Work will soon begin on an extra meeting space for the Dublin Public Library after securing a $250,000 Texas State Library and Achieves Commission grant.
The Library Infrastructure Facility Improvement Grant will allow the city to change the Cowan Annex into an additional space for the library to utilize in a variety of ways including extra space for the library’s telehealth and workforce development programs as well as Summer Reading Club and other library partners.
At the Monday, Dec. 8 Dublin City Council meeting, the city approved the deed transfer from the Dublin Public Library, Inc. (Library Board) to the city in order to help with utilities, insurance and the process of going out for bids. The main library building is already owned by the city.
Interim City Manager Cameron Ray said a special called meeting may be needed this week in order to get request for proposals moving so work could potentially begin in mid-January.
“Every so often we will get to the summer months and the Clay Room fills up to the point that people are standing in the hall, so it would be good to have a little bit more extra space,” Library Board President Paul Gaudette said on behalf of the library since Library Director Adina Dunn could not attend the meeting.
The council also considered adopting a Library Materials Reconsideration Policy establishing a procedure for the review of challenged or controversial library materials.
The conversation started after a social media post from a citizen about a library book called “Sex is a Funny Word” by Cory Silverberg. A formal challenge document still has not been filed regarding the book.
Orion Gallagher, a former city councilmember and former library board member, spoke during public comments in support of the library.
“I’d like to point out that our library is probably the finest library in this area. It’s that way because Adina [Library Director] has set it up that way,” he said. “And now you guys are talking about setting up a policy and a committee to review books.”
Gallagher pointed out that is already set up in the library’s policy.
“This book that everyone is all up in arms about. I’m not asking you to like it or not like it. I’m asking you why the rules were never followed. Nobody approached the library staff. Nobody approached the librarian. The rules weren’t followed, so what makes you think this is going to make anything any better?” he said. “I’m asking you to let the library work, rather than to start destroying things through little acts like this. It’s one step, but it’s a step down a slippery road and I’m highly disappointed in a number of you.”
During the agenda item, Ray said after last month’s meeting he had reached out to the city’s attorney to get his opinion since there was a potential pending Supreme Court court case regarding banned books at a public library in Llano.
However, this week the Supreme Court refused to hear the case which left the opinion of the 5th circuit court of appeals as the final opinion.
“The 5th circuit determined a public library may curate its own collection much in the same way a public museum does. A museum does not display all the work available to it and it may not be compelled to do so. The argument being made is a public entity picking and choosing what book to provide is not the censorship of an author, it’s rather the public entity choosing how it would like to speak,” Ray said. The city attorney had told city staff they were in wait and see holding pattern, but the Supreme Court refused to review the case. Legal counsel told the city if there was enough support for the book being removed, the library and city council go ahead and establish a process for the review of books.
The library had a form for challenging books, but had no policy, Ray said. Working with the attorney, the city came up with a policy that was based on similar other library policies.
The Library Materials Reconsideration Committee is in the process of being formed and will be a 5-person committee. To be on the committee, a person must be a city resident, be a registered voter, at least 18, be of sound mind and cannot be an employee of the city of Dublin or the Dublin Public Library and cannot be on the Library Board.
“The committee should represent a diverse crosssection of community backgrounds and the library director and library staff shall not serve on the committee, but may provide technical or administrative support if requested,” the policy states.
The committee will only meet when a request form is filled out and they shall meet within 30-60 days after receiving a valid request.
Committee members are required: ■ to read, view or listen to the entire challenged work, or at a least a substantial portion
■ Review professional reviews such as library journals about the material in question
■ Consider the work as a whole, not isolated sections
■ Evaluate age placement
■ Consider the work’s literary, artistic, educational or scientific value
■ Consider whether the item may be harmful to minors or is misplaced in terms of age level
■ Apply standards that are content-neutral and viewpoint-neutral After analysis, the committee may recommend retaining the material in its current location, relocating the material to a more appropriate section, restricting minor access or removing the material from the collection if it fails to meet selection standards.
“It’s not my position to tell you what book can be or what book should not be in a library,” Ray said. “I know nothing about libraries other than they have books and it’s supposed to be quiet in there. I think Adina does a good job running the library. I just think to prevent getting into a situation like Llano, we have to have something that is legally sound.”
The library board president shared a few facts that had not previously been shared with council including all children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult at the library, to get a library card they must be 18, however, a parent can register their child for a card. They can also put restrictions on the child’s card.
“It was an unfortunate sequence of events that there was a book that caused offense,” Gaudette said. “I do also caution about the idea of removal. The idea of curating like a museum would be. If a museum puts something out there, then they can put something on retainer that would allow it to still be available. I know the comment has been made that this doesn’t represent 95% of our citizens’ values, but that 5% still needs to be reflected whenever it comes to it. You can keep the community safe without restricting the freedom of other people. My grandma always used to say, ‘My freedom ends, where yours begins.’” Within the policy, a section on guiding principles are listed including: ■ Materials are to inform, educate and enrich the community
■ The library does not endorse the ideas contained in any particular item, but provides access to a broad spectrum of viewpoints
■ Parents and guardians are responsible to supervising their children’s use of library materials
■ Materials will not be removed solely due to disagreement with the viewpoint, author or content
■ Materials may be reconsidered based on age appropriateness, educational value, accuracy and placement The policy ensures decisions are content-neutral, transparent and consistently applied Councilmember Bo Kabala asked if the guiding principles were established by library staff, city staff or if they had any citizen involvement. Ray clarified he had created them on advice from the city attorney while looking at other library documents, and it was reviewed by the library director.
Kabala asked if this was a final draft, or if there was room for citizen input, and Ray clarified the document could be whatever the council wanted it to be.
“The viewpoint question comes up a lot, I feel in conversations about substance and civility and civil discourse,” he said. Kabala gave an example of a from a revisionist historian whose viewpoint would be to deny the holocaust ever occurring.
“I would absolutely discriminate against that viewpoint, if it’s a question of the Dublin Public Library,” he said. “To me, if this is a rough draft and we can still solicit input that question of why we can’t discriminate based on viewpoint that’s what comes up for me. Do we absolutely need to be viewpoint neutral?”
Gaudette clarified that in the policy there was a statement that the subject needed to have worth, and clarified there were absolutely things he had no desire to read such as anything by Marquis wde Sade or Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.
“But I can see the value in someone needing to read it for artistic or historical context. If they are needing to write something about the policy that goes into that, or the framework that is set about mental health in that area,” he said.
“But it’s $20 on Amazon,” Kabala said. “If you want a copy of Mein Kampf and you’re really committed to having Hitler’s master work, it’s $20 on Amazon. We don’t need that in the library.”
Ray said he worries if they aren’t viewpoint neutral, that they teeter the line of censorship.
“And I worry if we teeter the line of censorship, we open ourselves up for civil liability,” he said. “I think when we put personal opinion, personal emotion into these decisions we cross that line of censorship and we open ourselves up to potential liability.”
“This is mainly a safeguard for the library and the city as a whole,” he said.
Kabala asked about getting further input into the guiding principles from citizens including potentially adding human flourishing and natural law, however, councilmembers and city staff could not determine an efficient way to collect the information. The review committee will act as citizen input itself.
Councilmember Nancy Williams asked how would the committee be formed, and Ray said it would be appointed by the council, but recommendations would come from the library board, library staff and city staff, along with asking for volunteers from the community.
Ultimately, the policy was tabled in order to clarify the selection process, length of terms and the number of terms that can be served.
Disclaimer: Paul Gaudette is the Managing Editor of The Dublin Citizen and Wyndi Veigel-Gaudette is his spouse.