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Jul 25, 2023

As culture war battles play out across Montana, libraries chart a course forward

Mary James, director of McCone County Library in Circle, poses for a picture. The director of the Bozeman Public Library, Susan Gregory, poses for a photo at the library. It was standing room only as

Mary James, director of McCone County Library in Circle, poses for a picture.

The director of the Bozeman Public Library, Susan Gregory, poses for a photo at the library.

It was standing room only as Billings Public Library board members took public comment on issues of content in library books in early July this year.

It was standing room only as Billings Public Library board members took public comment on issues of content in library books in July, 2023.

In early July this year, it was standing room only as Billings Public Library board members took public comment on issues of content in library books.

Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part series about ideological conflicts with libraries across Montana. Part one was published Sunday and part two was published Monday.

Over the past four months, Mary James has logged a 26% overall drop in check-out rates at the George McCone Memorial County Library in Circle, south of Wolf Point. Part of that, the 20-year bookseller turned library director speculated, could be due to the fact that the town’s been “tearing up all the water mains,” making access to the library building tricky. But, James added, check-outs of kids’ fiction books are up 33%. And kids’ nonfiction? Up a whopping 62%.

James has no doubt that those increases are a result of an ongoing reorganization and refurbishment project in the children’s section, made possible by grant funding from the American Library Association. During her four-year tenure as director, James said, the library has received $16,000 from the ALA and its frequent collaborator, the Association of Small and Rural Libraries.

The funding has allowed James to purchase civics books and music resources, and will help her obtain new materials like graphic novels and audiobooks that can meet the needs of kids with reading disabilities. She added that she plans to visit local classrooms this fall and ask students for input on how to spend whatever funds remain.

Membership in the ALA has become a contentious issue across the country as some conservative library users have objected to some materials, including books and activities related to LGBTQ issues.

The conflict escalated last month when Montana State Library commissioner Tom Burnett made a motion to withdraw the state library’s membership in the national association, citing a recently resurfaced 2022 tweet by ALA President Emily Drabinski describing herself as a “Marxist lesbian.” Burnett argued that aligning the state with an organization headed by a self-proclaimed Marxist violated his oath to uphold the Montana Constitution. The motion passed 5-1.

While in Circle, James said she’ll maintain an ALA membership for her own library (the typical annual fee for an individual librarian’s membership is $155), the loss of such opportunities for small non-member libraries under the auspices of the state library’s membership was a top concern cited by librarians ahead of the commission’s withdrawal vote last month. But Montana Library Association President Kelly Reisig and others stressed to commissioners that the benefits of ALA membership are not solely financial, pointing to the organization’s congressional lobbying efforts on behalf of libraries and its ability to provide legally vetted guidance on a host of emerging issues, such as serving patrons with disabilities and managing appeals to remove certain titles. James said the state’s withdrawal from the ALA creates “an unnecessary difficulty” for smaller libraries in Montana.

“It’s going to take effort and organization to maintain the same level of service,” James said. “The state got I don’t know how many millions of dollars in grants from ALA just to help fund programs at the state level. That’s not even, I don’t think, considering the special grants that people like me have applied for and got.”

In the last two years alone, 23 Montana libraries have collectively received nearly a quarter-million dollars in grants from the ALA.

Montana State Librarian Jennie Stapp told MTFP that, from a practical standpoint, access to such resources won’t vanish. State and local library staff are still free to attend ALA conferences and webinars, and Stapp has already fielded calls from librarians outside of Montana inquiring about alternatives to the ALA, in case their states follow Montana’s lead. One option she’s referred them to is the Association of Small and Rural Libraries, itself an affiliate of the ALA. For in-state librarians, state library staff continue to provide consultation to assist community librarians with training and strategic planning.

In short, Stapp said she believes the tight-knit nature and shared values of the broader library community mean the ALA will continue to have a presence in Montana, even in the absence of state membership.

“Where libraries in Montana and the American Library Association can find common ground is in that fundamental core value of intellectual freedom,” Stapp said. “And if we can speak about that as the primary function of the library, then I do think there is a role for ALA to play.”

Only one of the Montana State Library Commission’s seven members responded to MTFP’s requests for comment: state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen. In an interview, Arntzen reiterated her stance that withdrawing from the ALA is in line with her sworn oath to uphold the Montana Constitution. She equated the situation to the firestorm that engulfed the National School Boards Association last year. In requesting federal assistance to address rising threats to educators over pandemic mask mandates, LGBTQ-themed materials and critical race theory, the organization likened certain activists to domestic terrorists, prompting Arntzen to publicly call for the Montana School Boards Association to sever ties with the national organization, which it did.

“If these associations that Montana has depended upon for so long start polarizing and being political, then it’s time for Montana to protect, defend [and] support Montana as the Constitution states,” Arntzen said. “And I did that in my vote.”

Arntzen noted that during the commission’s deliberations last month, she suggested revisiting the state’s ALA membership after President Drabinski’s term expires in July 2024. Asked whether Drabinski’s LGBTQ identity had any bearing on her vote to withdraw from the ALA, Arntzen said her decision was based “fully on the Marxist” portion of Drabinski’s tweet.

“We are a republic,” Arntzen said. “We are not led by Marxist views.”

Beckstrom and other critics of the commission’s decision have repeatedly argued that the ALA presidency — a one-year elected position — is largely ceremonial, that nothing in Drabinski’s tweet violated any state or federal law, and that her influence over ALA’s mission and its policies is limited at best. Beckstrom himself is one of 186 members of the organization’s elected council, which serves as the ALA’s governing body and determines its policies. The ALA is also led by a 12-member executive board whose members hail from libraries of various sizes throughout the country.

As a member of that governance structure, Beckstrom insists that the ALA is not actively pushing any LGBTQ agenda. What the organization and librarians across the country have been doing, he said, is promoting books that help people understand and learn about the LGBTQ community, its history and its experiences — echoing a broad belief among librarians, as summed up by Stapp, that libraries should be “a mirror” of their respective communities.

“That’s pushing a human right to have our beliefs and our feelings reflected in who we are and be able to research them and get information about them,” Lewis and Clark County Public Library’s Matt Beckstrom said. “It’s not like the ALA’s sitting there and their mission statement is, ‘Goal No. 1: Make America gay.’ That’s not what they’re doing. They’re just trying to give people the right to do what they do with the information they want.”

Nearly every source MTFP interviewed indicated that communication will be key in resolving the disputes that fueled Montana’s separation from a long-standing source of support. But passions run deep on both sides of the divide, and in the wake of Montana’s withdrawal from the ALA, library leaders around the state are concerned about their colleagues in smaller communities feeling increasingly isolated. At the Bozeman Public Library, Gregory is trying to remain hopeful about her staff’s ability to maintain a community dialogue that’s so far kept their library free from significant controversy, even as she accepts the reality of what fellow librarians elsewhere are grappling with.

“There’s a lot of fear out there. Fear of being overlooked, fear of not being heard,” she said. “One of the things that we’re trying to do here in Bozeman is make sure that when people have concerns, we take the time to listen to them and try to help them understand, ‘We hear you,’ and then put a lot of emphasis on the phrase ‘fair and balanced.’ Balanced means we’re going to have material in this library, all different kinds of opinions, and there’ll be something here that offends everybody. But that’s OK because we don’t tell people what to think or believe. They can do that for themselves.”

This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.

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