The collection review process at the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library ended this week, one month after staff and community members shared their frustrations about moving children’s and young adult books to the adult section for primarily having LGBTQ themes.

In one instance during the process, the library made national headlines for flagging “Read Me a Story Stella” because the author’s last name is Gay.

North Huntsville branch librarians moved six books out of the adult section and back to the young adult section this week. Two of those books, “Crank” and “Identical,” were written by Ellen Hopkins.

“I’m happy to see wiser minds prevailed and my books are readily available for the kids who need them,” Hopkins said in a Facebook message. “I hope the trend continues.”

Alyx Kim-Yohn, circulation manager at the Madison branch, said the damage has been done because the process “ostracized queer folks and people of color.” Kim-Yohn, who refused to participate in moving the books, shared an internal apology from Cindy Hewitt, the library’s director.

“This was a mistake and was hurtful to library staff and members of the community,” Hewitt said in the message.

Kim-Yohn expects further movement at the next library board meeting on Nov. 15 at the North Huntsville branch.

“(The administration) is still kind of in a backpedaling state, hoping everything will blow over and that (the backlash) will lose steam,” Kim-Yohn said.

There’s no official count on how many children’s and young adult books were moved to the adult section. Community members from the library advocacy group Read Freely Alabama shared a list of 40 titles that were re-classified, including the books written by Hopkins. Of the 233 titles added to the review late September, 91% had LGBTQ themes. Hewitt said this was not intentional and asked branch managers to look at books with overall themes on sex, gender, and dating.

Jay Hixon, the library’s public relations director, said in an email that moving back books should be complete by the end of the week. The next step is getting input from the Alabama Public Library Service (APLS).

“(APLS) have been instructed by the Governor to provide guidance to public libraries across the state,” Hixon said. “Once we receive that information we’ll need to review it and determine the best way to move forward.”