Arkansas librarians grapple with enforcing book restriction law after court ruling

Arkansas library directors said they have several unanswered questions about how a 2023 state law restricting access to library materials will be enforced after a federal appeals court ruled that it can go into effect.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the injunction on two sections of Act 372 on July 30 but the formal order for the ruling to take effect hasn’t been issued yet. 

The two sections create criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider “obscene” or “harmful to minors,” and give city and county governing bodies the final say over library content.

Adam Webb, executive director of the Garland County Library and president of the Arkansas Library Association, said he hopes the appeals court’s mandate comes with clarity on how to enforce language that a lower court deemed unconstitutionally vague.

One section of Act 372 states that anyone who “furnishes, presents, provides, [or] makes available” an item that is “harmful to minors” can be charged with a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum prison sentence of one year. 

Appeals court allows Arkansas to enforce law restricting library materials

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks wrote in December 2024 that the law’s lack of specificity for terms like “furnishing” and “harmful” would create “burdens on public access to speech” that violate the First Amendment.

“We’re trying to figure out exactly what ‘harmful to minors’ would mean in the context of books when an 8-year-old can read a book, but we’re not sure if they understand all the concepts that could be in an adult fiction book,” said Webb, one of the 18 plaintiffs that challenged Act 372.

The plaintiffs’ lead attorney, John Adams, said in July that the legal team is “evaluating all available legal options, including further review by the courts.”

Preemptive measures

The Independence County Library in Batesville announced July 31 via Facebook that it would no longer allow patrons under 18 to check out manga content — comic books and graphic novels that originate from Japan — and adult-oriented graphic novels.

Library staff are combing through the restricted materials to find ones without any sexually explicit images and allow anyone to check them out, library director Carlene Morrison said Wednesday. 

Parents can check out restricted materials for their children, but the library treats those materials “like an R-rated movie” now, Morrison said.

Morrison said Batesville library staff have been “putting stickers on” books with sexually explicit prose as a warning that minors can only access those books with parental permission.

The Independence County Library’s new policy is one of three options libraries face, said Nate Coulter, executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System and another plaintiff challenging Act 372. The other options are removing books from the library entirely or risking prosecution, he said.

Before Act 372 became law, Crawford County’s five library branches in 2023 placed LGBTQ+ children’s books in “social sections” in response to outcry from local conservatives. The “social sections” included green stickers marking the books as separate from the rest of the collection.

The plaintiffs against Act 372 claim that the approach by Crawford County, which is also a defendant in the case, “is exactly what will happen everywhere” under Act 372, Coulter said.

Crawford County lost a separate federal lawsuit in 2024 after three parents alleged that isolating LGBTQ+ books violated the First Amendment. A federal judge ordered the county library system to return the books to their original sections.

Morrison said she and her colleagues consider Act 372 “ridiculous” and have told concerned patrons the library would not restrict access to books without the law.

“I hope they overturn it [in court] again and we don’t have to jump through these hoops,” she said.

Other potential impacts

Because Act 372 does not define how libraries “make available” their materials, Webb said requiring parental consent for minors to access books with adult content puts librarians in an awkward position.

“If a parent checks that book out and gives it to their minor child, do we as librarians have a duty to report that parent as having violated the law because the parent has made the material available to the child?” Webb said.

The law also applies to “anybody, even in your private home, who might want to give somebody else a book,” said Faulkner-Van Buren Regional Library executive director John McGraw.

Webb and McGraw said they are concerned about the impact on their library systems’ “little free libraries,” to which anyone can contribute. Since libraries are “providing the venue,” one could argue that they make materials available even if they’re stocked by members of the public, Webb said.

Coulter noted that the law could impede libraries’ ability to host story time for young children or civics classes for middle or high school students because they might be in the vicinity of books with sexual content. Civics classes help students get community service hours required under the LEARNS Act of 2023, one of Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ signature laws.

“What do I tell the parents who are happy that their kids will get some service credit hours to graduate by coming to the library?” Coulter said.

Arkansas Explained: Proposal aimed at restricting access to ‘sexually explicit’ library books

Proposed library funding rules

The removal of the injunction on Act 372 comes as the Arkansas Department of Education has been considering new rules that hinge public libraries’ funding on ensuring patrons age 16 or younger cannot check out materials that depict or describe sexual contact and behavior.

The Arkansas State Library Board will meet Friday to consider sending the rules to a legislative panel for further approval. Sanders appointed all six board members.

Dozens of Arkansans told the education department in June that they oppose the draft rules. Library directors have said some libraries are too small, with many having only one room, to relocate certain materials so children can’t reach them.

Public libraries already had content challenge policies before Act 372. McGraw said any removal or relocation of a book should happen only “by policy and not because of hysteria.”

Coulter said he finds it frustrating that the state’s attempts to police library content imply that libraries and librarians are unsafe for children.

“Public librarians are not in the group that you should lie awake at night worrying about your kids [being around], and to raise up teachers and librarians as a threat to your children is a mind-boggling thing,” he said.