The goal of Protect Our Garfield County Libraries (POGCL), a new, private Facebook page, is to convince the Garfield County Commissioners (BOCC) to ease up on the Garfield County Public Library District. New Castle resident Carole O’Brien is the spokesperson for the group and met with The Sopris Sun on Saturday, April 20 at, appropriately enough, the Glenwood Springs Branch Library.
“Hopefully, we will show enough community support for the library that [the BOCC] will understand this is a lost cause on their part,” O’Brien said. “There are so many things in this county they need to be worried about: Housing, transportation, climate, water, I could go on and on. Why have they chosen this hill?”
The POGCL page is a result of what O’Brien calls “recent attacks” on the library. “There is a group of residents who have been challenging certain books in the library,” she explained. “They have variously asked for them to be put on higher shelves, to be put in a locked room or to be burned. We’re not real clear what their actual goal is but obviously they are attacking certain books based on their content.”
The books O’Brien is talking about are some Japanese manga graphic novels that were the subject of a formal complaint to the library district last year. Several western Garfield County residents have been vocal about what they consider to be pornographic material in the books and have attended library board and Garfield County Commissioner meetings to demand that the books be removed, reshelved, locked up or even burned. (The Sopris Sun has reported on these demands, including one person who admitted to saying the books should be burned. That person has since retracted the statement.)
O’Brien said that the BOCC appears to be sympathetic to the complaints. “[The commissioners] have directly shown support for them,” she observed. “By agreeing that the books are pornographic and by responding to some of the comments of the protestors by saying ‘God bless.’” In fact, at the Jan. 2, 2024 BOCC meeting, Commissioner Mike Samson told John Lepkowski, who is vocal in the local anti-manga movement, “What I would advise you is to continue your education of the residents of Garfield County as to what is happening within the library system.” Samson added, “If you will do research, you will find out that the American Library Association is not a good deal and it is working very hard throughout the United States of America and this state and, evidently, right here in this county to promote such filth and garbage.”
O’Brien added that the POGCL is also concerned about last fall’s BOCC resolution of disapproval of the Garfield County library board’s policy regulating the manga books. The resolution was approved on Oct. 16, 2023 and stated, in part, that “pornographic materials not be accessible to children in Garfield County Public Libraries.” The summary of the non-legally binding document states, “…the Board of County Commissioners hereby states its disapproval of the Garfield County Library’s policy, which permits these obscene Books [sic] to be available to children and encourages the Garfield County Library to take decisive measures to prevent access of the Books [sic] to minors.”
O’Brien added, “They came right out and said, ‘we don’t approve of this. We think you should do what the protesters are asking.’”
The library district board of trustees has stood firm despite complaints, including accusations that the libraries are “grooming children” and are not safe for kids. Executive Director Jamie LaRue has told The Sopris Sun more than once that the library is not going to move the manga books.
The BOCC took control of the library board of trustee appointments in February, which concerns O’Brien. “If the county commissioners start appointing library board members who are in favor of censorship, eventually they can have a majority of board members who feel that way and who could really make some inroads in terms of changing library policy,” she explained. “I realize that’s maybe an extreme thing, but it could happen.”
The BOCC and library board president Adrian Rippy-Sheehy will interview library board trustee candidates on April 30 at 1pm at the County Administration building in Glenwood Springs. The meeting is open to the public. The POGCL group plans to be there, wearing red. O’Brien explained the choice of color. “Be well read,” she said.
The group encourages people to attend the meeting. “The value that the libraries give to this community cannot be measured in dollars and cents. It’s measured in community spirit,” O’Brien said. ”It’s measured in intellectual freedom, in the happiness of children coming to story hour. Those are the things that the library is about so much more than books. It’s about the spirit and soul of a community in a lot of ways.” The BOCC expects to make a decision about the board appointee on May 6 during their regular meeting.
Editor’s note: O’Brien applied for the open library board trustee position to represent the Rifle area. She and others were removed from the applicant list by the BOCC on Tuesday, April 23 because they live outside the 81650 zip code.