Porn to be Moved to Adult Section
Weirdly, HEPL admits no fault and will also move several hundred additional titles
By bit and bridle, the public managed on Thursday to convince Library Director Edra Waterman, with authorization from the Library Board, to move two books—along with hundreds of others that nobody asked about—from the section of the library for 11-17 year olds to the adult section. One of the books was pornographic and encouraged teens to go online to seek out further porn and talk to strangers about sexual fantasies and “kink”. The other book contained a checklist—one that looks to me like a tool for “grooming” children for sexual abuse—that asked children extremely detailed and graphic questions about their sexual interests.
Why did Edra Waterman change course? She did not say. In January, she said that these materials were appropriately shelved in the section for 11-17 year olds. In her remarks about this new plan on Thursday, she did not distance herself from her January opinion, and she continued to describe the books to be moved as “for teen audiences” and “geared toward a high-school audience” which, she noted, is how they will continue to be categorized in the library catalog. She also stressed that the new location of these materials reflected one among a “variety of approaches” to teen non-fiction that are standard in public libraries. So my read is that she thinks there was nothing wrong with where the books were, but that shelving them in the adult section is also acceptable to her, as long as we move the whole non-fiction collection and don’t single out the porn. Wouldn’t want to admit there was anything troubling in particular about the porn, I guess!
Library Board Member Laura Alerding is the one Board member who consistently supported the effort to move the books. Not a single one of the other six board members has ever responded to my questions and arguments, or so much as commented on the substantive issues about porn in the library. No one has admitted any fault or error in judgment on the two titles in question. Moreover, it appears that nobody will be held accountable by the current Library Board.
If I may speculate, my own sense is that HEPL is largely run by Ms. Waterman, with the Board voting unanimously for whatever she wants. In 2021, the Board voted on forty-five motions over the course of the year. Fully forty-four of those were passed unanimously. The one exception was Laura Alerding, who at the August 26 meeting voted against Board Member Bill Crandall’s motion to affirm the HEPL’s existing policies with regard to “access to children’s materials”. Mr. Crandall made this motion after a local mother complained about just the sorts of issues that I have been writing about since December. He evidently wanted to dishearten her. The motion passed 5-1. Ms. Alerding is brave and reasonable, but she’s alone on the Board, and it’s hard to be the only one against five others. We need to provide her with some reinforcements.
Nevertheless, we have a victory this week. We have shown that reason and common sense and goodness can prevail with determination. I’ve been so encouraged to see brave mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers speaking passionately on behalf of their children. Thank you to all who showed up and spoke so well.
Our next step comes when one of the County Council’s Library Board appointments comes up for reappointment, which could be this summer or even sooner. We need to make sure that a reasonable person fills that seat. Then, we must take majorities on the HSE and Noblesville School Boards in the November election. Once that happens, we will hopefully have a chance to put library leadership in place that does not continue to jeopardize public confidence.
One silver lining of this whole situation: it has revealed who is unfit for further public service. HSE Board member Janet Pritchett spoke against moving the porn to the adult section at the emergency meeting in early February, calling it an act of censorship. In my view, this disqualifies her from holding any public office that grants her authority over minors.
Many of us, including me, have not been paying attention to local politics for a long time. Well, we are paying attention now. We are wide awake, and we’re not going away. Let’s soundly defeat the “porn for kids” crowd in November.