Our libraries are amazing – let’s keep them that way
Children deserve the freedom to learn and the freedom to be themselves. Public libraries actively support those freedoms for all kids, regardless of their background or identity. Garfield County libraries are a shining example of how libraries can create spaces where all kids feel like they belong.
Sadly, in another attempt to fuel divisions within our communities, certain politicians and far-right organizations are trying to turn people against our libraries. They are manufacturing a moral panic around certain books — supposedly for their sexually explicit content, but the books they are going after are disproportionately those by or about LGBTQ+ persons and people of color. Books with LGBTQ+ characters and books addressing racism are being targeted even when they include no sexual content.
Getting people riled up against our libraries and these books serves their larger political agenda, which is spelled out in The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a plan to guide a potential second presidential term for Donald Trump. Over 100 far-right organizations have endorsed the project.
The 900-page policy book Mandate for Leadership outlines the policy priorities for Project 2025. It calls for a “biblical definition” of marriage and family and eliminating the Department of Education, teacher unions, and all diversity, equity and inclusion programs. It refers to “transgender ideology” as “pornography,” and advises that teachers and public librarians who provide access to such materials “should be classed as registered sex offenders.”
One of Project 2025’s “coalition partners” is Moms for Liberty, a group that advocated loudly in favor of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and is currently leading the charge to ban school and library books across the country.
Last fall, the nation-wide attacks against libraries reached Garfield County. A small vocal group began pushing to restrict access to certain books they claim include “deviant sexual activity” — and the Garfield County commissioners jumped on the bandwagon.
At one county commissioner meeting, a community member characterized the American Library Association as being “very opposed to heterosexual Christian family values” and supporting “a climate agenda,” and Commissioner Mike Samson agreed.
“Everything you said is correct,” Samson said, “May God bless you for saying what you said today.”
The commissioners say they don’t want to ban books, they “just” want to ensure minors can’t access certain books. Restricting access to books, however, is a form of banning books, which runs counter to our libraries’ mission of providing free access to as wide a selection of books as possible.
The targeted books are currently shelved in the adult section of our libraries, as are thousands of other books containing content inappropriate for children. Librarians have never before been charged with the responsibility of preventing children from reading those books.
As Rifle resident Christy Ray stated at the Freedom to Read forum: “Is it the public library’s responsibility to decide what I or my family reads? And is it a government official’s responsibility to decide what I or my family reads? …(T)he answer to both is a resounding no.”
The vast majority of Americans agree: parents should have the freedom to decide what their children can or can’t read.
The local effort to restrict books has revealed itself to be about more than simply protecting children from sexually explicit content. One of the targeted books was not even part of our library’s collection until a leader of this group requested it. Another leader removed a book from the adult section of the Silt library and left it in the kids’ section, face up to a sexually explicit image. Recently, our libraries discovered over 100 books dealing with LGBTQ+ themes or Latino immigration that were removed from the shelves and hidden.
Rather than focusing their time and energy on addressing our housing crisis or the upcoming wildfire season, the commissioners have decided to start regulating the library by taking control over the process of selecting new library trustees, eliminating the longstanding practice of library trustees themselves selecting each new member.
Protect Our GarCo Libraries, a group of concerned community members, urges everyone to help maintain the integrity of our libraries by writing Letters to the Editor, speaking up at BOCC and Library Board meetings, and attending the commissioners’ April 30 meeting when they will be interviewing library trustee candidates.
Ordinary people throughout history have fought to make our libraries welcoming and accessible to all. Women’s clubs of the 1890s delivered library materials to remote rural areas. Black student activists in the 1960s held sit-ins to desegregate public libraries. Now it’s time for us to join together and ensure our libraries serve and honor all our kids equally.
Let’s speak up in support of maintaining our libraries as places where all kids — whatever their background, immigration status, sexuality or gender identity — can see themselves reflected in books, read about struggles similar to ones they may be facing, and celebrate their authentic selves.
Debbie Bruell of Carbondale chairs the Garfield County Democrats and is a past member of the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education.