 5/6/2025 announced that Columbia County would withdraw from Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library system effective 1/1/2026. State requires a 6 month transition period.

  • County Board will transition to a Board of Trustees

  • New Constitution and bylaws

  • 5 County representatives on both boards will continue participation on both boards until 1/1/2026.

• Reminder of Rules of Decorum: Be polite, respectful, address the board directly, refrain from repeating the same statements that have been made in the past

  • New rule: Hand all documents to the chair or library staff at the adjournment of the meeting.

• All libraries will be closed for Memorial Day: May 24-26

• Austin Rhodes makes the 7th member of the CCLAB

Approval of Agenda: Yay 6, No 0

Approval of Minutes: Yay 6, No 0

Treasurer’s Report

• (will attach when receive through Open Records Request)

New Business

• Appoint Amanda Hullum to Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library Board: Yay 6, No 0

7 speakers:

• Brenda Heideman

• Annie Cook

• Katherine Cook

• Karin Parham

• Greta Neuman

• Kay Gross

• Howard Johnson

Austin Rhodes comments:

• Has been professionally excluded from public meetings so believes in protecting First Amendment

• Would like to protect public access without infringing on First Amendment Rights

• Asked about a Zoom or livestream option

• Suggested putting the podium at an angle so that everyone can see the speaker better.

Vote to Adjourn: Yay 6, No 0

Cclb 5 13 25 45e32b5a B04e

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There were nine individuals that spoke at the April 15 Columbia County Library Advisory Board meeting. Two individuals spoke about Graphic novels. For background information, as of January 2025 there were two graphic novel sections at the Columbia County Library (main branch) in Evans, GA; children’s graphic novels located upstairs and all of the other graphic novels (including Manga) located downstairs. If you have a chance to stop by Barnes & Nobles at the Augusta Mall, you’ll see that their graphic novels are shelved similarly. Before this, children’s graphic novels were embedded into the children’s sections and did not have a separate section. Also keep in mind that the graphic novel section downstairs is one of the most, if not the most, circulated sections at the Main Evans branch. Any changes to that section is going to be very noticeable by a large number of patrons. So, I was concerned when I saw that the new County Library Manager was moving some of the graphic novels during the most recent round of Reconsiderations because I knew it was going to open up this huge can of worms. It was also interesting to me listening to the speakers because I had come across this email from Elizabeth Popiak to Keisha Evans through an Open Records Request.

It’s curious that two of the speakers mentioned two of the same books in this email. One speaker mentioned moving the Garfield books upstairs to the children’s graphic novel section. There are some Garfield graphic novels though that are already shelved in the children’s section, such as Garfield. The thing in the fridge. I haven’t viewed any of the Garfield graphic novels downstairs so I can’t tell from first-hand experience. However, I would imagine that there might be some Garfield graphic novels that are geared towards children and some that aren’t. Garfield can be a bit of a dry humor. Is the suggestion now that the library should shelve books solely based on the presence of violence, sexual content and profanity? I read quite a few books that are clearly adult books and don’t have any of the content mentioned in the guidelines. Is there some weird projection going on here? Maybe a psychologist can weigh-in.

Another speaker mentioned the book, Chew: Space Cakes 6. I actually checked that book out when I saw it mentioned in this email. It is rated either M or 17+ (it’s published by Image comics so it has a comic book rating on the back) but it was located in the Graphic Novel section. Basically anything not rated for children’s graphic novels, is placed downstairs in this section. As I said before, this is also how the books are shelved at Barnes & Nobles. Ms. Popiak mentioned in her email the nudity, however the nudity referenced isn’t full nudity and it’s meant to be funny in context and could never be seriously considered obscene. As said before, it is an adult graphic novel. The speaker mentioned the violence and profanity as a reason to segregate the graphic novels, in addition to obscenity. She mentioned that the guidelines can be easily applied to graphic novels, however the guidelines don’t specify graphic novels. Graphic novels are a completely different media and I worry about second and third order consequences of attempting to apply the (already unconstitutional) guidelines to yet another media. Many graphic novels have ratings on the back but some don’t. Are they going to argue about the appropriateness of those comic book ratings too like they have with the publisher's suggested age-ranges with traditional literature? I am not an expert in this arena by any stretch of the imagination. However, neither are those attempting to censor books they don’t like at the library.

I have to also question, where do they think all of this space is going to come from? Just a reminder, the Evans branch is the largest branch and has 3x the circulation of Grovetown and 6x the circulation of Harlem. It’s meant to have a wider breadth of materials because it’s the Main branch. If we are to believe our County Manager’s assessment, the Main branch has one of the largest circulations in the State. According to the last Reconsiderations, the library started a new section for middle ground graphic novels in it. It’s my understanding that the section has the book Drama located in it and there are two copies at the main branch. So, one shelf for two books? Are we at a point where we are creating whole new sections in the library and wasting three-feet of shelf space to house only one title just to appease one person? Now, we have folks that want to upend the graphic novel section to make it how they want it. How many sections do they want? I can guarantee these folks are going to disagree with the ratings on the back of the graphic novels published by comic book publishers too. Is there space to waste to appease a handful of Memaws and Karens that will likely never be satisfied?

What’s the end game of all of this? Most of the people filing Reconsideration Forms are neither parents nor guardians of minor children. They like to talk about “...as a tax paying citizen..” but I hate to break it to them, we’re all paying taxes here. We pay taxes through our sales tax and even renters pay property tax through their rent. Priscilla Bence said on Tuesday that she has challenges from three friends to turn in when Reconsiderations open back up so I’m not even sure if some of these folks have library cards or even live in the County. Is she getting some of these book challenges from an outside group such as Georgians For Responsible Libraries? Certainly if they have their own library cards and are Columbia County residents, they can just submit their own paperwork in their own name. Regardless, most of these folks seem to come to the library for the sole purpose of finding things they don’t like. I wish they would focus their efforts on finding books/programs that they love at the library instead of trying to destroy it for the people and families that love it.

Missing: Amanda Hullum

Call to Order: 11:45am

Invocation - asked to stand for the invocation

Pledge of Allegiance

Chairman Remarks:

• Change to agenda - added an invocation and pledge of allegiance

• Connie Melear will be appointing the newest member to board. She hasn’t appointed someone yet, so missing board seat.

• Evening Meetings:

  • Starting this summer: Wants to start evening meetings at 5PM. 2nd Tuesday of July at 5PM. (Karin’s Note: Columbia County School Board Meeting starts at 5:30PM and school board meetings are not archived.)

• There is a podium now

• Use proper decorum

  • Address the board, not the room

  • 5 minutes and then take a seat

  • Keep speaking points on-target, stay focused

• Amanda Ham - new Regional Director

  • Harlem Branch Manager - worked for County for 25 years

Approve Agenda: Yay 5, No 0

Approve March Minutes: Yay 5, No 0

Treasurer’s Report (Attached)

Libraryboardaccountbalancesreport

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CC Manager Report:

• Summer Program

• AERP Tax Services

• Branches

  • Harlem: 22 programs, over 5000 circulations

  • Grovetown: 24 programs, over 9000 circulations

  • Evans: 47 programs, over 32,000 circulations

• Digital

  • Libby - 12,000 circulations

  • Hoopla - 5,000 circulations

GCHRL Report: Report next month. Amanda’s office is still in Harlem.

Friends of the Library Report:

• Support for the summer reading program

• Increase membership: FOTCCL.com

• David Davis requested that Friends of the Library and the Library both have a suggestion box

Unfinished Business: None

New Business: None

Speakers:

• Maura Jabaley

• Brenda Heidman

• Anna Muza

• Marlena Bergeron

• Priscilla Bence

• Katherine Cook

• Karin Parham

• Lizzie Lee

• Rachel Hill

Chairman comments:

• Next meeting for County meeting is May 13 at 11:45

• Next Regional meeting is scheduled for May 13 at 11:00 but they are moving to June

Adjourn: Yay 5, No 0

A group of us from Freedom To Read Coalition of Columbia County (#F2RCCC) coordinated to provide lunch to the local libraries today. We weren't going to publicize it and it wasn't anything fancy - just Publix. We just wanted to show appreciation to library staff for Library Appreciation Week early because Masters is next week

We were notified early this morning that we aren't allowed to buy lunch for library staff. We also saw evidence through Open Records Requests through the weekend, and it's been confirmed anonymously by library staff, that we are also blacklisted from volunteering at the libraries as well. I know many of us in our little ragtag group of folks that just want to protect our libraries and speak out against these censorship efforts, are feeling disheartened, angry and heart broken at the discriminatory actions by our County leadership and elected officials.

I don't have many answers except, I know I must continue this fight against censorship and continue to do everything in my power to fight against these attacks on our First Amendment Rights. ~ Karin Parham

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated." ~ Maya Angelou

Email traffic between Keisha Evans and staff members in response to her decision to not allow volunteers from “Karin’s group” to volunteer at the library. Edited to add: In this email, staff thought it would be fair to not take any new volunteer applications. However, if you look at the next document you can see that volunteers are still allowed.

