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BY America-Today July 30, 2024

Some parents in Lexington County are upset about a book on gender identity found in the children’s section of a public library. The controversy generated enough heat that the county’s library director gave a presentation on the library system’s policies and procedures to Lexington County Council on Tuesday. Library Director Kelly Poole said the book “Gender Identity for Kids” was inadvertently shelved with the children’s picture books at one library, when it should have been placed in the children’s non-fiction section. But due to the uproar it produced, Poole told council members the book has now been placed in its “parenting” section instead. This section is for books on subjects the library recommends parents check out and then read through with their children together in order to offer guidance, Poole explained. “This section is designated for caregivers, parents, grandparents to find materials that pertain to child development... to highlight materials that are best shared with a child,” Poole said. “So a parent might share materials with a child and review and discuss together.
“I think we might put more materials into this section” going forward, Poole said. The book — which is meant for readers aged 7 to 10, according to its Amazon listing — is meant to help young children understand “who they are and how they feel” by answering common questions around gender. Poole said the book is available in at least three of Lexington County’s 10 library branches. “We all acknowledge that society has different expectations,” Poole said. “There are changing interests and needs in the community, and we hope to meet that the best way possible.”
Councilman Scott Whetstone said he was alerted to the issue when a copy of the book was located in a local library in his rural district in the Pelion-Swansea area and the community “blew up” over the book. “They feel like they don’t want to see their county libraries becoming like they see the school libraries, what they call ‘woke’ libraries,” Whetstone said. “Like Ellen Weaver did her thing the other day just on that basis,” he said, referring to the state education superintendent’s decision to cut ties with the S.C. Association of School Librarians over the group’s opposition to removing books from school shelves. Poole explained that the volunteer county library board sets broad standards for the library system, and the larger branches have “content and age experts” who can handle age-appropriate materials. The library system uses several standard review journals to determine what materials libraries should staff, and that may vary from one branch to another, Poole said. But the ultimate responsibility for what books are added to the collection can rest with the individual librarians.
“It is the librarians’ responsibility to select or maintain parts of the collection at all 10 branches,” she said. A patron first raised concerns about the book about a month and a half ago, and even though no formal complaint was filed, Poole said the library decided to send it to a formal review committee that looks at challenged books, which recommended the move to the parenting section. Councilman Todd Cullum worried that despite that decision the book may be shelved differently by a librarian acting on their own. Branch library managers are discussing appropriate shelving of controversial books with their staffs, Poole said, and in the library’s unified system a book can’t have a different call number in the catalog from one branch to another.
Librarians still need to be aware that children will be searching for controversial material if they are aware of the discussion around them, Council Chairwoman Beth Carrigg said. “They might be eating breakfast with the TV on, and see discussion of a book that’s causing controversy across the country, and they think ‘I’m gonna go find that book,’” Carrigg said. Librarians discuss expectations with parents and kids when they get their library cards, Poole said, and librarians can exercise some oversight when books are being checked out. “It might be a visual prompt, where you say ‘Is mom here? Is dad here?’” she said.
But ultimately parents need to be aware of what books their children are reading, officials say. “We put too much onus on children to say ‘mom, dad, I want to talk about this,’ and not enough on parental controls, so parents are responsible for what their children are reading,” Carrigg said. Councilwoman Debbie Summers sounded a note of support for material she said could be a resource for parents looking for ways to talk about difficult issues with their children. “I can understand why certain books would be needed in the parental section, if a parent needs something to explain to their child something that’s going on in their family,” Summers said.
Poole pointed out that despite the controversy and recent discussions around the country, only about one-third of 1% of the Lexington County Library’s collection deals with LGBTQ themes. Members of the library board at Tuesday’s meeting voiced their support for Poole and current library policy.