— Nicole Fay Barr

GUILDERLAND — John Daly says it’s his obligation, as an elected trustee of the Guilderland Public Library, to warn parents about the books their teenagers are reading.
At a library board meeting tonight, Daly will propose labeling young-adult books — which he feels have sexually-explicit content — with orange, "PG Rec" (Parental Guidance Recommended) stickers. Books determined to be free of sexually-explicit material would be marked with green stickers.

Taxpaying residents are counting on him to alert them to racy books their teenage children may be reading, he said.
"We’re responsible for the quality and character of the books on the shelves," Daly said. "My proposed amendment is timely because our trustees are reviewing the policies."

The library’s director, Barbara Nichols Randall, however, is opposed to labeling books. She told The Enterprise it is the library’s duty, personal opinions aside, to make all kinds of material available to the public. A labeling system, she also said, may turn teenagers away from the library.

Matthew Goland-Van Ryn, a high school student who is a non-voting member of the library board, said parents should be accountable for what their children are doing. If the parents don’t agree with these kinds of books, they should stop their children from reading them.
"It’s not the librarian’s responsibility to police what children read," he said. He plans on speaking at tonight’s meeting against the policy.

Offensive material"

Daly got the idea for the labeling policy in February, after he read an article on young-adult literature in The New York Times by Dinitia Smith.

The article, a feature on award-winning writer Francesca Lia Block, describes the edgy material in her books.
"She took up subjects like homosexuality and out-of-wedlock sex and presented them in a non-judgmental way," Smith quotes a public-school librarian.

What Daly got from the Times article is that authors who write for the young-adult genre, ages 12 to 16, are writing material more sexually-advanced than the people reading it, he said.
"The article said this isn’t the type of material you’d expect on the shelves of the library," Daly said.
He then decided to see what kinds of books the Guilderland library has on its shelves. He read eight or nine young-adult books and found two "with sexually-explicit material," he said.

Daly gave The Enterprise photocopies of a few pages of the books — Forever by Judy Blume and The Hanged Man by Francesca Lia Block — that he felt were sexually explicit.

In the first excerpt, Page 74 of Forever, the author describes a teenage couple having sex for the first time, followed by the pair promising they will love each other forever.
In another scene, on Page 97, it says, "We both left on our underpants but after a minute Michael was easing mine down and then his fingers began exploring me. I let my hands wander across his stomach and down his legs and finally I began to stroke Ralph....
"We covered up with the patchwork quilt and rested. Michael fell asleep for a while and I watched him, thinking the better you know a person the more you can love him...."

The excerpts Daly selected from The Hanged Man, many which include drug use, are of random sexual encounters the main character has several times with men and once with a woman.
On Page 116, it says, "Jack is standing above us and he pulls on Claudia’s curls so her head falls back. I see his legs straining and his erection. He leans down and kisses Claudia’s lipsticky mouth. She seems to soften under him, to kind of wilt like roses in the heat. I stand, thinking about each breath; I want the night outside the window, far away in the hills, I want to live in the leaves."

It shocked Daly that these passages were available to teenagers, he said.
"There’s descriptions of sexual intercourse, oral sex...masturbation, and other contact with genitalia," Daly said of the two books. He is now proposing that this type of content be labeled.
"....I say the library has an obligation to help parents be aware of books that have sexually-explicit material and decide for themselves," if they want their teenagers to read the books, he said.
"We fund the purchase of the books with taxpayers’ money," Daly said. "We set the policies; the trustees are elected by the people. We’re entrusted and we have an obligation to alert parents."

Disagreeing readers
"We’ve used the same material-selection policy since 1988," Nichols Randall told The Enterprise. "I believe it’s worked."

Parents have never complained about the library’s young-adult collection, she said.
"As librarians, it’s part of our ethical code or professional code of conduct to provide materials of all kinds for the community," Nichols Randall said. "We try to purchase things that are on all sides of an issue."

She declined to comment on specific books or answer questions about how appropriate it is for teenagers to read them.
"My personal opinion has nothing to do with my job as a librarian," she said. "Under the code of ethics, personal opinions are not to be brought into the workplace....
"I think we have the best library in the Capital District and we strive to provide materials for all of the community," Nichols Randall said. "We have tried to increase participation in the library with teenage patrons and we have been successful in doing so. I’d hate to see use go backwards."

