Boise-area library system quietly removes ‘challenged’ books from its collection
The board of the Ada Community Library system removed six books from its collection last month.
The books include some of the most commonly challenged titles in schools and libraries in Idaho and across the United States.
In a statement to the Idaho Statesman, the Ada Community Library board said it decided to review its policy on what criteria to use to judge whether a book is “harmful to minors.” Upon its review, board members determined that their policy did not follow Idaho code, which prohibits the “disseminating material harmful to minors.”
The Legislature passed a bill earlier this year that opened library staff to lawsuits if a parent or guardian of a child deemed a library book “harmful.” But Gov. Brad Little vetoed the bill, saying the legislation “makes sweeping, blanket assumptions on materials that could be determined as ‘harmful to minors.’”
Idaho code says disseminating material harmful to minors is a misdemeanor punishable by one year of jail time or a $1,000 fine. But librarians are exempt from the law. The library board decided to follow the definition of “harmful to minors” and remove books from the library anyway.
The board voted to remove the following books, according to an email provided to the Statesman:
- “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe
- “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison
- “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M Johnson
- “Out Of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez
- “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
- “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson
The board reviewed books on an unspecified 10 “most challenged” books list from 2021, the statement said.
The Boise Public Library has copies of all of the books removed from the Ada Community Library system.
“This was an effort to ensure that our policy and staff guidelines were usable and understandable, to test the exception in the statute, and to explore the types of books that do and do not fall within the prohibition of the statute,” the board said.
The board voted to remove the books in an open meeting March 18 — after the Legislature passed the bill and before Little vetoed it. The Ada Community Library does not record its meeting audio and the written minutes included just three sentences about the decision:
“A series of books in the collection were read by trustees and reviewed under existing Idaho code to determine whether they contained material that fell within the current Idaho statutes’ definition of what is ‘harmful to minors.’ Where it seemed so, the board voted to remove the books from our collection. Where the books did not contain such material, the board voted to retain.”
Ada Community Libraries operates separate from the Boise and Meridian libraries with its own library board. It operates three locations in Boise and one in Star.
Mary Anne Saunders, a candidate for a seat on the Ada Community Library board, attended the March meeting via Zoom because she wanted to see how the meetings operated. She did not know that the board would be discussing removing books, she said.
“Part of the reason that I’m running is that I’ve been very concerned about some of the attacks on libraries,” Saunders said by phone. “And I’m an avid proponent of free speech, and of lifelong learning, and of diversity.”
Saunders also criticized the board’s lack of transparency on its March meeting agenda. The agenda had a section labeled “Legislative Update” under which the board voted to remove the books. It did not provide any information about the books.
“If I were in charge of a board meeting like that, I would have made certain that the issue was clearly on the agenda,” Saunders said.
The Nampa School District board voted last May to remove 23 books from the district’s libraries that it said had too much sexual content, the Statesman reported.
The decision to remove material from the Ada Community Library comes amid a stream of criticism of libraries in Idaho. The Meridian Library District recently survived an effort to dissolve the taxing district from a group calling themselves “Concerned Citizens of Meridian” who said their concerns about library material were not being heard by the board.
This story was originally published April 22, 2023 at 4:00 AM.
