The Garfield County Public Library District’s (GCPLD) Board of Trustees is not ready to make a decision on whether to create a new card for minors that would restrict their ability to check out certain books. 

At the board’s July 10 meeting in Glenwood Springs, some headway was made in discussing the new card and moving forward after a tumultuous season of tense meetings. Board President Adrian Rippy-Sheehy began the meeting by advising the public that citizens who had already spoken at the last two meetings would be asked to wait until the end of the public comment period so that those who had never had a chance to address the board could do so. The board allotted 30 minutes for public comment, and some citizens whose names were called chose to cede their time to others who had not spoken before. 

Later in the meeting, the board discussed a potential new library card that would restrict minors’ access to certain books. GCPLD Executive Director Jamie LaRue said that he had looked into the possibility and found that it would be possible and fairly inexpensive to create the card, but he advised the board to direct him to be as specific as possible about what kind of materials should be included. 

For example, including all adult manga books or graphic novels would be better direction than simply all adult novels. 

“We could do adult graphic novels with parental warnings,” LaRue said. “There’s fewer than 300 or so — we could handle those — it could be done.”

LaRue added that the card would only prevent minors from checking out items that are owned by the library. In other words, it would not prevent anyone from finding the book online or at a different library and acquiring it there instead. It would also not stop anyone from asking someone older to check the book out for them or simply walking out the door with it. 

LaRue maintained that he has never seen evidence that a card like this is necessary, and said that he believes the decision about what children can read or look at should ultimately be left to their parents. 

“That puts us in the middle of what I feel should be a family discussion,” he said. 

The trustees agreed that the authority should be left to the parents. Trustee Tony Hershey said that if parents want to restrict what their children can access, they should accompany them to the library so that they can see what their kids are looking at. He also said that he was supportive of the card because it would give parents the option to decide. 

Trustee Stephanie Hirsch disagreed, saying it felt like overkill. 

“I love what my library [in Carbondale] is doing,” Hirsch said. “The material that does have graphic images — not content, but images — I don’t think any kid is going to go anywhere near that section. It’s up by a bunch of old audio books far away from the kids’ area.” 

After the discussion, Rippy-Sheehy said that she did not feel ready to make a decision and wanted to do her own research and thinking before coming to a conclusion. The board decided to table the discussion until their next meeting.

During trustee comments, Trustee Brit McLin of New Castle said that as a fan of “documentary evidence,” he decided to do his own investigation into the issue of adult manga books on the library’s shelves. 

“Part of my investigation was, how do you really get rid of anything from the library?” McLin said. “If a book isn’t checked out, it goes away. Apparently one of the books that’s still on the shelves is on the shelves because it keeps getting checked out by the same person that doesn’t want that book on the shelves.” 

McLin added that he was growing tired of hearing the same comments over and over again and that it was cathartic for him to make his comments. Hirsch said later that she felt the meeting went more smoothly than last month’s. 

Fletchall’s resignation
Trustee Myrna Fletchall attended the meeting via Zoom, her last meeting as the trustee representing Rifle. Fletchall recently handed in a letter of resignation to the board, citing personal opportunities and work as reasons for her departure. Her term will expire on Dec. 31 of this year.

In her trustee comments, Fletchall thanked her fellow trustees and the public for the opportunity to serve.

“Thank you for the opportunity to let me serve along all of you,” she said. “It was an amazing experience. I learned a lot of things and I wish the best to everybody at the Garfield librar[ies] — public, employees and board members in the future.”

The board nominated Hirsch to replace Fletchall as secretary until Dec. 31. After that, they will choose a new secretary. Hirsch accepted the role on the conditions that it would only last until Dec. 31 and that Hershey would fill in for her at the Aug. 7 meeting, as she plans to be out of town then.