Goland-Van Ryn, a 17-year-old who petitioned to run for the library board last year but wasn’t old enough, was made a non-voting member of the board; he disagrees with Daly’s proposal.
"I understand where he’s coming from, but I don’t agree with it," said Goland-Van Ryn.

The labeling system will draw more attention to books with sexual content, he said, making them easy to find for teenagers seeking these kinds of books.
"That’s against what he’s trying to accomplish," Goland-Van Ryn said of Daly.

He went on that it’s up to the parents to monitor what their teenager is reading. He said his parents ask him what he is reading and, at times, review the books themselves.
"That’s not the librarian’s responsibility," he said.

Most teenagers know about sex, Goland-Van Ryn said. Those who don’t, he said, aren’t going to the library to find out about it.

Teenagers who don’t want to read books with labels, he said, will drive 15 minutes to the Bethlehem library and take out the same books.
"So, the policy will be very ineffective," he said.

Policy discussion

The library has policies for the type of books it selects and staff members then decide which books to purchase.

Books are chosen based on the library’s guidelines. For example, they must appear in the catalogue of the Upper Hudson Library Association, a not-for-profit organization that works with libraries in Albany and Rensselaer counties.

Employees of the Guilderland library read at least four reviews of books they are considering, Daly said. But, he said, the reviews do not usually indicate sexually-explicit material.

At first, his proposal suggested that employees of the library label each young-adult book, either with a green or orange sticker. On Monday, Daly came to the Enterprise office with a revision to his proposal. Now it says that each library employee shall evaluate only five percent of the newly-acquired young-adult books.
"This is to minimize the workload we’re putting on the staff and to make the proposal more acceptable to board members," Daly said. Each year, he said, the library gets about 1,500 new young-adult books.

In a letter dated May 2, Daly wrote of his original proposal to library trustees and to a committee that is reviewing the library’s policies. A special meeting was held by this committee and Daly had hoped it would adopt his changes.

But, the committee unanimously decided that it would not recommend Daly’s proposal to the library’s board of trustees, said board president Robert Ganz.

Daly is now independently bringing the proposal to the board of trustees. At the committee’s meeting, however, seven trustees of the 11-member board were present, Daly said. (The board currently has 10 members, but six are still needed for a majority vote.)

Of the group, five spoke of their concern about these two books, he said, and the other two remained silent.
"One said, ‘I wouldn’t buy this for my kid,’" Daly reported. "Another said, ‘How did this book get on the shelf"’ And, another said, ‘This stuff is filthy.’"

Asked about this, Ganz said that he recalled some trustees commenting that they wouldn’t choose to read these books or they weren’t aware that young-adult books contained this much sexual material.

But, Ganz said, the trustees agreed that their personal opinions about certain books has nothing to do with a labeling system.
"There were trustees there that expressed, although they would not choose to read the books, they wouldn’t put value judgments on pieces of literature," Ganz said.
Daly is upset, he said, that the committee members didn’t take action against the books. "The proposal I’m offering is gentle," Daly said. "I’m only rocking the boat a little bit....There’s no banning of books, no censorship."

At the library board’s meeting tonight (Thursday), at 7:30, the board of trustees will vote on Daly’s proposal. In a letter to the trustees, Ganz outlined special rules for the meeting.

Ganz wrote that, because of press coverage, he expects 100 people to attend the meeting.
"In order to make our debate an experience that we can all be proud of, reflect the best values of citizen government (and to conclude at a reasonable hour)," he wrote, trustees will have less time to have discussions and present reports.

The first 30 people at the meeting can sign a sheet indicating they want to speak, Ganz wrote. They will be allowed three minutes each.
Daly said this week that he feared those opposing his policy are "mobilizing the community" and they will take up most of the meeting speaking against it.
"I don’t see anything in the proposed rules or special procedures that are in any way favoring one side of the issue or another," Ganz told The Enterprise in response. The rules wouldn’t be in place, he said, unless the majority of trustees agreed with them.

Ganz also said that trustees have had the opportunity to discuss the proposal at length at the committee meetings. If tonight’s meeting were not structured, he said, arguments would go back and forth all night.