Re Adult Volunteers Update

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A document summarizing the topics discussed at the meeting. The 2nd page is very interesting. Volunteers are allowed but it was stated verbally during this meeting that nobody from “Karin’s group” is allowed to volunteer.

Topics Discussed In Meeting

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Not Present: Hillary Millar (Columbia), Pat Goodwin (Columbia), 1 vacant position from Columbia County

Also Present: John Luton, Glen Kennedy

Start 11:02

New Regional Director, Amanda Ham. Approve: Yay 6, No 0

$90,000 Salary for Director (reimbursed by State). Approve: Yay 6, No 0

Amanda Ham for Signatory Authority. Approve: Yay 6, No 0

Executive Session to discuss Legal Matter. Approve: Yay 6, No 0

Motion to Adjourn: Yay 6, No 0

Next meeting is May 13th.

Edited on 3/18/2025: Deleted that the organization “Truth in Education” was formerly “No Left Turn in Education.” “No Left Turn in Education” became “Freedom in Education.” Both organizations have some similarities, however Truth in Education and Georgians for Responsible Libraries are both founded by the same person (Rhonda Thomas).

At the 3/12/2025 Columbia County Library Advisory Board (CCLAB) Meeting the board voted on 6 different appeals. I wrote about these Reconsiderations in December 2024 and again in January 2025. Many weren’t expecting the board to vote on these appeals at this meeting because there was no way the entire board had time to read all the material in the past month. Historically, the board has set up sub-committees to review the material. Hillary Millar abstained from voting because she admitted she hadn’t read or viewed any of the books. Regardless, the CCLAB voted to shelve the books along the same line as the new Columbia County Librarian. Normally, I would hold this up as a good practice, however I know that the new librarian agreed to implement the guidelines as a condition of her promotion. I take her book placement recommendations with a grain of salt because I think she is more than likely directed, or at least pressured, by Columbia County.

Further, the County didn’t even follow their own Reconsideration Policy of creating a Librarian Review Committee. Our new librarian should not have been the only librarian weighing-in on the Reconsiderations. It gets more complicated when you consider the moves regarding Graphic Novels. Our new librarian chose to move an adult graphic novel (Gender Queer) from a graphic novel section. She also chose to move a YA graphic novel (Flamer by Mike Curato) from that same graphic novel section. Even if Flamer was categorized as “adult”, it should have stayed in the same place. There was no reason to move Gender Queer either. The guidelines don’t even address graphic novels. Moving the graphic novels just opened up a whole new can of worms. The CCLAB didn’t vote on those 2 graphic novels though because, since the patron got what she wanted, there was no appeal. According to the policy, there’s no way for anyone else in the public to appeal that decision for the next 2 years either.

Back to the case at hand, why did the CCLAB vote this way? In my opinion, it’s a calculated political move. This way they can say, “See, we support our librarians. It’s not about targeting LGBTQ+ books!” (Although, they did move LGBTQ+ books as those were the only ones challenged.) The CCLAB have been trying to claim they aren’t affiliated with the political activists making anti-LGBTQ+ remarks... that they aren’t trying to target LGBTQ+ materials with the guidelines although those are 91% of the books challenged. It’s a great political argument and some will tell me that today’s vote is proof that CCLAB is somewhat reasonable because they are just voting in-line with the current librarian. Here’s the thing though, these books were still targeted for LGBTQ+ content and they were still moved for that same reason. Just because they voted to not move 2 picture books and one YA novel, they still chose to move 2 books obviously written for Middle Schoolers out of Middle Ground and into the Teen Room because they had trans characters. They use the guidelines as the justification, however in my opinion, the guidelines are illegal and unconstitutional.

Let’s also take into consideration that at this same meeting, the CCLAB voted for David Davis to be the new Chair of the Library Board. Mr. Davis just came onto this board in January. However, he was present at the December 10, 2024 Regional Board meeting when the guidelines were voted on and, as a citizen, was very firmly for the guidelines. You can see him here holding a sign while the Columbia County Republican Chair made his remarks. The sign said something like: Warning! Explicit Content Ahead. At that same meeting, he told one of the speakers who spoke against adoption of the guidelines that she needed “to go to church.” It has also been reported to me anonymously that he has been seen meeting at the library with many of the political activists that frequently challenge LGBTQ+ materials. I was at the library on two different occasions and witnessed this myself. These activists were quite expressive in their joy at his new Chairmanship.

Oh, but friends, it gets better. As you know, many of us have been speaking out about adoption of Georgia SB74 because it will criminalize librarians. Mr. Davis is seen in these pictures going to Atlanta with the same individual(s) who are constantly challenging books for LGBTQ+ content at our local public libraries. It appears that our local activists (including Mr. Davis) are affiliated with Truth in Education and Georgians for Responsible Libraries. Both of these organizations push the same messaging alleging “pornography” in libraries. Although these pictures were posted on Georgians for Responsible Libraries Facebook Page on 2/27/2025, Columbia County activists went to Atlanta to speak at the Senate’s Education and Youth Committee on 2/25/2025, although the chair of the committee did not allow public comment. You can also see that they met with SB74’s sponsor, Senator Max Burns, as well as HD 125 Representative Gary Richardson.

Mr. Davis is seen in this picture with what appears to be a binder that includes the logo for the Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library Board (GCHRLB). Mr. Davis was already seated on both the County and Regional boards when he took this trip. Was he advocating on behalf of the GCHRLB, Georgians For Responsible Libraries or as a private citizen when he attended the Senate Education Committee hearings and spoke with legislators on 2/25/2025? If it was as a member of the GCHRLB, this seems like a conflict of interest. If it was either of the latter, the use of the GCHRLB logo on a binder at this event is a misrepresentation of his role and brings up ethical questions.

Georgians for Responsible Libraries even posted this image on their Facebook page in June 2024 for an event in Bryan County, Georgia. Yeah, nothing so see here folks. There’s no anti-LGBTQ+ agenda at all.

How is this association and behavior appropriate for someone on both the CCLAB and GCHRLB? How is this appropriate for the person who was just voted-in as Chair of the CCLAB? Tell me again, how the CCLAB and the Commissioners who appointed the entire board do not have some sort of agenda? It seems quite clear to me. Yesterday’s vote was purely for political expediency because, in my opinion, they fully intend to enact something much more sinister down the line with not only Mr. Davis’s appointment, but his elevation to Chair so quickly after his appointment.

Additional: Keisha Evans, John Luton, Glen Kennedy

Call to Order: 11:30AM

Approval of Agenda: Yay 6, No 0

Approval of Minutes: Yay 6, No 0

Introduction of New Board Member: Amanda Hullum

Report from Friends of the Library (Will attach later)

Treasurer’s Report (Will attach later)

• $100,000 CD maturing today, 2/28 Matured. Previous $77,000 matured = $660,245.54

• Remain with Edward Jones because they have access to all of the CDs in the US.

• Approve for Windy to contact Edward Jones and get the best rated for the best terms: Yay 6, No 0

Library Manager Report:

• Planning for summer reading events.

• AARP tax service ends 4/15

• Partner collaborations with other orgs (I.e. Atlanta Aquarium, etc)

GCHRL Report:

• Searching for Director - live interviews next Tuesday

Election of Chair/Vice Chair/Treasurer

• Chair - David Davis: Yay 6, No 0

• Vice Chair - Hillary Millar: Yay 6, No 0

• Treasurer - Windy Bedingfield: Yay 6, No 0

Next Meeting Time: Tuesday 4/15 at 11:45, possibly adjusting time if Regional Board goes over. Approve: Yay 6, No 0

Reconsideration Appeals:

• Teo’s Tutu: Ms. Evans Recommends keep in Picture Books

  • Vote to confirm Ms. Evans Placement: Yay 5, No 0, abstain 1 (Hillary Millar, didn’t read)

• And Tango Makes Three: Ms. Evans Recommends keep in Picture Books

  • Vote to confirms Ms. Evans Placement: Yay 5, No 0, abstain 1 (Hillary Millar, didn’t read)

• Ryan & Avery: Ms. Evans Recommends keep in Teen

  • Vote to confirm Ms. Evans Placement: Yay 5, No 0, abstain 1 (Hillary Millar, didn’t read)

• Gracefully Grayson: Ms. Evans recommends, in accordance to guidelines, move from Middle Ground to Teen.

  • Vote to confirm Ms. Evans Placement: Yay 5, No 0, abstain 1 (Hillary Millar, didn’t read)

• The Other Boy: Ms. Evans recommends, in accordance to guidelines, move from Middle Ground to Teen.

