One person filed nearly two dozen requests to relocate books in the Eagle Public Library, prompting trustees to move the titles to an adult section last month, according to emails obtained by Idaho Education News.
The city of Eagle, which oversees the library board of trustees, is shielding the identity of the filer, citing a state law that protects information that would identify someone using a library item. But it’s unclear whether the anonymous filer used any of the challenged books. Two of the books have not been checked out in at least two years, according to library circulation records.
Eagle’s decision to protect the filer’s identity is one example of a broader dilemma, which has surfaced as library materials across the nation have faced increasing scrutiny. Public libraries have long safeguarded the privacy of the people who use their resources, and most states have confidentiality laws similar to Idaho’s.
But whether the same privacy rights should be extended to those seeking to remove or relocate a book is an unsettled question. Eagle is handling its relocation requests differently than other libraries and school districts, including the Boise Public Library and Kuna School District, which are not redacting the names of filers.
Some librarians believe users’ privacy should be protected no matter the circumstance, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Others argue that there shouldn’t be an expectation of privacy for a request to limit someone else’s access to public resources.
“There’s certainly a tension in this issue,” Caldwell-Stone told EdNews by phone.
One person challenges 23 books
It didn’t take long for Eagle’s anonymous filer to employ a new state law that gives sharper teeth to book relocation requests.
Prior to the “Children’s School and Library Protection Act,” adopted earlier this year as House Bill 710, Idaho libraries had processes in place for patrons to request relocating or removing materials. The new law added a private right of action, which gave minor library patrons or their parents standing to sue if they find unrestricted material deemed “harmful” to children.
On July 24, a little more than three weeks after the law went into effect, someone filed 25 “written notices to relocate library materials” with the Eagle Public Library. The forms are meant to notify library staff and trustees that unrestricted material in the library could meet the new law’s definition of “harmful.”
Library officials have 60 days after these forms are filed to review the book, film or other content and decide whether to remove the material or relocate it to an adults-only section.
On Sep. 13, the anonymous Eagle filer sent an email to library board members and city officials to remind them of the upcoming 60-day deadline and to promise to follow up with “extensive details” about each book.
“I submitted a request for 25 inappropriate books to be transferred from the children’s section to the adult section of the Eagle Public Library,” said the message, which EdNews obtained through a public records request. “As the 60-day deadline approaches I want to make sure that everyone on the board is aware of the situation … Let’s work together to keep our children safe from this smut.”
Library board chairwoman Candice Hopkins responded 16 minutes later. She said the board planned to review the books at its next meeting, and she invited the filer to speak during the public comment section of the meeting. The filer did not speak at the meeting, according to a recording archived online.
EdNews previously obtained all requests to relocate books filed with the Eagle Public Library since July 1. Someone filed 25 requests on July 24, but two of the forms were left blank, possibly by mistake.
The library board considered the other 23 requests in a closed-door discussion on Sept. 18, and trustees voted to relocate all of them. Twenty books were moved to the adult section and three were placed behind the library desk, where patrons must request them.
The library received multiple complaints about four of the titles that the unnamed filer had challenged on July 24.
How many books were relocated?
Since the Eagle library board’s Sept. 18 meeting, there have been conflicting reports of the number of books relocated, and EdNews erred in its initial reporting.
The motion that trustees approved during last month’s meeting included 23 titles, according to an archived recording of the meeting.
EdNews initially reported that 24 books were relocated. But that figure inadvertently separated one book title, “We Know It Was You: A Strange Truth Novel” by Maggie Thrash, into two titles.
Other news outlets have reported that 25 books were relocated, citing Eagle trustee Brian Almon, but that figure does not line up with the motion. Almon wrote in a column following the September meeting that trustees considered 25 requests, which may be the source of conflicting totals.
EdNews’ original story has been updated.
Eagle declines to offer evidence justifying redactions
The city of Eagle, which manages library public records requests, has withheld the names, addresses and contact information of the individuals who filed requests to relocate library books. The July 24 filer’s name was redacted from email records as well.
Eagle cited a decades-old state law that protects information that would reveal the identity of someone “checking out, requesting, or using an item from a library.”
This exemption has existed since at least 1990, according to historical documents obtained from the Legislative Service Office’s research library. That year, the Legislature adopted the Public Records Act, the sweeping section of statutes that set the parameters for records requests and enumerated the instances where records should be withheld from public inspection.
