COMMUNITY LIBRARY NETWORK: Board actions ‘disturbing’

Here we go down the slippery slope of censorship and book banning. It appears three members of the CLN Board of Trustees want to decide for the whole community what is available to you, the taxpayer. I thought the recent discussions about book removal centered on sexual and pornographic content, which is upsetting enough. But Mr. Plass showed his true intentions by saying a constituent opposed a book about Halloween and it alarmed him that such a book was available. If a book about Halloween can be removed, then any book with any content he or a constituent does not like can be removed. This is very disturbing.

Will the board, alone, determine what can and cannot be available? Will there be a committee to make these determinations? What criteria would be used to add or pull materials from the library? What has happened in the last few years that they no longer trust our librarians to select books that will have the most relevance to our community? If they are deciding what is available, are they going to read all of these books first? Will there be a mechanism for challenging the removal of books?

The information Mr. Plass is requesting from the library staff is readily available to him and the community. The library staff’s most important task right now is to get the Post Falls and Athol libraries up and running again. This is a huge undertaking and top priority. But Mr. Plass wants them to spend their time re-doing a report because it’s too much trouble to search for it himself.

NANCY HARPER

Coeur d’Alene