  • Vote to confirm Ms. Evans Placement: Yay 5, No 0, abstain 1 (Hillary Millar, didn’t read)

• Drama: Ms. Evans recommends moving from Children’s Graphic Novels to Middle Ground

  • Vote to confirm Ms. Evans Placement: Yay 5, No 0, abstain 1 (Hillary Millar, didn’t read)

Public Speakers:

• Marlena Bergeron

• Katherine Cook

• Annie Cook

• Greta Newman

• Karin Parham

Adjourn: Yay 6, No 0

Present: Angela Stanley (Interim Director), Ben Carter (Interim Director), David Davis (Columbia County), Windy Beddingfield (Columbia County, Treasurer), Bill Tinley (Burke County, Chair), Richard Flakes (Burke County), Kim Kay (Warren County), Nicky Smith (Lincoln County)

Missing: 1 Vacant from Columbia County, Hillary Millar (Columbia County), Pat Goodwin (Columbia County)

Call To Order

Approval of Agenda: Yay 6, No 0

Approval of Minutes: Yay 5, No 1 (David Davis)

Davis: On the 2/26 Minutes it says the hiring committee will include Bill Tinley and that will give Burke County 2 Representatives on the hiring committee when the bylaws say there’s supposed to be equal representation [1 from each county].

Tinley: I’m on the committee as the chair

Angela Stanely: This is addressed in the proposed changes in the bylaws.

Davis: We should approve the bylaws before we vote on the minutes then.

Tinley: No - the minutes are what happened at that meeting. They don’t change because of what we do now.

Davis: Then we should amend the minutes.

Tinley: The minutes state what happened at that meeting.

Treasurer’s Report: (Will attach when I get it from Open Records)

Public Speakers:

• Marlena Bergeron: criticized the guidelines and asked questions of the board about why some voted against and why some voted for.

• Sandra Bowers: criticized guidelines and asked for them to be rescinded. Noted that one member of the board is actively lobbying GA legislature to criminalize librarians for doing their job and stated that they should step down from both boards.

• Roy Bowers: criticized guidelines and asked for them to be rescinded.

• Karen Phelps: criticized guidelines and asked for them to be rescinded.

• Greta Newman: asked guidelines to be rescinded. Highlighted data and the costs involved with attorney/Court costs for litigation.

• Karin Parham: Asked for guidelines to be rescinded. Stated they are unconstitutional and illegal.

Insurance: 4 applications were submitted to Columbia County for information for the insurance but Columbia County hasn’t provided info yet.

Updates to Bylaws/Constitutions (Will update with copies once I receive it from Open Records)

• The main conversation was around the committee representation because it says there is one from each county.

Stanley: Usually the committees are open to the chair also and then 1 representative from each county.

Davis: If the chair is included though that gives 2 from 1 county on the committee.

Ben Carter: Usually the chair is included in all of the committees. There can be a statement added that ads the Chair to the committees.

Davis: Can we make the Chair a non-voting member unless there’s a tie?

Motion: Chairman of the board will be on committees as a non-voting member but can vote to break a tie. Approve: Yay 6, No 0

Davis: Article 12 says we can update every 3-5 years. We should pick 3 or 5 so it’s less ambiguous.

Motion: Bylaws and Constitution will be reviewed every 3 years. Approve: Yay 6, No 0

Bylaws Approve: Yay 6, No 0

Constitution Approve: Yay 6, No 0

Davis: Made an additional request to ask when the last review date was because the document says 2016 and they just voted to review every 3 years.

Tinley: The updated documents will have today’s date on it so it will need to be reviewed 3 years from today.

Interim Director: Darla Chambliss removed name from consideration

Executive Session

• Board did not vote on any items during executive session

Motion to Adjourn: Yay 6, No 0

Call to Order: 11:02AM

Attendees: Missing: Hillary Millar (Columbia County), Pat Goodwin (Columbia County), Barry Paschal (Columbia County)

• Bill Tinley (Chairman - Burke County)

• Windy Beddingfield (Treasurer, Columbia County)

• David Davis (Columbia County)

• Richard Flake (Burke County)

• Kim Coraley (I might be misspelling or have this name wrong, new board member from Warren County)

• Nicky Smith (New board member, Lincoln County)

Approve Angela Stirley and Ben Carter as Interim Directors: Yay 6, No 0

Discussion: David Davis asked how long the interim appointment would be. Mr. Tinley stated it was until they hired a new director. Mr. Tinley stated that the interim directors handle the money and making sure the State/Federal money is coming in. Mr. Davis asked if they were both from Atlanta. Ms. Stirley replied that she lives in Athens and Mr. Carter lives in outside of Atlanta.

Hiring a lawyer on retainer

• Potential litigation - Mr. Tinley stated that he knows that you need to “hire a lawyer to talk to another lawyer.”

Discussion:

One lawyer is charging $200/hour and the other charges $265/hour.

Ms. Stirley: One works for Columbia County, and came recommended by the Chris Driver - Columbia County’s attorney. Columbia County will pay the legal fees in proportion to the number of seats on the board. (Karin’s Note: So, 5/9). Difference between attorneys that works for Columbia County vs an independent attorney. The other attorney (Steven Sanders) represents the Augusta Regional Library system, and came highly recommended by that system’s director.

Mr. Tinley: One lawyer is $200/hour and one is $265/hour. I tend to want the cheaper one.

Mr. Beddingfield: Does anyone on the board know either of the attorneys?

Mr. Davis: Hull Barret is better than Hagler. They’re charging every 6 minutes.

Ms. Stirley: Both attorneys are offering services at a discount. Their typical fees are actually twice that. Steven Sanders included the price for the paralegal.

Mr. Davis: How much does a paralegal usually cost?

Ms. Stirley: I would expect similar they are similar but it’s not included.

Mr. Flake: If we hire [Hull Barret], we might have to hire a 2nd attorney.

Mr. Davis: Is Fulcher Hagler experiences?

Ms. Stirley: He represents the Augusta Regional Board and served on the library board previously.

Motion to accept Steven Sanders from Fulcher Hagler firm. Yay 6, No 0

Securing a policy for Director and Officers Insurance

Ms. Stirley: Back and forth with Chris Driver to determine local [county] coverage would also cover board members on the Regional Board and it wasn’t clear. She research 4 insurance companies for rate quotes - up to $1 million. 1 quote was $1300 annually and suspect similar. She suggested a similar cost share by board seats. Could use grant money for it. She didn’t get firm quotes though and is requesting to proceed on getting more firm quotes for this separate coverage.

Mr. Davis: I need more information.

Mr. Tinley: I give permission to keep looking.

Ms. Stirley: Coverage starts the date the policy is signed. Would prefer to get protected as soon as possible.

Mr. Davis: Can we have it ready by the next board meeting?

Ms. Stirley: We need to respond to this letter by 3/7.

Mr. Beddingfield: If we’re covered as of inception. Is there a look back? Board isn’t sued yet.

Mr. Davis: The threat says 3/7

Mr. Beddingfield: But our next meeting is 3/11?

Ms. Stirley: It’s 4 days. 3/7 is just a request. Litigation might not hit on 3/8.

Vote to have Ms. Stirley to collect more information for the next meeting regarding insurance: Yay 6, No 0

Mr. Tinley: We can ask our lawyer to write that lawyer for an extension. Steven Sanders can come to our meeting on 3/11 but have him respond to the letter.

Hiring of New Director:

• Committee for hiring

  • Windy Beddingfield, Richard Flake, Kim (last name), Nicky Smith, Julie Walker (as advisor)

  • in-person or Zoom interviews

  • share folder of resumes by email with the whole board even if not on committee

Next Meeting

• Columbia County moved to 3/12 because the tax people are using Classrooms B&C

• Decided to keep the meeting on 3/11 at 11am as there were concerns that the next meeting might take much longer and run into the County’s meeting time.

Adjourned

Request For Reconsideration Process 4

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Side Note: The library’s copy of The Other Boy was checked out so I purchased a copy. This may be relevant as the page numbers I reference might be different than the library copy’s page numbers.

The Other Boy by M.G. Hennessey

Karin’s Summary: Shane is a 12 year old 6th grade transgender boy. He loves to play baseball, has a best friend named Josh, and has a crush on a girl named Madeline. Nobody at his school knows he’s transgender, at first. This book is about Shane’s journey to live openly with the support of his friends and family.

