The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
A lengthy discussion among Franklin Township Public Library trustees at their last meeting resulted in the Trustees deciding to not pre-emptively assign “ratings” to books placed in the Children’s or Young Adult sections of township libraries.
One of the reasons, Trustees said, is that there is already a process in place to spur a review of the propriety of a certain book’s placement.
The other reason, as mentioned by January Adams, the library’s Executive Director, is that rating the books would be “a slippery slope to censorship.”
The discussion was spurred at the January 22 meeting by Trustee Zachary Lichtmann, who said he had been approached by township residents asking about how material parents might find objectionable is kept away from children.
“I thought it would behoove us to think candidly and openly about what we would choose to put into a section for youth or minors,” he said. “If that text was known, if there were content in it that would be equivalently rated to an R movie, for example, or an NC-17 movie, if we knew that that text had material in it that would be rated that, should we not put it purposefully in where we know youth have access to it, but instead, for instance, have it available at the library, not restricting it, but not placing it purposefully in the youth section.”
Adams told the Trustees that the books purchased by the library “are all from professional reviews in library journals. They’re all peer-reviewed books.”
“We have a young adult librarian who buys the books for the young adults,” she said. “She buys from reviews. The reviews generally say what age they’re appropriate for.”
Trustee Kevin McNeil wondered how the rating process would even be conducted.
“How would you look at something and say, this is NC17, and who is qualified to do that?” he asked. “What would qualify someone to be able to say what was suitable for someone 17. And like you said, I’m just asking the questions I don’t know the answer. That’s the questions that I would want to know before I would try to make a decision on something like that.”
Trustee Agnes Kulu-Banya said that everyone interprets what they read differently.
“If somebody reads a book, everybody has their own form of comprehension,” she said.
“Anyone can pick up a book, off the shelf, and look at it and read it, and then put it back on the table,” said Nick Ciampa, the board president.
Trustee Tiana Gresham also expressed doubt on how a rating system would work.
“Kids they know what expectations they have from their parents and whether it’s a book, whether it’s the Internet … if they’re curious about something they’re going to go and do it,” she said. “They’re going to find a way to get to it. Like you just said, the book could be out here, they can find the book, read it real quick, see what they need to see, and put it back.”
“So even if you separate the books, they have all access to the library,” she said. “So I don’t know how, unless you put the books behind the shelf, or in a private place or whatever, I don’t know how that’s gonna work.”
“Having children, up until a certain age, you’re dropping your child off at the library, so you should be involved in what your children are doing, whether it’s the phone, book, watching TV,” said Trustee Amy Arsiwala.
“If I’m concerned about what my children are doing, I should be involved in what they’re checking out. Most of the time when I’m in the library or when I’ve been in the library, I’ve been with my kids and I’m seeing what they’re checking in and out. So, I mean, I don’t see the need to have different sections.”
“The question’s not just us having it in the library, anyone can come in and access it, but it’s the question around the decision to place a book into the youth section as opposed to placing it in an adult section so it’s accessible,” Lichtmann said.
Rating the books, Ciampa said, “means interpreting whole sections of a whole book and determining what part or whether any part of that book might be objectionable to any part of the population. That’s very difficult. That’s well beyond what I think is something the Board of Trustees should be concerned with.”
Lichtmann said that one thing he learned from speaking with a township librarian is that librarians cannot give children explicit books and suggest they read them.
“So my thinking was well, if we can’t as an individual librarian take this book that would be explicit and hand that to a youth, how is that different from us taking the book, if we know that this book has content that’s explicit, and putting that in a youth section?” he asked.
“I get what you’re saying,” McNeil said. “I’ve heard about too many instances where there are small groups of people who say … these are the books that we have a problem with.”
McNeil said anyone with a concern about a book could bring it to the Board, “but I don’t think that we should start doing it any other way than how it’s been done.”
The process when that happens, Adams said, is that anyone objecting to a book completes a complaint form, which is then reviewed by a committee in the library.
She noted that was the process followed in March 2024 when a graphic novel in the Young Adult section with what one resident said was objectionable material was brought to the library’s attention. The decision was made to move that book from the Young Adult section into the general fiction section.
Stay ‘In the Know,’ subscribe to the Franklin Reporter & Advocate!
No other media outlet covering Franklin Township brings you the depth of information presented by the Franklin Reporter & Advocate. Period. We are the only truly independent media serving the Eight Villages.
But we can only do that with your support. Please consider a yearly subscription to our online news site; at $37 a year, it’s one of the best investments you can make for yourself.
To subscribe, please click here.
