Opinion: Keeping an eye on new Corpus Christi Library Board

My first job was in a branch library on the east side of San Antonio, which was and remains one of the lowest income areas of the city. Kids would swarm into the library after school and on Saturdays.

They were eager to read and often checked out as many books as they could carry. And it wasn’t just kids who were hungry for books. Adult men and women, who perhaps just found the library a quiet, clean and safe place, would go through the shelves, picking out a novel or a how-to-fix-it book and then just sit and read for a while.

I was just a part-timer, a college student who shelved the books and mopped the place. But I knew our mission at Carver Branch Library was straightforward: to get people to read and to read widely. That should be the job of all libraries, librarians and all supporters of libraries.

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But instead, the Corpus Christi City Council has appointed new members to the city’s library board who are affiliated with Moms for Liberty and County Citizens Defending Freedom, organizations that are dedicated to keeping people, specifically young people, from reading.

“Age appropriate reading” is the term these busybodies like to use. But this is merely book banning under another name. Literary history is littered with the names of books someone deemed unfit to be read by anyone else. Many of those once-banned books are now classics.

Note that the books in public libraries have been selected by professional librarians who weigh the educational, entertainment and intellectual value of the volumes they put up on the shelves. Can we say that about thematerial any kid with a cell phone can punch up?

Council member Dan Suckley who was among those who voted to oust three incumbent library board members, told Caller-Times writer Kirsten Crow he was disturbed by the idea that minors could access any book in the library without restrictions.

What a marvelous idea! Anybody can read any book in the public library. Is this a wonderful country or what? There are countries, of course, where certain books are kept out of the hands of the public. Too dangerous. It just gives them ideas. Best to keep that stuff locked up.

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Of course, any parent can decide what their own children should read. But “restrictions” means telling other parents what their kids can read. And once you start putting “restrictions,” it’s a slippery slope. It’s just a short step to “restricting” more books from more people.

The Library Board is where members of the public can appeal the placement of books in the city libraries. There has been scant challenges in the past. I suspect there will be many more in the future.

Nick Jimenez worked as a reporter, city editor and editorial page editor for more than 40 years in Corpus Christi, and holds the title editorial page editor emeritus for the Caller-Times.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Opinion: Keeping an eye on new Corpus Christi Library Board