Prior Placement: Middle Ground (11-14)

Librarian’s Recommendation: Teen (14-18)

Mrs. Bence’s preference: Adult Books

Mrs. Bence Transcript:

The next one is the Other Boy. The Other Boy has the same theme of a gentle book pushing the trans agenda. Because the plot can see of the hero having crush after crush on other girls. Now the hero is a girl, but now he identifies. But now she identifies as a boy. Underlying drastic hormone blockers and now testosterone because his parents over payed his very low. You don't learn that this character is a girl till chapter four when his father's fiance asks him to be a bridesmaid and he loses it. Chapter five explains that he's always been since age three. She wanted to be a boy and argued that his friend Matt could be a boy without a peanut. When he was using peanut for the word penis, I never heard that. So he did not want to have the peanuts, the penis, so he wanted to be a girl. Both parents are busy vying for acceptance and they spoil him. So no matter what he thinks, he's in charge, he can be the girl. He would gradually become the hero through the book like they always do. They will grow sexually and confuse. I'm reading the last sentence here. This soft propaganda pulls one with its great conversations where you feel the love and acceptance of his friend Josh. But in the background as you read, realize that authority and rules have no place in his life. The author makes fun of the Catholic school and his friend switches over to Hollywood Vine. It may seem innocuous that there are crushes one after the other, but no actual porn. They're not actually having sex in this book. But this is still early sexualizing that 8 year olds who are good readers and will be choosing this book in middle ground have no need to be exploited in this philosophy. So I recommend, even though I found this in middle ground, just casually looking in middle ground. I recommend that it would go up to adult for supervision.

The first time I read through Mrs. Bence’s Reconsideration forms back in September, without having read much of the material myself, I thought that she had read it. After actually reading a couple of the books myself though, with both The Bone Spindle and The Other Boy, she grossly misrepresents so much of the book or various excerpts/scenes, that I wonder if she’s really reading the material, just skimming it, or perhaps she just really does hold such pervasive malevolent views towards the LGBTQ+ community that her experience of these books is just filled with bitterness.

At first, Mrs. Bence mentions that the plot is one where the main character (Shane) has “crush after crush on other girls.” In this book, the main character only has 1 crush. How is 1 crush or a first girlfriend characterized as “crush after crush”? Then, Mrs. Bence mentions that you don’t know that Shane was born a girl until Chapter 4. That’s true but each chapter is fairly short. You find out on page 28 that Shane is a transgender boy, which out of 234 pages is relatively early on. However, I believe the book’s jacket says that the main character is transgender. Most people, including kids, read the back of a book before committing to it. Another thing, Mrs. Bence mentions that Shane “loses it” when asked to be a bridesmaid. There is a lot more going on during this scene of the book that Mrs. Bence conveniently leaves out. Shane is a 12 year old who hasn’t seen his father in months. Shane was looking forward to just hanging out with his Dad but his Dad not only introduces a new girlfriend to him out of the blue, Shane also finds out right away that they are engaged. Then, to make it worse, Dad didn’t tell his fiance that his child is transgender. That’s quite a bit going on but sure, let’s just leave all the rest of it out and go with some hateful narrative because of a preexisting loathing of trans kids and their families.

I think Mrs. Bence is also very confused about Chapter 5. Shane is telling a story of when he was taking a bath with his friend Matt when they were 3 years old. Matt calls his penis a peanut, which was confusing to Shane because it didn’t look like an actual peanut. (I thought that part was funny. lol) Mrs. Bence stated that Matt wanted to be a girl but that’s not true. Matt told Shane that Matt was a boy because he had a “peanut” but Shane insisted that he was also a boy although he didn’t have a “peanut.” Then, Mrs. Bence goes into how she feels the parents are spoiling Shane simply because they are accepting of his trans identity. To be honest, the Dad really isn’t all that accepting in the beginning of the book. It’s part of the reason why there’s friction between Shane and his dad. The Dad grows to become more accepting throughout the book though. She furthers her criticism of the parents that there are “no rules or authority in his life.” I don’t think that’s necessarily true and more speculation on the part of Mrs. Bence than anything. Mrs. Bence also discusses this book being inappropriate for 8 year olds but this book was categorized at the Columbia County Library as Middle Ground, which is where she found it. According to the guidelines, Middle Ground is supposed to be for ages 11-14. She readily admits there’s no sex in the book. Shane doesn’t even kiss his girlfriend on the cheek or hold her hand. He goes over to her house and they sit 3 feet apart on a couch and watch a movie. The main reason Mrs. Bence doesn’t like this book is because it has a transgender character. Really, the rest of the content she points to is superfluous.

Anyway, I’m actually more concerned as to why the new County Librarian is recommending this book be moved up in age to Teen. The School Library Journal recommends this book for 5th-7th grade. According to Amazon, the publisher recommends the book for ages 8-12. Middle Ground is a newly created section at the Columbia County Libraries, so this book would have been evaluated and added to Middle Ground, probably from Juvenile Fiction within the last year. Even according to the guidelines, I believe this should be a Middle Ground book.

Lsrform The Other Boy

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I’ve posted a copy of the “Library Staff Review” form from the new County Librarian above. It states that this book contains Moderate Profanity, Moderate Violence, and mild sexual content/sexuality. Moderate profanity? There is no profanity. The insults thrown around are like, “freak” and “lesbo.” While I agree these terms are unkind, does it reach the level of profanity? The violence is very mild. There is a broad reference to self-harm but not described in detail and never carried out by the main character. There are instances of bullying where Shane is pushed and some kids throw gum in his hair. Most of the bullying is social ostracism though. According to the guidelines, Star Wars is the reference for the appropriate level of violence in Middle Ground. Like the one where Annakin mass murders all the little kids (padawans)? Maybe where they blow up a planet? Oh, I know, the one where Annakin’s legs are cut off next to a lava river and then they catch on fire while he screams how much he hates Obiwan? There’s nothing near that level of violence in this book. Harry Potter definitely has more and I’ve seen more violence in videos posted online of actual fights in our Columbia County School District than what is mentioned in this book.

I would like to really understand how this book is considered even “mild” under sexual content. To begin with, the form conflates sexuality with sexual content, which is going to lend towards a bias against LGBTQ books from the get-go because LGBTQ+ books are going to be flagged with sexuality as a concern whereas books with heterosexual characters won’t. Is someone’s existence considered “sexual content”? If there is “mild” sexuality, what is “moderate” or “extreme” sexuality? Define what it means to be mildly gay.

Also, the guidelines do not address drugs or alcohol, so I’m not sure why that’s even relevant. In September Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume though was also moved to Adult fiction for references to alcohol abuse. However, that’s not referenced in the guidelines, so are we just making stuff up in meetings behind the scenes? It seems that way but admittedly, that would be speculation on my part. Even if the existence of drugs is considered, the only drugs in this book are the testosterone that Shane takes as prescribed by his physician. Are we going to move every book in the library now if a character takes any medication for conditions such as ADHD, Allergy meds, heart meds, cancer meds, etc? Diabetics take shots of insulin so is that now going to be a reason to elevate the age-range of books?

Anyway, Yes - Mrs. Bence doesn’t like this book. She doesn’t like this book because it has a transgender character that learns to live his best life with the support of his friends and family. Oh the horror. However, I’m more concerned that we seem to be using such a heavy-handed approach to the guidelines to justify moving this book to Teen. How will these standards be applied to all of the books in the library or is this just for books with a transgender character?

Drama by Raina Telgemeier

Karin’s Summary: Callie is an 8th Grader that loves theater. She is the set designer for her school’s production of Moon Over Mississippi. The production of the play is a backdrop for the real drama playing out in real life between the different friendships and relationships that one might expect in Middle School.

Prior Placement: Children’s Graphic Novels

Librarian’s Recommendation: Move out of Children’s Graphic Novels and into Middle Ground

Mrs. Bence’s Preference: Adult Books

Mrs Bence (transcript):

This is Drama. It's a resubmission from two and a half years ago. The theme of this book is eighth graders. One steady and changing partners constantly. They're planning for graduation from eighth grade and eighth grade prom. And in childhood psychology, I remember way back in the 70s, we learned that middle school is the time to develop same sex friendships. Even though there are crushes. And some pairing up is secondary to the stepping block toward healthy heterosexual friendships later by having your same sex friends. So this is completely skimmed up or bypassed. And this developmental stage is completely ignored in this book. Instead of being preoccupied with sports, friendships, family, hobbies, this book is saturated with who's going with whom. And this is a graphic book. There's a cell phone conversation late at night in the bedroom as the parent does not even take the phone. No parental supervision. The kids are running their own life. Comedy or comics like these are a good way to break down the social mores. When we laugh at some of these situations they're in. Pairing up the two men, the two boys and the two girls. Callie is constantly surprised by the next gay discovery. But she keeps discovering more and more of her friends are gay. Page 10, graphic mouth kissing not age appropriate. Page 19, normalizing deep romance. Not appropriate. Page 58. It is not surprising we've seen the boom in homosexuality. When a child feels particularly close to their own gender, they begin to think they're homosexual. From books Just like this. So I think this one I recommended going up from juvenile to middle ground or adult. I said adult for supervision. So it would go from. It's in ju. It's in juvie now juvenile. In fact, I think there's a couple copies in juvenile. It should go up to adult for supervision. Very convincing that most of your friends are homosexual. And the E probably are homosexual. It's a very big bestseller. Drama is the big bestseller.

