Libraries' Policy Falls Short of Protecting Children

By Jim Brown
February 27, 2006

(AgapePress) - A decision by libraries in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, regarding access to controversial children's books is being cast by some concerned citizens as merely a cosmetic move to appease critics of the books. The city's Library Commission voted 12 to 1 to move children's books that deal with sensitive topics to a separate area of the libraries.

Libraries in the Oklahoma City-County system will now have a "Parenting Collection," where they will keep books on alternative lifestyles, sex, and drug use. However, Lynn Rahman of the group Oklahomans for School Accountability believes more could be done to protect children from objectionable material.

Rahman says the Commission members are "trying to allay fears without really making an actual move." A bigger and more effective step for the library system officials to take would be to actually move the books from the children's section, she insists, "not just to a higher shelf, because children can take books down and they can leave them laying around on tables and everywhere else, and a parent could simply do the same thing."

Among the 37 children's books in the Parenting Collection is King and King, an illustrated storybook featuring two princes who get married and share a kiss at the story's end. Other books in the collection address many sensitive topics, including homosexuality and premarital sex.

Rahman feels the Library Commission's policy of moving the controversial books to higher shelves does not adequately protect children since anyone who uses the book in the library could easily leave it unshelved and it would "just be lying there anyway, in the same section."

Besides, the Oklahomans for School Accountability spokeswoman notes, parents are wrong to think the problem of inappropriate materials is isolated to public libraries. "The school library has just as many bad books, if not more, than the public library," she contends.

"So [whether] in the public schools or public school libraries," Rahman advises parents, "they really need to keep an eye on what their children grab a hold of." She believes library books containing sexually explicit and profane content are making their way into schools much faster than they are being removed.

Libraries' 'Parenting Collection' Policy Falls Short of Protecting Children, Group Contends