Arkansas booksellers and librarians have filed a lawsuit challenging a new state law that would punish them with up to a year in prison for providing “harmful” books to people under age 18.
The plaintiffs also contest a section of the law that requires county and municipal libraries to establish written guidelines for the “selection, relocation and retention” of materials, including a process for individuals to challenge their “appropriateness” and request that they be moved to an area inaccessible to children.
Kandi West, the primary owner of WordsWorth Books in Little Rock, a plaintiff in the suit, expressed concerns about how to interpret the law’s definition of making material “available” to a minor. “While our store is organized with our children’s section in its own part of the store, there is nothing that keeps a minor from browsing the entire store,” she wrote in an email.
“We’re asking ourselves all kinds of questions, like: Would we need to be checking IDs for certain books? What if we accidentally sold something that someone considers ‘harmful’?” Jordan said. “Are we going to have a separate entrance for children and a separate entrance for adults?”If the law went into effect, he added, “I think we’d need to probably decide if we’re an adults-only bookstore, 18-plus, or a children’s-only bookstore.
This would pose extreme difficulties for the state’s smallest libraries, which lack the space to cordon off an age-restricted area or the staff to ensure compliance, said Nate Coulter, executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock, the lead plaintiff. “Is your whole library ‘adults only’?” Coulter asked. “Somebody was joking that it’s like a dispensary for controlled substances, with officers at the door.
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