Mrs. Bence asserts that according to child psychology classes in the 1970s, middle school was noted as a time to develop same-sex relationships. I’m not sure what they were teaching in the 1970s but according to this article I found on Pub Med written in 2008, early adolescence is actually the time when opposite-sex relationships become increasingly more important. In other words, it’s normal for 8th graders to start having relationships with their opposite-sex peers. Kids will have crushes and will begin having boyfriends/girlfriends. It is also not very unusual in our public middle schools for kids to not only know that they are gay in 8th grade, but to be open about it. Kids, even LGBTQ+ kids, still have same-sex friends as well. Social relationships, including best friends and budding romantic relationships, are very important to middle school students. Even if a kid doesn’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend, these kids are all buzzing with who is “dating” who. It was the same way when I was in Middle School in the late 80’s.

The next issue is the kissing…. Page 10 has a kiss, however it’s not drawn as an open mouth kiss and it’s just 1 frame. Although I’m not a fan of the guidelines, according to the Middle Ground criteria, a brief kiss on the lips is allowed in Middle Ground. This kiss meets that criteria. Mrs. Bence claims that page 19 is normalizing deep romance and also has an issue that the kids were on the phone late at night. In the book, Greg got back together with his girlfriend, and his comments were “Well…. Last night, when I got home, my phone rang, and it was Bonnie. She was crying. It was hard to understand what she was saying, but I couldn’t just hang up. She and I talked until her phone died around midnight. I’m supposed to see her later, after school.” I remember sneaking late night phone calls with my friends in Middle School and we didn’t even have cell phones back in the day. Oh, we had some relationship drama back then too… who remembers 3-ways calls and who skated with who during couples skate at the roller rink? LOL My point is, this is nothing new.

I’m glad that Mrs. Bence also brings up the popularity of this book though. It is rated a 5/5 on the popularity scale. Between the three library branches (Evans, Grovetown, Harlem), the County owns 7 copies of this book. I’ve never actually seen it on the shelf at the main Evans branch and I’ve looked several times. You would think if the parents of Columbia County had such big concerns about this book, that there would be an uproar about it that it’s still on the shelves… that parents would forbid their children from reading it, and it would never get checked out. That’s just not the case though. Why is that? Because many parents of kids in Columbia County are fine with their kids reading this book and are also OK with its original placement in Children’s Graphic Novels. I think many would also be OK with it in Middle Ground too but if it’s the only graphic novel in Middle Ground, it will make it obvious that this book was targeted.

Mrs. Bence also voices her fear that kids will read this book and become gay. Nobody reads a book and becomes gay though. I’ve read books with serial killers and assassins, yet I didn’t become either one. This book does serve as a mirror though for many of our Middle School students who are figuring out peer relationships. They are learning how to be friends and accept each other, even if their friend is gay. How to work together in groups even when they don’t get along. It’s a great book and very relevant for today’s kids!

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

Current Placement: Picture Books

Librarian Recommendation: Picture Books

Mrs. Bence’s Preferred Placement: Middle Ground

Publisher’s Suggested Age Range: Ages 4-8

Karin’s Summary: This is a cute little picture book about two male penguins that live in the Central Park Zoo. With the help of a zoo keeper, they hatch an egg together, and raise the baby penguin named Tango.

Mrs: Bence (transcript):

And the next one is Tango Makes Three. The theme of this book is that there's families of all kinds. That's true. If you're a very young child trying to figure out what a family is and the difference between boys and girls and men and women could be confusing. It's a beautiful art book. It's in picture books. On the second page, the artwork depicts all kinds of families except a traditional family. There's not a traditional family. The story is beautiful in art and message, but the message is apparition in nature. Pairing up two males to have their own family to adopt this little egg and hatch it and have a child. And I don't know what the actual rate is. They have 42. This is actually based on a biologist who wrote this book from this zoo. And there's 42 penguin couples in that zoo. And one of them is, you know, the two males are raising this little baby. And this is written for children again, 2, 3 and 4. Right at the age when children are grasping the knowledge of what a family is in the role of parents, siblings, male and female, we're introducing children to a whole new dynamic which, together with other avenues of propaganda in the media, lead to a trend in gender confusion that we see now. This book is not good propaganda. It's great propaganda. In other words, it gradually introduces the audience to the concept of same sex parents cloaked in many scientific facts. The outlier being the percentage of this occurrence. This book is a must read for every song, same sex family and couple. It really is. The author makes this occurrence special and rare by his wording, but becomes sympathetic to their plight. It is not helpful to young minds below about age 10 when children have hopefully learned what Most families consist of young children do not need this confusion early in life. So this long story short, it could be, I guess in the juvenile because it's got legends when I read it way back in November, it would be okay, like for a 10 year old that understands, you know, gender roles and stuff like that. Mr. Grazie, who is a scientist at the zoo, is a human hero. A single parent who loves two children and two other men. If you look at the artwork in his office, his whole life is men. Similarly, there are no traditional couples in the book, no traditional moms or dads. Therefore, due to its lopsidedness and early introduction of average sex throughout this book would best serve in middle ground who hopefully understand concept of the outliers. You know, it's an outlier story. We're glorifying the difference when little children need to know what's normal. Just like we don't tell them about cops that kill people innocently. You know, we tell them that cops are going to help them. You know, just teaching kids the basics.

From the beginning, Mrs. Bence states “On the second page, the artwork depicts all kinds of families except a traditional family. There's not a traditional family.” This is not a true statement. The artwork on the 2nd page shows 4 human groups: a woman with a stroller, a woman and a man walking with a child, 2 women walking with a stroller and an older child walking, and in the distance 2 adults walking with a child although it's unclear the genders of the family members. The 2nd page includes the caption, “Best of all, it has its very own zoo. Every day families of all kinds go to visit the animals that live there.” On the 3rd page, the story also mentions the various “traditional” or “heterosexual” families among the different animals by stating, “There are red panda bear families, with mothers and fathers and furry red panda bear cubs. There are monkey dads and monkey moms raising noisy monkey babies.” I would post the images of the book, however I’m sure that would break some sort of copyright law.

Mrs. Bence’s other issue with this book is that she calls it an “aberration of nature.” She has a problem with the story being told to this age group because it’s an “outlier” and she believes younger children should only be exposed to what she considers to be “normal” families because she thinks they will be confused. However, she contradicts herself with her previous statement that the book doesn’t show traditional families when she mentions the other 40+ penguins at the zoo that are in “traditional” penguin relationships. Nonetheless, homosexuality may not be as much of an anomaly in the animal kingdom as Mrs. Bence thinks though. There is an entire Wikipedia page on Homosexual Behavior in Animals.

I want to push back though as well on this notion that children can’t understand homosexual families. It’s really an easy concept. When my oldest was three and I explained my best friends’ marriage to her, I simply said, “Mommy and Daddy fell in love and we got married. Auntie A and Auntie L fell in love and they got married too. Sometimes boys and girls get married but sometimes boys marry boys, and sometimes girls marry girls. The most important thing is that you marry someone you love and you are kind to each other.” This isn’t difficult to explain. My children have never batted an eye when coming across families with 2 Moms or 2 Dads.

Mrs. Bence suggests the book be moved to Middle Ground because she thinks children over the age of 10 will be more likely to see this as an “outlier story.” However, it is a true story and many families want to read that true story to their children for their own reasons, whatever that may be. Frankly, it’s none of Mrs. Bence’s business what someone else’s family reads anyway. Once again, no child under the age of 12 is allowed in the library without an adult. If someone doesn’t want their child to read this story, nobody is forcing them to. If they start reading it and realize half-way through that this book doesn’t reflect their family’s values, then they have the option to simply close the book, tell their child “…let’s find something else” and go find another book. Also, this is a picture book. Middle Ground is intended for ages 11-14. This is the age where many kids stop coming to the library as frequently. I don’t think stocking the Middle Ground shelves with “baby books” is going to make that age group excited to come hang out at the library.

As I said before though, all of this is really just Mrs. Bence’s opinion or viewpoint, which she has every right to express. However, this is not a private library. This is a public library. In order to move this book to another section in the library even according to the guidelines, the board and/or the Columbia County Library Manager would have to interpret the relationship between the two male penguins as “content of a sexual nature.” However, if they categorize the mere presence of gay penguins as “content of a sexual nature”, books containing straight penguins that raise an egg will also need to be categorized as “content of a sexual nature” and also moved. If this is categorized as sexual, what else would need to be categorized as sexual? There is really no way to move this book to the Middle Ground section without showing a bias based on one’s political or religious worldview, which in my opinion, is a violation of the First Amendment.

Téo’s Tutu by Maryann Jacob Macias and illustrated by Alex Mailey

Current placement: Picture Books

Librarian Recommendation: Remain in Picture Books

Mrs. Bence’s preferred placement: Adult

Publisher’s age range recommendation: Ages 3-5 years old

My summary: This is a cute book with beautiful illustrations about a young boy who loves to dance. He usually dances to Colombian music with his family. However, his family watched a performance of Swan Lake and he decided he wanted to learn ballet. He begins ballet lessons and also prefers to wear a tutu.

