Letter to the Editor - What is the Goal Here?

Our newsroom runs on more than coffee and craft beer — it runs on you. Support Decorah News' local reporting today. Dear Editor, I was dismayed to hear that the anti-library legislation that did not pass the second funnel has now been tacked on as an amendment to another bill in the Iowa legislature. The idea of eliminating Library Boards and putting city councils in charge of libraries is an attempt to fix a problem that does not exist and will make matters worse. I served twelve years on a city council in another town and observed that generally city council members do NOT have the knowledge or expertise to govern library policy. Many have not set foot in a library in years. Putting elected city officials in charges risks the politicization of libraries and could cause policies to flip-flop after each election. It also prevents county voices from participating - now, library boards are a mixture of city and county residents. If city council takes over, then by definition, county residents no longer have a voice. This also eliminates the public from having a voice on their libraries via public referendum. If our community has issues with how the library is run, we already have options to address that via public voter referendum. Then there is the requirement of preventing those under 18 from accessing materials for adult users. Think about how difficult or impossible that would be to implement? Do you close off the entire adult section, post a staff person and check IDs to enter? What a waste of already insufficient staffing! Or do you force the library to go through every book (tens of thousands!) in the adult section and try to determine if that book is "Harmful to Minors?" Who decides what is "harmful?" Even if that is accomplished after thousands of staff hours, what happens to those materials? Are they removed from the collection? That is censorship. Are they segregated to a locked room which, again, has to be staff monitored? Or does the library just close the adult section completely and only house children's books? Even children's books can't be agreed upon. As written, the amendment states that parents or guardians of anyone under the age of 18 would need to approve every material their child encounters that is intended for readers older than their child. The only way to comply with this is to require parents to accompany their kids every second they are in the building! What is the goal here? Every parent has the right to determine what THEIR child can see. But they do NOT have the right to determine what others can access. Our state has REAL problems with water quality, insufficient funding of schools, high cancer rates .... why is the legislature trying to destroy the libraries? I urge you to contact your representatives and voice your objections! Sue Ballantyne Decorah, Iowa Your voice matters—share your perspective with us and keep the conversation going!