Library records exemption
According to Idaho Code 74-108(4), records exempt from disclosure include:
“…records of a library that, when examined alone or when examined with other public records, would reveal the identity of the library patron checking out, requesting, or using an item from a library.”
EdNews asked Eagle’s public information officer, Dana Biberston, to provide evidence showing city officials had verified that filers checked out, requested or used a library book before shielding their identities and citing the records exemption.
Biberston declined to answer questions and pointed EdNews to the law that grants requesters the right to appeal a records denial in District Court.
Meanwhile, EdNews requested circulation records for the 23 relocated books. The data shows the when the books were checked out, requested by a patron or moved to another section of the library.
Two of the books relocated last month — “The Trauma Cleaner” and “SuperMutant Magic Academy” — have not been checked out in at least the last two years, according to the data. Nor has a patron requested they be transferred to Eagle from another library.
Circulation dates for the other 21 books are sporadic. One was last checked out on Feb. 26, 2024, another on Oct. 15, 2023. More popular titles, like Sarah Maas’ fantasy series, are frequently checked out and requested by patrons.
There’s no clear pattern from the circulation records that would indicate one person checked out all 23 books before filing relocation requests. This is not to say that the filer didn’t read the challenged books, at the Eagle Public Library or elsewhere.
But it’s unclear how Eagle officials could verify that a filer checked out, requested or used any of the library’s copies of the challenged items — actions that would justify the exemption.
Why do libraries protect patrons’ privacy?
Forty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have laws protecting library users’ privacy, according to the American Library Association, a Chicago-based advocacy group. The nonprofit also includes patron confidentiality in its Library Bill of Rights, a list of seven guiding principles, first codified in 1939, that ALA recommends libraries follow.
This privacy tradition is rooted in safeguarding the freedom to read and research without fear of censorship, social stigma or reprisal from government actors, including law enforcement, Caldwell-Stone said.
“The library profession has long held that in order to have true intellectual freedom — the freedom to explore ideas, to think for oneself, form one’s own beliefs — confidentiality and privacy is…essential,” she said.
Whether requests to remove or relocate library books should be afforded the same privacy protection is a “fair question,” Caldwell-Stone said. And the context of the request matters.
ALA collects censorship data from libraries and media reports across the U.S. These challenges tend to not come from a parent who read a single book and brought their concerns to a librarian, Caldwell-Stone said.
“Most challenges are multi-title challenges that often reflect lists taken from websites that are urging the censorship of particular books, like LGBTQ-themed books or books addressing race or racism,” she said.
Eagle is handling its relocation requests differently than other libraries and school districts in the Treasure Valley. The Kuna school board this month shared an unredacted copy of a challenge to a high school library book, and the complainant defended her request during a public meeting. The Boise and Nampa public libraries have posted unredacted relocation requests online.
Determining which process abides by the law would likely take a court ruling. While some states have public records ombudsmen, who resolve conflicts over records access, Idaho’s only legal recourse for challenging a records denial is an appeal to District Court.
Court battle over library challenges led to transparency reform in Colorado
In Colorado, a recent court ruling on library privacy led policymakers to amend state law, making book relocation requests transparent.
In 2022, the Gunnison County Library District asked a court to answer whether library privacy law shielded the identity of people who file relocation requests, according to reporting from the Crested Butte News.
Colorado’s statute is similar to the Idaho’s library privacy law, but it applies to different public library uses. The Colorado law protects the identity of patrons who use a library “service,” while the Idaho statute shields the identity of a patron who uses a library “item.”
The Gunnison library’s director, Drew Brookhart, and the newspaper’s editor both argued that the identities of complainants should be public.
“The bottom line to me, the newspaper, and Drew Brookhart and the local library district, is that if people want to argue for policy changes to public institutions like the public library, we are good with that,” Crested Butte News editor Mark Reaman wrote in a column last year. “…But I am not good with doing it behind the cowardly cloak of anonymity and we will keep fighting to have what should be public discussions in the public.”
After interpreting the “plain language” of the statute, a Colorado Court of Appeals judicial panel ruled against the library and newspaper. Filing a relocation request with the library qualified as using a library service, and the privacy statute applied.
In May, about eight months after the appeals court ruling, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill, passed by the Colorado General Assembly, that updated the statute.
The new law says a request to relocate or remove a library book does not qualify as an identifying library-user record, and is not exempt from disclosure. In other words, the identities of people who file relocation requests cannot be shielded.