Mrs. Bence (transcript):

You can be any gender you want to be….. Subtle message couched in sophisticated ballet terms and frequent French words, which add to that feeling that the one talking to us is more educated than we are. Alienating the average reader. Me, severely alienating the average six year old. We're supposed to be so impressed by the vocabulary, the artwork, the inclusivity of a boy who wants to be a girl in the ballet program that we forget what children are learning at that age. 2, 3, and 4 year olds are learning what gender they are. That's one of the things they learn. Sex education of a child at that age is to learn what boys and girls do and men and women. Most children enjoy crossing over to the other side. As far as gender roles. There's no place for a book that then glorifes that person, staying in that role. And that's what this book does. Evidently, I would be a man now, for example, because I was a tomboy. My sex education was alive and well. At age 6, I watched my mother breastfeed the other seven kids. So did some of the neighbor kids. But to start sex education in 2 and 3 and 4 and telling kids they need to decide what gender they are, that's a little much, no? They put a girl's costume on this little boy and made him feel like he wanted to be a girl. They finally let him be a girl. They, the parents, and the whole community finally accepted you as a girl. This book makes a point to make us feel like dummies because we don't feel like smiling, like the teacher does, like the class does, like the bumpy decorations do. It's total acceptance through the Artwork and script for Téo to act like a girl, dress like a girl and become a hero. And the performance as a star performer, the ballet. That's it. I just think it ought to be under adult Supervision for Children 2 and 3 and 4 to be reading it.

The foreign words in the book include the Colombian words referencing Colombian music and dancing - cumbia and bhangra. On one page, it says “Amma knelt down. ‘These are the ways we must be brave sometimes.’ Papí put his arms around Téo. ‘Tú eres valiente.’” The Spanish phrase here is “You are brave.” The French terms included in the book reference the following ballet terms: grand jeté, relevé, arabesque, and fouettés. I’m not sure why Mrs. Bence seems to have such an aversion to foreign languages. It is completely normal in the United States for a bilingual family to speak both English and their native tongue, in this case Spanish. It’s also perfectly acceptable for a ballet student or for anyone to learn the french terms for the various ballet moves. That’s not elitist - it’s just information. It’s quite a ridiculous claim that a book is trying to alienate readers by simply including terms that are relevant to the story. If Mrs. Bence feels alienated with the inclusion of these terms, that sounds like her personal issue that she’s projecting onto this book and is hardly relevant to the question of if the book belongs in the children’s section of the Columbia County Public Library.

The rest of Mrs. Bence’s comments center on the assumption that Téo is transgender just because he prefers to dance in a tutu. He doesn’t say anywhere in the book that he’s a girl. Nobody calls him a girl. It’s simply a boy who prefers to wear a tutu. Mrs. Bence states that she was a tomboy as a child and she claims she would be labeled as trans now. That is not what this book is saying and probably reflects more of her personal fears and/or projections. In fact, she hurts her own argument by stating her own inclinations when she was a child. She is claiming that Téo is transgender because he wants to wear a tutu, while at the same time stating that she was not transgender for enjoying more stereotypical masculine activities and perhaps clothing, when she was a child. If she wasn’t transgender as a child for being a so-called “tomboy”, Téo is also not transgender just for wanting to wear a tutu. However, even if Téo is transgender, would the book need to move based on the guidelines? Is the mere presence of a transgender character considered “content of a sexual nature”?

Although Ms. Evans recommended the book remain in Picture Books, she stated under the portion of the form for concerns containing “Sexual Content/Sexuality” that this books “explores themes of gender expression.” Gender expression is a fairly wide category that could mean anything from what toys a preschooler plays with to which clothes or hairstyle they prefer. I’m not sure I would file that under sexuality or sexual content, but she’s the Library Manager so it’s her prerogative. The Reconsideration Process before 12/10/2024 was that there would be a committee of 3 librarians weighing-in however I only see 1 form from the new manager. I’m not sure if that’s indicative of a change to the Reconsideration Process or not.

If the Advisory Board and Ms. Evans decide to do as Mrs. Bence wishes and move this book to Adult, this will be a standard under the guidelines. Essentially, a precedent that a boy wearing a tutu or “themes of gender expression” is “content of a sexual nature.” That standard would then need to be applied to all Easy/Children books objectively without targeting books containing transgender characters. I honestly am not sure how that’s feasible or realistic.

February has… Teo’s Tutu is the first one. Okay. This is a children's book that I'm recommending. Go into the adult section for adult supervision. At first glance, it's a very innocuous, good feeling book. You can be any gender you want to be as the first set. Subtle message couched in sophisticated ballet terms and frequent French words, which add to that feeling that the one talking to us is more educated than we are. Alienating the average reader. Me, severely alienating the average six year old. We're supposed to be so impressed by the vocabulary, the artwork, the inclusivity of a boy who wants to be a girl in the ballet program that we forget what children are learning at that age. 2, 3, and 4 year olds are learning what gender they are. That's one of the things they learn. Sex education of a child at that age is to learn what boys and girls do and men and women. Most children enjoy crossing over to the other side. As far as gender roles. There's no place for a book that then glorifes that person, staying in that role. And that's what this book does. Evidently, I would be a man now, for example, because I was a tomboy. My sex education was alive and well. At age 6, I watched my mother breastfeed the other seven kids. So did some of the neighbor kids. But to start sex education in 2 and 3 and 4 and telling kids they need to decide what gender they are, that's a little much, no? They put a girl's costume on this little boy and made him feel like he wanted to be a girl. They finally let him be a girl. They, the parents, and the whole community finally accepted you as a girl. This book makes a point to make us feel like dummies because we don't feel like smiling, like the teacher does, like the class does, like the bumpy decorations do. It's total acceptance through the Artwork and script for Teo to act like a girl, dress like a girl and become a hero. And the performance as a star performer, the ballet. That's it. I just think it ought to be under adult Supervision for Children 2 and 3 and 4 to be reading it.

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And the next one is Tango Makes Three. The theme of this book is that there's families of all kinds. That's true. If you're a very young child trying to fgure out what a family is and the different between boys and girls and men and women could be confusing. It's a beautiful art book. It's in picture books. On the second page, the artwork depicts all kinds of families except a traditional family. There's not a traditional family. The story is beautiful in art and message, but the message is aberration in nature. Pairing up two males to have their own family to adopt this little egg and hatch it and have a child. And I don't know what the actual rate is. They have 42. This is actually based on a biologist who wrote this book from this zoo. And there's 42 penguin couples in that zoo. And one of them is, you know, the two males are raising this little baby. And this is written for children again, 2, 3 and 4. Right at the age when children are grasping the knowledge of what a family is in the role of parents, siblings, male and female, we're introducing children to a whole new dynamic which, together with other avenues of propaganda in the media, lead to a trend in gender confusion that we see now. This book is not good propaganda. It's great propaganda. In other words, it gradually introduces the audience to the concept of same sex parents cloaked in many scientifc facts. The outlier being the percentage of this occurrence. This book is a must read for every song, same sex family and couple. It really is. The author makes this occurrence special and rare by his wording, but becomes sympathetic to their plight. It is not helpful to young minds below about age 10 when children have hopefully learned what Most families consist of young children do not need this confusion early in life. So this long story short, it could be, I guess in the juvenile because it's got legends when I read it way back in November, it would be okay, like for a 10 year old that understands, you know, gender roles and stuff like that. Mr. Grazie, who is a scientist at the zoo, is a human hero. A single parent who loves two children and two other men. If you look at the artwork in his office, his whole life is men. Similarly, there are no traditional couples in the book, no traditional moms or dads. Therefore, due to its lopsidedness and early introduction of average sex throughout this book would best serve in middle ground who hopefully understand concept of the outliers. You know, it's an outlier story. We're glorifying the difference when little children need to know what's normal. Just like we don't tell them about cops that kill people innocently. You know, we tell them that cops are going to help them. You know, just teaching kids the basics.

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This is Drama. It's a resubmission from two and a half years ago. The theme of this book is eighth graders. One steady and changing partners constantly. They're planning for graduation from eighth grade and eighth grade prom. And in childhood psychology, I remember way back in the 70s, we learned that middle school is the time to develop same sex friendships. Even though there are crushes. And some pairing up is secondary to the stepping block toward healthy heterosexual friendships later by having your same sex friends. So this is completely skimmed up or bypassed. And this developmental stage is completely ignored in this book. Instead of being preoccupied with sports, friendships, family, hobbies, this book is saturated with who's going with whom. And this is a graphic book. There's a cell phone conversation late at night in the bedroom as the parent does not even take the phone. No parental supervision. The kids are running their own life. Comedy or comics like these are a good way to break down the social mores. When we laugh at some of these situations they're in. Pairing up the two men, the two boys and the two girls. Callie is constantly surprised by the next gay discovery. But she keeps discovering more and more of her friends are gay. Page 10, graphic mouth kissing not age appropriate. Page 19, normalizing deep romance. Not appropriate. Page 58. It is not surprising we've seen the boom in homosexuality. When a child feels particularly close to their own gender, they begin to think they're homosexual. From books Just like this. So I think this one I recommended going up from juvenile to middle ground or adult. I said adult for supervision. So it would go from. It's in ju. It's in juvie now juvenile. In fact, I think there's a couple copies in juvenile. It should go up to adult for supervision. Very convincing that most of your friends are homosexual. And the E probably are homosexual. It's a very big bestseller. Drama is the big bestseller.

