After the Jackson-Madison County Library received a letter from individuals who expressed concern over books shelved in the Youth Area of the library that contain explicit sexual content, graphic violence, incest, human trafficking, and themes conflicting with the community’s family values, members of the library management and board researched the matter.

“We did look at the books (and) some of the language is strong sexually and we agreed not to take those out of the library but to simply move them from the Young adult section to the adult section,” Phillip Mullins said. “We added a line to the form when you get a library card saying if you want your child to have access to the adult area or not and you sign that form or check that box – saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – you say ‘yes’ your child has access.”

Phillip Mullins is the Board Chair of the Jackson-Madison County Library.

“We had 46 books challenged in the library that felt they met the definition of obscenity or pornography,” Mullins said. “They turned in 46 forms to evaluate – our findings – we don’t believe we have any books in the library obscene or pornographic.

“We do not believe any book we have by state law is obscene. You may not like the wording in it and I may not like the wording in it – but to be obscene there is a three-prong test to determine if something is obscene. Just because something has a sexual scene in it, the whole book is not about that sexual scene.

“We try to serve the community at large.”

Facts about the books being challenged –

Of the 46 books – one was not in the collection of the library

2 had already been moved to the adult section

2 were to be weeded out in the next weeding, which will leave 41 books in question

Of the 41, 21 had been checked out by a teenager

Of the 21, they represent 29 teens

Of those 29, only 16 currently still have cards

These books represent less than 1% of the teen collection

These teens only represent less than one-third of 1% of all teens in Madison County

“If you take one excerpt out of a book, and you read that one excerpt, you can say that is horrible,” Mullins said. “But when you look at State law for obscenity, it has to be the book in its totality – the book as a whole, not that it has one place in it that is objectionable.”