Local libraries are worried about the impact of a bill that will repeal protections for obscenity for libraries that survived the first funnel week of the Iowa legislature.

House File 521 is a bill that would remove obscenity protections from Iowa code section 728.7 for educational purposes in schools and libraries. Code section 728.1 defines “obscene material,” which includes material the average person, taking the material as a whole and applying contemporary community standards with respect to what is suitable material for minors, would find appeals to the prurient interest and is patently offensive and the material, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, scientific, political, or artistic value.

A similar bill was proposed in the Senate, Senate File 235, but that did not pass through the first funnel week.

One of the bill’s authors, Helena Hayes, spoke on the Iowa Public Radio “River to River” podcast and noted this bill’s intent is only to limit obscene materials that may be available to children, not to keep the materials out of the hands of appropriate ages.

Both Grace Chamberlain Rowray, Cole Library director, and Elizabeth Hoover de Galvez, Lisbon Library director, said that the materials in each of their library’s collections are not obscene and have serious literary, scientific, political or artistic value, and that both libraries do a lot to curate their collections based on public’s input.

“There are picture books I might not check out of the library because they don’t represent something my children have experienced,” Chamberlain Rowray said. “But they are there because they reflect someone else in our community and what they encounter in their own lives.”

Chamberlain Rowray said when it comes to books in the library’s collection, many of the purchases are because a patron has asked if the library might be getting that book.

Hoover de Galvez said that’s similar at Lisbon, that many of the items added to the collection are based on requests from patrons or based on how often material is checked out that the library will look at purchasing books by the same author.

Cole Library is going through a portion of weeding their collection of children’s picture books that they complete every few years. That includes looking at the literary merit of the book as well as the circulation numbers.

“A lot of our weeding does come back to ‘is this a book that the community is checking out on a periodic enough basis?’” Chamberlain Rowray said. “If it does, it usually gets kept if it meets the other criteria.”

One of the other worries for both librarians is that the bill’s challenge procedure currently oversteps local control and invites lawsuits to happen much earlier than taking the formal process of challenging a book in the library.

Both Cole Library and Lisbon Library have ways to challenge a book or items in their collection via their websites or forms in the library.

In the 13 years she has been at Cole Library, Chamberlain Rowray said there has only been one book that was pulled from the collection due to a challenge. That book had not been circulating for the past several years, and so it was pulled. Cole Library did have a challenge from a Cornell College student about having more inclusive books added to the collection.

“Potential lawsuits if this bill were to be passed could impact the library’s insurance rate,” Hoover de Galvez said. “It could impact the risk to our local library board members as well.”

Chamberlain Rowray and Hoover de Galvez said both libraries have a terrific and active board who routinely evaluate what the collection standards are for their library.

And then there’s dealing with the potential financial impact of any challenges that do happen at the court level.

Chamberlain Rowray said that the library’s budget is $180,000 annually for everything they do – programming, collection curation and more. One or more legal challenges would be financially devastating to the library.

“It’s especially frustrating when we already have policies in place on how to challenge any books in our collection,” Chamberlain Rowray said. “Our board works tirelessly to develop our collection and reviews the policies on a three-year basis.”

Hoover de Galvez said legal challenges could have a stifling effect for libraries, period.

The vagueness on what is promoting obscenity to minors is also a worry for the libraries, which both cater to a wide age of patrons. At Mount Vernon, one of the first collections that is right off the entrance to Cole Library’s first floor is the collection of Blu-Rays and DVDs the library houses. Many times new titles are spotlighted as being added to that collection, and some of those films may be rated R or PG-13.

“Does material existing in the library space count as exposure to minors, even if it is just showing new materials added to a collection?” Chamberlain Rowray said. “Does its existence in spaces that children may encounter count in any challenges?”

While the children’s browsing room has a lot of the picture books and material for younger children at Cole, it also starts portions of the young adult materials for older elementary readers.

Chamberlain Rowray said that the young adult material for older grades has already been purposely moved to a different adjacent room at Cole Library, to reflect that the materials there are possibly for older children. That collection does share space with materials that comprise some of the fiction materials for all ages.

Some of the most checked out material at Cole Library is young adult literature, read by not just teenagers, but many adults. Chamberlain Rowray said as librarians they do countless research for authors like Sarah Maas on where books she has written should be in their collection, as some of her material is written for more adult readers.

And some of the young adult materials at Cole Library handle difficult topics, like dealing with drug addiction, sexual abuse or physical abuse.

“We have members in our community at those ages going through some of those things, and those books are there to help them with what they are dealing with,” Chamberlain Rowray said.

The importance of parents being mindful of what is being read or making decisions about if material is appropriate for their children is up to them.

“It’s okay that there are books in a library that don’t represent your views,” Chamberlain Rowray said. “You don’t have to check out those books.”

Hoover de Galvez concurred, saying parents need to be looking at sites like Common Sense Media, Good Reads and Amazon reviews to know if a book is right for their children.

“Libraries are here to serve everyone in our community,” Hoover de Galvez said.

“Our library reflects our community, period,” Chamberlain Rowray said. “Our patrons should always feel they can find something that reflects them and what they’re going through.”

Both recommended people with any concerns on House File 521 contact their legislators.