Published: March 20, 2006 11:48 pm         

Local libraries don’t need ruled by a new state council

Not all problems can, or should, be solved by passing a new state or federal law.

That’s one lesson from the debate last week over a proposed state law to keep library books containing sexually explicit or gay themes out of the reach of children or young adults.

Unfortunately, Oklahoma House members voted 60-33 in favor of the bill, which would withhold public funding from libraries unless they segregate reading areas for children from reading areas with material deemed inappropriate. The bill also would create the State Library Material Content Advisory Board to evaluate various reading materials and rule on what is naughty or nice. Then, bookmobiles and libraries large and small would have to establish and enforce separate reading areas.

The concept of keeping sexually explicit or gay-themed reading material away from children is a good idea. Frankly, librarians and parents and teachers have been doing that for decades.

The really bad idea is creating a new state board to determine what subject matter is OK and what is not. Why is the opinion of a state library censor better than the opinion of a local librarian or local library board member? It’s not! Plus, giving the new library police the power to cut off public funding to public libraries is incredibly heavy-handed.

Local librarians and library boards decide every month what books to order and not, and whether books are for children or all readers, fiction or non-fiction, top shelf or bottom shelf. They don’t need a new state board to tell them what to do. It’s an issue of local control. Besides, whose opinion would local readers value most, that of a local resident or of a state political appointee?

The bill also ignores the physical reality that small libraries and bookmobiles have only a single reading area. Should such libraries lose what little state funding they have because they can’t afford multiple reading areas? Of course not.

This is another case where simple common sense and good judgment are much, much better than a new state law. The Oklahoma Senate should defeat the bill and bury the concept of a State Library Material Content Advisory Board into a file so deep not even the Dewey Decimal system could locate it.