'A coordinated attack on our libraries’

The misinformation, harassment and negativity surrounding libraries and their collections are not unique to Kootenai County or Idaho.

It's happening in almost every state, Meridian Library District Director Nick Grove said.

“The uniqueness of this situation is that the books in question, the tactics used, are almost the same universally,” he said. “This is not a local board issue. This is a coordinated attack on our libraries and our parental rights to make choices for our families, and it is stripping the ability for individuals to make choices for themselves and for their families.

“Misinformation spreads much faster than the truth. Fear inspires people to do things more than apathy. The tactics used in Meridian, at least, have been to spread fear and misinformation to rally people to the cause without regard to what is factual, what is actually happening in our libraries, what people are able to do, what people aren’t able to do. Fear and intimidation have been part and parcel with what we’ve experienced.”

In response, Grove said the Meridian board has removed public comment from its agenda. It still accepts comments via the website, “but due to threats, outbursts and true lack of public decorum, we had to remove that from the board agenda for the foreseeable future.”

“We’d love to bring it back, but that civil discourse and civility has been lacking, and it’s really difficult,” he said. “The items that people don’t want on our shelves have a lot of themes. It's by and large LQBTQ+ characters, themes or authors, or people of color characters and authors. It’s hidden behind the guise of sexual content, but that is not the case. If that were the case, we would be seeing a lot more of the romance novels from the ’80s in paperback being challenged … It’s hiding behind these words they know that scare people and facts be damned.”

Grove was one of four panelists who participated in the Roles and Responsibilities of Trustees: Library Edition event Thursday evening at Harding Family Center in Coeur d’Alene, hosted by DART, an acronym for Dedicated, Accountable, Responsible, Together, a nonpartisan group of community-minded citizens who seek to support informed voter decision-making through education and collaborative civil discourse. DART spokesperson Nancy Jones served as panel moderator.

Attended by at least 100 people — including several who have spoken out on both sides of these issues at local library board meetings in the past year and a half — the panel event explored the challenges libraries are facing, the processes and new policies being crafted to address these issues and the roles of library trustees in responding to these challenges.

Community Library Network Board Chair Katie Blank said public comment lasted for an hour and a half at the board’s last meeting.

“We too will be having to change our public comment time so that we can get our board work done,” Blank said.

When the board first began receiving high volumes of public comment, it was a shotgun approach, she said.

“There were a lot of themes that were touched upon, a considerable amount of LGBTQ books that were considered inappropriate for the library,” she said. “It was very hard to see where the discomfort was. And also, sitting on a library board for a very long time, it’s very clear that there were requests in a very discriminatory way that a library can’t do. It’s illegal for libraries to take books out of the shelves simply because they have LGBTQ+ issues that are being discussed in them.”

She then shared a statistic: About 2.5% of Idaho’s population identifies as LGBTQ.

“Our collection, which is supposed to reflect our community, our collection — 0.7% of our collection reflects LGBTQ issues,” she said. “That’s far below what the population is. It’s not a huge amount, but those are the biggest numbers of books that we’ve had where people are concerned.”

Other concerns include topics of race and demonology, Blank said.

“All of those to take off the shelf just like that is very discriminatory,” she said. “However, there is a kernel of truth. We need to listen to what is being said on both extreme sides.”

Other panelists were former Community Library Network trustee Bob Fish and risk management specialist Jim McNall.