Topeka Board Agrees To Keep Sex-Related Books on the Shelves
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 04/17/2009
- Vote apparently aimed to avoid lawsuit
- Library will post new notices
- Board member says books are not kids' magnet
Apparently aiming to avoid a lawsuit over its February decision to restrict minors’ access to four sex-related books books, the board of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, KS, voted 6-3 yesterday to retain the books in the library’s Health Information Neighborhood section.
The policy, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal, emerged from an effort to ensure that the library both complied with the harmful to minors statute—which had not been tested in this case—and the narrowest possible effort at restricting access, thus avoiding a lawsuit.
Director Gina Millsap suggested either leaving the books—Sex for Busy People; The Lesbian Kama Sutra; The Joy of Sex; and The Joy of Gay Sex—on the shelf or to restrict checkout to those age 13 and older. (Another option, labeling each book as harmful to minors, was put aside because it was seen a legally dubious.)
Partial compromise
In discussion, some board members said they’d agree to the first option as long as the library agreed to post a public service statement on its web site and a bulletin board alerting patrons that the library’s collection has sex-related material in its collection, as well as information about the controversy. (There’s already a page devoted to the latter.)
One key vote, according to the newspaper, came from new trustee Bob Harder, a Methodist minister, who did some research of his own. Over 19 visits, he concluded that the books at issue were not exactly magnets for minors: “The kids are coming, and they aren’t going to the health neighborhood.”
