Alabama’s state library agency is now under scrutiny by the governor, following a handful of local book challenges and conservative efforts to cut ties with the American Library Association.

In a Sept. 1 letter to Nancy Pack, director of the Alabama Public Library Service, Gov. Kay Ivey said she had grown increasingly concerned about “the environment our Alabama libraries are providing to families and children.”

“I am deeply grateful for the work Alabama libraries do, day in and day out, to engage our children and promote a lifelong love of learning – including by providing information that may be unavailable elsewhere in a community,” Ivey wrote. “At the same time, however, I respect parents who want their young children and teens to be able to freely explore a library without fear of what those children will find there.”

Read more: Book bans are a local affair in Alabama schools. That could change.

The Alabama Public Library Service administers state and federal funds to libraries across the state. Last year, APLS received nearly $13 million in state funds – about $5.5 million of which went directly to local libraries.

The service helps train local librarians and aims to ensure all libraries are providing quality services, but it’s typically up to local branches to screen books and handle any concerns.

Ivey’s letter comes after recent efforts in Prattville, Foley and other parts of the state to “clean up” local libraries. Over the summer, several parents challenged children’s and young adult books that discussed gender identity and other LGBTQ themes, as well as some sexual content.

Ivey, in her letter, claimed the following books displayed in local libraries were inappropriate for their labeled age range and should be moved to a different section:

• Foley Public Library: “Who are You?: The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity”
• Prattville Public Library: “The Pronoun Book” and “If You’re a Kid Like Gavin”
• Ozark Dale County Library: “The Mirror Season” and “Only Mostly Devastated”

LGBTQ-affirming board books and children’s books in Foley and Prattville libraries, she said, were not appropriate for toddlers and children under eight. She also claimed some young adult novels in the Ozark Dale County Library featured “graphic sex scenes.”

Ivey then issued a detailed list of questions about parental supervision, screening processes and library governance to determine whether “reform” was needed. She asked Pack to provide an answer before the APLS board meets next Wednesday, Sept. 13.

Pack issued a statement Tuesday afternoon thanking the governor for her “thoughtful and considerate concern.”

She said the state’s public libraries will “always value parental involvement,” and that many libraries already require parental supervision when a child checks out items.

“Public libraries should be spaces where parents can feel confident that their children can explore and learn,” she wrote. “Despite the challenges posed by limited funding, most public libraries in our state do an excellent job of meeting the information needs of their communities.”

Cutting national ties?

Several libraries across the state are accredited by the American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the world.

In 1939, the association adopted its “Library Bill of Rights” in response to Nazi book burnings, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Since then, hundreds of local libraries and state groups, including Alabama’s, have adopted its guidance.

Ivey and other advocates, however, have recently taken issue with the Bill of Rights and the association more broadly – particularly its guidelines that ensure children and other age groups have equal access to library materials, as well as a right to keep their checkout records private.

Across the country, more and more libraries have cut ties with the organization, including state libraries in Montana, Missouri and Texas.

“Rather than supporting Alabama families, out-of-state library groups like the American Library Association appear to be making the situation worse,” Ivey wrote, accusing the group of violating a law that permits parents to access their children’s library records.

At the most recent APLS board meeting in August, two speakers, who the Alabama Political Reporter identified as Hannah Rees and Will Sanchez of Clean Up Prattville, accused the ALA of “smuggling progressive politics” into local library programming, training and procedures.

At the urging of John Wahl, an APLS board member who also chairs the state’s GOP chapter, the board voted to ask the attorney general for his opinion on regulating local libraries – and potentially splitting from the national association. The Alabama GOP proposed a resolution calling for the service to disaffiliate with the ALA at its summer meeting.

Caldwell-Stone said while libraries are expected to respect their users’ right to privacy, the national association “does not tell libraries to disobey the law.”

“Certainly we respect the Alabama law that provides parents with the ability to look at their child’s library records,” she said. “But on the other hand, law enforcement should not be able to go in and demand a child’s library records or a teenager’s library records, and that’s what that speaks to.”

The ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom has recorded more than 1,200 efforts to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since the organization started compiling that information 20 years ago.

In Alabama last year, there were 11 reported efforts, challenging a total of 24 book titles.

Caldwell-Stone said those numbers don’t appear to be declining.

But what’s most concerning, she said, is that the majority of challenges, about 90%, aren’t coming from individual parents; rather, they’re mostly coming from advocacy groups “with long lists of books that they disapprove of for moral or political reasons.”

“We support the right of every parent to guide their child’s reading and to make decisions about their child’s reading,” she said. “But we also believe that no group, no parent, should make that decision for another family in the community.”

Read the full letter below or click here to view it in a different browser.