So, you’re just depriving an entire community,” Foote said. They have all sorts of community events, book clubs, things to help people get out of the house. A lot of seniors aren’t necessarily computer savvy. “If you look around here, there’s quite a few senior citizens here today protesting. She pointed out the number of senior citizens protesting outside the building. Island Trees that says you cannot remove materials just because you don’t like the ideas in them,” she explained.įoote added that a library provides resources beyond it books, and it helps generations of people, including senior citizens.

And partly, the Supreme Court supports libraries in that. “That’s why you have rules and policies - because censorship really isn’t a partisan issue. One library advocate, Carolyn Foote, said that the removal of the 17 books is a “slippery slope.”įoote is co-founder of the FReadom Fighters, a group of Texas librarians fighting book bans and advocating for students. Most protestors stood outside for the duration of the meeting because of limited room inside the court. There was a line around the block of concerned residents who testified against the idea of shutting the library system down to circumvent the judge’s order. On March 30, Robert Pitman, the federal judge, ordered the 17 books to be returned to the shelves because officials had targeted them for the ideas they contain. Seven parents sued the county last year for removing access to the books. The banned books, which include themes of LGBTQ+ identity and race, were removed last year without public input, after Llano County officials declared them pornographic and sexually explicit. We will try this in the courts - not through social media or through news media,” Cunningham said.Ĭommissioners considered whether or not they would shut down their library system rather than complying with a federal judge’s order that they must return 17 banned books to the library shelves. After a contentious special meeting on Thursday, Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham announced that the county's library system will stay open.

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak