Dear editor:
I throw up in my mouth a little bit, every time Republican legislators use the term "common sense," to refer to their own personal opinion, as Rep. Ann Lucas did in her recent guest column.
As a retired librarian, with 20-years of experience in the field, I can explain why professional librarians use the term "book ban."
Librarians choose what books to include in library collections based upon the positive elements of the book, rather than exclude books because of negative elements.
Most libraries' collection-development policies discuss how to evaluate and weigh negative elements of a book, in ratio to the positive elements.
When books that are already in the collection, selected in accord with collection-development policy, are removed due to objection, librarians properly refer to that as book-banning.
The Freedom Caucus members in our legislature want to pretend they just discovered this issue of dirty books, but these kind of controversies are hardly new.
Early in my library career, Madonna's book "Sex" caused a significant controversy in libraries across the country. That was in 1992!
The Madonna book is filled with explicit photographs and text describing Madonna's sexual fantasies.
It was an expensive coffee table book, and Madonna was one of the biggest celebrities at that time, so there was a high demand for public libraries to purchase this book.
Most libraries deemed the book to be erotic, rather than pornographic; and purchased it, in accord with their collection-development policies.
Predictably, The Madonna book became a lightning rod for both support and opposition, leading to public hearings, protests, and restrictions on access.
The controversy sparked debates about freedom of speech, community standards, people deciding for other people what they could read, the role of libraries in circulating potentially controversial materials, and the impacts in children.
Whatever books are in Wyoming public and school libraries, they are there because they were selected by professional librarians, in accord with longstanding collection-development policies.
But 801 votes in her Republican primary means that Rep. Lucas is suddenly the world's foremost authority on everything, and thus, she is obligated to tell professional teachers, librarians, scientists, and doctors what to do.
Those 801 votes are equivalent to a PhD in common sense from Trump University. Lucas does not name any books, so it is hard to pose a counter-argument.
However, she does claim that some unnamed book is a "how-to manual on anal sex."
Here's some common sense from my grandfather: "Anything worth doing is worth doing right."
As a professional, I would argue that anal sex is a common practice, but there are some serious health hazards that go with it, therefore information about how to do it safely should not be prohibited in public and high school libraries.
Here's some more common sense. If Wyoming legislators are paying themselves to work outside of their actual sessions on these special committees, they should have to address major issues in Wyoming that were not addressed in the regular session, like Medicaid Expansion, marijuana reform, and climate change.
These are complicated issues, with strong public interest.
That's what special sessions are for, not this culture war fertilizer, that is distraction from the legislature's failure at substantive governance.
Sincerely,
Gina Douglas, Casper
