Know Your Library is a community based organization seeking to provide information to parents regarding library materials and services available to minor patrons through the St. Louis County Library system. Know Your Library, along with several other community based organizations, has requested that the the library board provide assistance to parents who are seeking information in an effort to determine suitability of material and services for their own minor children. This assistance would be offered through the provision of additional information and cataloging services.
Know Your Library does not support censorship as legally defined by the US Supreme Court, and other lesser courts. We believe that the library should maintain the right to hold a wide range of diverse material to reflect the needs and wants of our community. Furthermore, we do not believe that the library nor any other group, entity or individual should usurp the rights of parents. We believe that the parent should be the final arbiter of all materials and services that minor children access through the St. Louis County Library system.
Currently we are encouraging the St. Louis County Library Board to develop procedures to assist parents in the identification of sexually explicit material being made available to minor children. For more information regarding policy changes proposed by the St. Louis County Library Board, go to policy change proposed.
The library staff has already begun to label some of these books, unfortunately, the current criteria for identifying the books has yet to be firmly established. An email was received from Barb Bain with the St. Louis County Library outlining the method by which material would be identified. To read the email go to Bain Email.
Unfortunately, however, the actual criteria being applied for the sake of identifying the books is either being applied inconsistently or the criteria has not been defined well enough. We have reviewed about fifty books to date. We have provided examples of many of them that reflect this inconsistency. There are books labeled "High School" that don't appear to have any mature content, yet on the other hand, there are many books labeled as "Teen" still that contain extremely sexually graphic material. See Excerpts for more information.
We approached the library board at the May 18th, 2009 library board meeting. They were provided examples and copies of the excerpts. They were asked to provide the community with a summary of the library's policy used in determining the classification of "high school" versus "teen books." We asked that they publish this policy on the internet and display in prominently in the teen area. The library board chairman, Betty Weinstock, only indicated that they would take it under advisement.
We follow-up again with the library board at the June, 2009 meeting to determine if any action will be taken.