Allie Gosselink (left), director of the Calhoun County Library, advocates for public libraries before the Arkansas State Library Board at its quarterly meeting on Friday. (Photo courtesy of Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)
The Arkansas State Library Board rejected member Jason Rapert’s attempt Friday to remove references to the American Library Association from its policies and to ensure the funds it distributes do not support ALA membership or programming.
Rapert, a former Republican state senator from Conway, spent several minutes of Friday’s three-hour board meeting denouncing ALA as “toxic” and reiterating his stance that minors should not have access to “sexually explicit” content in libraries.
ALA is a nonprofit trade organization that advocates for public libraries and helps them secure grant funding.
Rapert also verbally sparred with three library directors during the meeting’s public comment period, asking them whether they supported “age-appropriate restrictions” on children’s access to certain materials. The library directors said children’s access to books is already restricted by parental supervision and the separation of books into age-appropriate sections.
“Any sexually explicit information in those books is not my decision to control one way or another,” said Allie Gosselink, director of the Calhoun County Library. “[It is] my patrons that are requesting that I purchase these materials. It is not my business to tell them what they can and cannot read.”
The seven-member board again rejected a motion from Rapert to withhold state funds from libraries where “sexually explicit” content is accessible by children. Shari Bales of Hot Springs voted for the motion, while three members voted against it and two were absent, including the board’s newest member, Sydney McKenzie.
Rapert has made the same motion at four of the five State Library Board meetings since he became a member; many of his former Senate colleagues confirmed his appointment by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in December 2023.
At all five meetings, beginning a year ago, Rapert has also moved to withhold funds from libraries actively suing the state. The motion failed Friday for lack of a second.
Rapert expressed support for two bills pertaining to libraries that the Legislature is currently considering. The Senate is expected to vote Monday on Senate Bill 184, which would abolish the State Library Board and transfer its powers and authorities to the Arkansas Department of Education.
SB 184 passed a Senate committee Thursday, and another committee is expected to hear Senate Bill 181 on Tuesday. SB 181 would loosen the current requirement that library directors hold a master’s degree “from an accredited American Library Association program.” It also would allow someone with “work experience in the field of library operations” but without a master’s degree to run a library with approval from its local governing board.
Rapert’s failed motion would have removed the American Library Association from the State Library’s standards for state aid to public libraries, which are partly based on one of the statutes SB 181 seeks to amend. It also would have removed participation in an ALA-accredited degree program from the State Library’s qualification requirements for scholarships aimed at librarians in training.
State Library Director Jennifer Chilcoat said it is “difficult to find a quality master’s of library science program” that is not ALA-accredited. Board member Lupe Peña de Martinez of Mabelvale said the apparent lack of a “high-caliber” body besides ALA to accredit these programs led her to oppose Rapert’s motion.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, is sponsoring SB 181 and SB 184. He and Rapert have both criticized ALA for its Library Bill of Rights, which states that access to libraries should not be restricted based on a person’s age. Far-right conservatives nationwide have claimed this statement is proof that the ALA believes in forcing content about sexual activity and LGBTQ+ topics onto children.
Rapert said Friday that his opposition to ALA and sexually explicit content did not mean he wanted to “ban books” or prevent libraries from functioning as they normally do. To underscore his point about protecting children, he played the board and audience a video of a young adult claiming that school library books with LGBTQ+ themes led her to falsely believe she was a transgender boy. She said she has now “detransitioned” and identifies with her gender assigned at birth.
Board Chairwoman Deborah Knox of Mountain Home pointed out that the State Library has no jurisdiction over the books in school libraries.
Two adults who “detransitioned” testified for the state in a 2022 federal trial, defending Arkansas’ first-of-its-kind ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. A federal judge struck down the ban in 2023 and deemed the two witnesses’ testimony “irrelevant.”
Public comment
Librarians from throughout the state, including Gosselink, gathered outside the State Library headquarters on Capitol Avenue in Little Rock before Friday’s board meeting, many holding Valentine-themed signs encouraging people to “love your library.”
Four of the five Arkansans who spoke during the public comment period were library directors. The fifth, Leta Caplinger, said she and other Crawford County residents showed their love for their library by pushing back against calls for the removal of LGBTQ+ books in the county’s five library branches in 2022.
The library system eventually segregated these books into “social sections” and was on the losing end of two lawsuits over the matter, including one in which Caplinger is among 18 plaintiffs.
In December, a federal judge permanently blocked two sections of Act 372 of 2023, which Sullivan sponsored. The law would have altered libraries’ material reconsideration processes and created criminal liability for librarians who distribute content considered “obscene” or “harmful to minors.”
Crawford County will not be involved in the state’s appeal of the First Amendment-based injunction.
Caplinger denounced Sullivan’s two bills and Rapert’s attempt to remove ALA from State Library policy, saying they were “directly geared toward attacking the professionalism” of librarians.
The other three speakers – Misty Hawkins, Adam Webb and Judy Calhoun – agreed that librarians’ professional credibility and competence have been under attack for the past few years. Hawkins is the director of the Arkansas River Valley Regional Library System, and she spoke against SB 184 before the Senate committee Thursday.
Calhoun recently retired as director of the Southeast Arkansas Regional Library System, and she encouraged the State Library Board to “allow children to be parented and urge parents to be parents [and] trust librarians to do their jobs.”
Webb is the director of the Garland County Library and the president of the Arkansas Library Association, ALA’s state chapter. He is also a plaintiff in the Act 372 lawsuit.
The State Library Board is a form of “representative democracy” with its seven members required to represent different areas of the state, Webb said, expressing opposition to the possible abolition of the board.
“I encourage this board to fight for themselves and speak with legislators and make sure we still have representation,” he said.
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