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The next one is the Other Boy. The Other Boy has the same theme of a gentle book pushing the trans agenda. Because the plot can see of the hero having crush after crush on other girls. Now the hero is a girl, but now he identifies. But now she identifies as a boy. Underlying drastic hormone blockers and now testosterone because his parents over payed his very low. You don't learn that this character is a girl till chapter four when his father's fiance asks him to be a bridesmaid and he loses it. Chapter five explains that he's always been since age three. She wanted to be a boy and argued that his friend Matt could be a boy without a peanut. When he was using peanut for the word penis, I never heard that. So he did not want to have the peanuts, the penis, so he wanted to be a girl. Both parents are busy vying for acceptance and they spoil him. So no matter what he thinks, he's in charge, he can be the girl. He would gradually become the hero through the book like they always do. They will grow sexually and confuse. I'm reading the last sentence here. This soft propaganda pulls one with its great conversations where you feel the love and acceptance of his friend Josh. But in the background as you read, realize that authority and rules have no place in his life. The author makes fun of the Catholic school and his friend switches over to Hollywood Vine. It may seem innocuous that there are crushes one after the other, but no actual porn. They're not actually having sex in this book. But this is still early sexualizing that 8 year olds who are good readers and will be choosing this book in middle ground have no need to be exploited in this philosophy. So I recommend, even though I found this in middle ground, just casually looking in middle ground. I recommend that it would go up to adult for supervision.

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Excuse me, Gracefully Grayson also I read in November. I'm struggling a little bit. It's currently in middle ground. It needs to be an adult. This is another one I happened on. Grayson is a transgender 12 year old who learns to accept her true identity and share it with the world. That was provided by the publisher as a summary and the American Library Association Rainbow Coalition says it is encouraged this book shows courage to change who she really is. In praise of this book. There are several themes in the book that most people would find troubling for tweens and young teens. Both heroes are gay and trans or trans. Since these readers are in their formative years, most parents and citizens would not want the soft propaganda these books provide. There are no teachers that are straight described positively anyway. The one positive teacher is gay. Of course Middle Ground books need to ground children and the heroes of authority who impact their lives. A book about a boy who is unhappy about his gender from age 3 and defiantly says he's a girl displays a lack of respect for authority that the author sees as virtuous. The main hero, Grayson, constantly dreams of being a girl because this delusion comforts him through his great losses. He lost his mom for one day. That is how he escapes. He craves the strictness and structure provided by his favorite teacher who is another gay hero. His step parents have abdicated the roles of authority and attention giving so they really are the villains but are portrayed as typical parents. Grayson screams at his parents from page 196 to 199. He's having a big temper tantrum, yet the family even at this point does not seek counseling. His idols his idols other than this teacher are materialistic in terms of giving him a gold glitter pen, a bird charm, a bird in a painting, a normal kid without role models to know any better. He thinks of himself all the time. He never thinks of others and what they might be wanting. The author just lets him stay in that mindset, wallowing increased isolation instead of maturing and learning to look outward. There's no growth during the happier that this book describes other than that he learns to defy authority wherever he goes and be brave, which would be defined as defiance and loss of control by most adults, but could easily be accepted by impressionable children. That's why to me that was what I call soft propaganda. It's like this is the way to live. This is making your friends cross over to the other side.

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Okay, the last one I know you'll be glad to know it's Ryan and Avery and this is a book that's in young adult that needs to be an adult and this actually represents, I'm Sad to say, 100 and some. I did the count this morning. It's a huge number of books that are in ya. Evidently there's been some recent purchasing it went from 58 to 100 something. But anyway, there's a bunch of these type of books in YA and this is one of them. Ryan and Avery. This best selling author is an expert in soft porn. This is David Levithan as the author. It belongs in adult section for supervision on almost every page except for a couple chapters. There's kissing which comes short of sex. But the description of skin through the clothing makes the reader think about sex the entire book. The constant kissing takes away from any other theme or plot as one is just waiting for the couple to go all the way. The whole focus is bodies and attraction and listening. The latter is good. Trade listening is good. That's what I mean by soft porn. That's how propaganda works. There's something good in any propaganda. Sexualization, however is the underlying theme. The uncommitted sex, whether heterosexual homosexual is predominant in happens to be all queer sex in this story. Queer play actors, queer hero, teacher. The theme of near sex at every turn is disheartening. Let this type of poem be left for adults which only emphasizes the need to put YA in the adult section. Let the parent realize what the child is reading. At least now they still have the freedom of their library card. If the parent trusts the kid, let them have the library card. Why a section should be abolished as it harbors this type of adult book. Both boys have had previous sex partners so they're going slow on this one. This is going to be their best one. We're wondering what gender Avery will be. We're left wondering that since it seems he has changed genders several times since he was a young child. Both heroes are 16. The parents of Ryan, who do not wholeheartedly accept their gay lifestyle are portrayed as villains in every way since they have guidelines and consequences. Since the whole focus is to get to the point of having sex, the reader is drawn in on every page with every kiss and body description. The couple is met in a gay prompt and it's a love story in every way. But the normalizing and making heroes of the gays is not helpful for young teens. And the teen room is of course visited by 12 and up. Read many of the old classics and you'll fnd that men and women have same sex friends and they even held hands and doted on each other. But it wasn't sexualizing like the literature is nowadays. This developmental stage of age 10 to 16 makes this seem normal to same sex attraction going to sex, not just friendship. This author has never studied human growth and development. Doesn't care how he is leading the children. That's for sure. And I have a whole other page that I won't read to you on that book, but it's kind of got a similar theme. Thank you for listening.

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Thank you for having me today. I haven't end out, so I will try not to say everything I want to say because I want to say a lot in response to Marlena, actually. I really. I feel strongly that the books in the YA section should go over to adult. I hate to see that we spend any of the library board's money until that gets resolved, because what's happened is it's gotten a lot worse as Ms. Maner walked out the door, I guess because six months ago we had 58 LGBTQ books in the teen, synonymous with the room downstairs. Now there's 124. There was 20 in the children. Now there's 44. There was 98 in juvenile, there's 178. So I just want to clarify that things have gotten worse in spite of a wonderful ordinance. I don't know what the solution is other than moving Hawaii books out into the section that we know a lot. I know Greta and Karen in the December meeting were emphatic about how we should trust the publisher. And in this one case, I agree. The publishers all say that these books that I keep appealing and everything, most of them are YA and they need to be in the adult. And I agree with the publisher. The publisher says they're young adult books. They don't need to be in the teen room. And I've called around. It's not just Columbia County. A lot of counties in Georgia have teen rooms that stock YA books. That's inappropriate. The problem is the librarians and the libraries are choosing to put the YA books in a teen room that's actually segregated from the rest of the library, where 12 and up go in that room. I watch that. Also, Marlena said the Bible is in the library, and she's afraid kids will get ahold of that. Looking through my eyes, the Bible's in the adult section. There's several different versions. They're all over in the adult section. Unless it's some adapted version that I haven't found, maybe in the juvenile or something. But the Bible is in the adult section. The Constitution was written for adults. If you remember the story of the Pilgrims. It wasn't a bunch of kids on that. Those ships, you know, it was a bunch of adults, and they had to.There was Bradford, you know, came and tried to have a colony and then they wrote, you know, down the road, the founding fathers wrote a constitution and bill rights and all that and stuff. You know, that was pretty much all adults and they were writing it for adults. It wasn't kids doing all this stuff. And that's what we need to remember today. Today we've elevated children to where they have Constitutional Bill of Rights, Constitutional rights, Bill of Rights. Those apply to adults. Adults are supposed to guard the safety of children. We're in charge of our children, not the Constitution. So that's been a misconception of a lot of people who are, well, who are well meaning. The same thing applies to the American Library Association When Ms. Mac Mayor redid the Bill of Rights and all the. I'm forgetting the other word. What's the other thing besides Bill of Rights? The bylaws. You know, she really just called it the Columbia county, but it's really American Library Association. So read that with jaundice dye to, you know, try to make them better. So they're not the best thing in the world. World. The Bill of Rights is just ala. It's just regurgitated ala. So my big good news today. There is good news that our country has completely shifted. We heard by executive order there's two genders. So a lot of the grants coming down to libraries and everything, State Board of Education, all these entities is going to require people to accept the fact that there's two genders. And that makes a big difference and how we should look at our books.Do we want children to try to discover what gender they are for the frst 15 years of their life, or do we want them to just start being productive citizens early on and learn the important lessons that we learn by reading classes and biographies and the wholesome literature that we grew up on? There's so much work that we can do and now we can shift over and try to get middle ground better. More str. Bookshelf in mill Brown, for example, is very bare and yet we've got classics downstairs that are getting brown and they're just checked out by honor system. They're not even checked out. That's how we've neglected the classics. You can go down there in the downstairs and see where the classics are. Real pathetic. So again, the shocking fnd to me was the young adult section went from 58 to 124 books. LGBTQ promoting went up to 44 children and 178 in juvenile. Most classics teach our generation.

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Over 15 minutes of anti-LGBTQ ranting against 6 books by Priscilla Bence.

5 Minutes of Mrs. Bence ranting against the American Library Association, Young Adult books, children having constitutional rights, etc.

Cclb Feb 12 Packet

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Board Members in Attendance: David Davis, Windy Bedingfield, Sandra Carraway, Pat Goodwin

Missing Board Members: Barry Paschal, Hillary Millar, Amanda Hullum

Other in Attendance: Devin Morris, Keisha Evans, John Luton, Glen Kennedy II, Ben Carter, Bill Tinley

Call To Order

Approval of Agenda: Yay 4, No 0

Approval of Minutes: Yay 4, No 0

• December 2024

• January 2025 (no quorum so no votes taken)

Introduction of new board members: David Davis and Pat Goodwin. No mention of Amanda Hullum.

Report from Friends of the Library

Treasurer Report

• 2 CDs maturing soon at Edward Jones

  • Will discuss CD that matures at 2/28 at next meeting.

• 3rd CD matured. Error with the name of the account so Edward Jones withheld 20% of the CD for taxes ($22,080.00)

  • Columbia County will file a form after 6/30 so we can get the $22,080 back but will have to wait.

  • $77,000 is sitting in a Money Market.

  • Windy requested permission to negotiate the best rate with Edward Jones for another CD. Board voted to approve: Yay 4, No 0

Columbia County Manager Report

• Summer Reading Program: 5/21-7/11

  • Awards: Books, metals, treasure chest

  • Partner with childcare centers

• 2 paid programs

  • Drummer Dave

  • Chad Cruz - magician

• Tax Aid 2/1-4/15

• Harlem: 21 Programs

• Grovetown: 25 programs

• Over 30 Programs for all of February

• Libraries closed 2/15-2/17 PINES Update

• 612 Books

  • Majority relocated

  • Still evaluating some books

Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library Report

• Ben Carter, Interim Director

  • Meeting with Devin today

  • Keep filings with State so State funding can keep coming in

• Bill Tinley

  • Met with Angela regarding Regional Constitution and Bylaws

  • New Director Search

    • Received 4 resumes

    • Readvertise position soon

New Business

• Vote on new chair

  • Table until 3/12: Approve: Yay 4, No 0

• Schedule new board member orientation

• Regional Board

  • Pat Goodwin and Dave Davis appointed by Commissioners. Amanda Hullum not mentioned. Sandra Carraway nominated Hillary Millar to Regional Board stating that Ms. Millar mentioned interest in the regional board previously.

  • Regional Board Members: Pat Goodwin, David Davis, Hillary Millar, Barry Paschal, Windy Beddingfield. Approve: Yay 4, No 0

• Change in Meeting Dable to Wednesday at 11:30.

  • Tabled until further discussion: Approve: Yay 4, No 0

• Request of funds to purchase books.

  • $75,000 above budget from the county. County counts on these funds being approved when doing the budget.

  • This is for this fiscal year (year runs from 7/1 - 6/30). $377,000 in reserve

  • Approve: Yay 4, No 0

• Reconsidered Titles

  • Mrs. Bence wishes to appeal all 6 of the titles she submitted for Reconsideration and chose to speak at this meeting rather than the next meeting. She spoke for about 15 minutes.

  • Titles are:

    • Teo’s Tutu: Librarians to keep in picture book. Wants it moved to Adult

    • And Tango Makes Three: Librarians to keep in picture book. Wants it moved to Middle Ground

    • Drama: Librarians to move from Children’s Graphic Novels to Middle Ground. Wants it moved to Adult

    • The Other Boy: Originally in Middle Ground. Librarians moved to YA. Wants it moved to Adult

    • Gracefully Grayson: Originally in Middle Ground. Librarians moved to YA. Wants it moved to Adult.

    • Ryan & Avery: Originally in YA. Librarians kept in YA. Wants it moved to Adult.

Public Comments:

• Ashley Keller

• Annie Cook

• Marlena Bergeron

• Priscilla Bence

• Bradley Roemer

• Karin Parham

• Katherine Cook

• Greta Newman

Adjourn: Yay 4, No 0

Lettertomovemiddlegroundbence

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I came across this interesting document that Priscilla Bence (local pro-censorship activist) had shared with Alison Couch (District 4 Commissioner), and subsequently, Dr. Sandra Carraway (Columbia County Library Advisory Board Chair). In the document dated July 30, 2024, Mrs. Bence was advocating for removing all of the books from the YA room and replacing it with the new Middle Ground section. That wasn’t too shocking as Mrs. Bence has been regularly attacking the Young Adult/Teen Room, as detailed in a quasi-report that she wrote in March 2024. (That report is attached below.) What was interesting in the first document above was at the bottom, it mentioned it was copying the Columbia County District Attorney, Bobby Christine. I immediately thought, “WTF? Why in the world is she including the DA in her communications about books in our local public library?” I submitted an Open Records Request with the DA Office to see what exactly is going on with that. Nothing came back as far as emails and/or letters, so perhaps she thought better of bothering the local DA with her nonsense or maybe she handed him this letter unofficially and he blew it off. No idea, other than she said she was copying in the DA but the DA’s office has no record of communication.

However, someone also told me at about the same time that Joe Edlemon, the Chair of the Columbia County Republican Party had mentioned something at a recent Republican Breakfast that he talked to Sheriff Whittle about people being arrested for reading books to their children that are at the library. So, I reviewed the video and I had a friend cut it down to just where he mentions that.

You can review the full video on the Columbia County Republican Party Facebook page though if you would like (it’s towards the end). Joe Edlemon said:

....children could open it up and see - just grotesque things. Things we would never... Things that you would be arrested for, literally and I had that conversation with the Sheriff OK? Sheriff Whittle. You would be arrested if you read that stuff to a child but yet, for some reason, that material was allowed in our libraries. Purchased and allowed in our libraries, in the hands of our children, in the children's section.

Keep in mind that none of the materials in any of the Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library System meets the legal definition of obscenity. None. So, I reached out to Sheriff Whittle providing the above quote, and asked to verify if this conversation occurred and for an official response to the following question, “I would like to know if Sheriff Whittle intends to begin arresting parents in Columbia County for books that they check out at the public library for their children, such as books covering topics like sex-education, as that seems to be what Mr. Edlemon is implying?” Sheriff Whittle responded, “Ms. Parham, Joe Edlemon and I have had a conversation referencing obscene material being read or shared with a child that violates state law. Nothing in our conversation referenced a parent speaking to their child.” It seems that Joe Edlemon misrepresented his conversation with our local Sheriff. Color me shocked. He’s also greatly misrepresenting the literature and books available at the library.

Did I think before I dug into this that the DA and the Sheriff were actually going to start arresting people over materials at the library? No. I would hope that our DA and Sheriff have bigger things to contend with in our community, like arresting and prosecuting actual child predators, than worrying about which sex-ed book(s) a parent chooses or if a teenager reads a book with a sex scene. However, it’s important to realize the rhetoric, what is being advocated for, and the misrepresentations that are being used for political talking points. It’s dangerous to make these kinds of misrepresentations. Chairman Edlemon can find materials personally offensive and feel or say that those materials meets his personal definition of “pornography” but I feel like he starts crossing a dangerous line when he begins to bring law enforcement into the discussion and then further conflates his personal definitions based on his own views with legal definitions.

Joe Edlemon is also heard in that video encouraging members to contact Georgia State Senator Anderson (District 24) to revive a bill that would criminalize librarians (SB 154). Similar legislation has been introduced in different States. Arkansas actually passed their legislation which criminalizes librarians, and was struck down by the courts. Feel free to reach out to District 24 Senator Anderson and let him know there are other issues you would prefer him to spend his time on rather than demonizing literature and librarians.

Bencelibraryreportmarch

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I do want to say though that I have maintained from the first email correspondence I had with the Columbia County Board of Commissioners that I felt the guidelines they adopted for our libraries were unconstitutional - specifically a violation of the First Amendment. Many might not agree with me. However, as a Veteran of the United States Army, I took an oath to the US Constitution and I feel very strongly that I need to do everything in my power to push back against any government actions that I believe are in violation of the Constitution, as is also my right.