Less than five months remain before libraries across Alberta hit a deadline to comply with new restrictions on their collections.
But with a heavy workload and rising costs potentially required to comply with the restrictions, some librarians have lingering questions about how the regulations will be applied.
The restrictions are a result of Bill 28, and call for Alberta’s public libraries to restrict access to materials — including books, graphic novels, magazines, films, TV series and video games — that contain a visual depiction of a sexual act. The new regulations prevent anyone 15 years old or younger from using or borrowing the newly restricted materials without a parent or guardian’s permission.
Libraries have until Jan. 1 to identify what to restrict, where to store them and decide how to regulate their access.
Lesley Moody, manager for the Olds Municipal Library, said some of the bill’s supporters don’t seem to realize this work is more complicated than pulling a few titles off the shelf.
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Her library has a collection of roughly 1,500 graphic novels alone to comb through. In some novels with hundreds of illustrated panels, staff will need to search for what could be a handful of drawings that require a book to be restricted.
“Because there is no specific list being provided to us by the provincial government, it will require all of us to meticulously go through every single book in our graphic novel collections,” Moody said.
Moody estimated her staff will need around 600 hours, translating to $15,000 in labour, just to review the graphic novels in their collection.
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The cost her library faces only gets higher to assess DVDs, video games and other books with images in their collection, buy new shelving units for the restricted materials, and create new workflows and policies around library cards for kids and parental permissions.
Moody said she’s confident her staff is large enough to review their collection without needing to temporarily close to the public, but smaller libraries may have to take that step.
“If you only have one or two [staff] in a library and you have a deadline of January 1, possibly the only option for you is to completely close the library while you comply, which is a very sad thought for a lot of communities that need to have a public library open,” said Moody.
The province has said it plans to release guidelines this month advising libraries how to adjust or create new policies in response to Bill 28, which Ron Sheppard, director of the Parkland Regional Library System, said he’s very anxious to see.
Sheppard said he wants to know if the restrictions will apply to educational materials, or to history books with pictures of Greek vases or ancient temples that feature explicit imagery.
He also wants to know whether libraries can rely on ratings systems for films and video games, rather than librarians needing to view entire collections.
“There is a legal definition for pornography, and nothing, to my understanding, in any Alberta library meets that legal definition of pornography,” said Sheppard, who is also a member of the Coalition of Alberta Public Libraries’ steering committee.
“So then it becomes subjective.”
Sheppard said some libraries with little free space have considered storing all restricted materials in a warehouse off-site or at regional library headquarters like Parkland’s.
He also has questions about access to online resources. Boards are expected to apply the same restrictions to e-books and audiobooks, but Sheppard noted they are often borrowed through third-party vendors, like Libby, that are housed in another country.
Jack Alarie, press secretary for Alberta’s Municipal Affairs ministry, said Bill 28 is only meant to ensure children do not stumble across explicit images in a public library.
“We’re talking about access controls, not censorship, and no library will be told to remove anything from its shelves,” said Alarie via email.
Libraries have already used professional standards for decades to curate their collections and separate materials based on what’s age-appropriate, said Ken Feser, chief librarian at the Medicine Hat Public Library, and set up processes to take public complaints.
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Feser said he’s concerned the new restrictions will make some materials less visible to the public, making them essentially disappear.
“Burying a book is almost as effective as burning a book, and they’re really asking us to bury these books,” said Feser.
“They need to be moved from public shelves, they need to be placed somewhere in some back corner or locked storage area where they can’t be viewed.”
He added he’s concerned some libraries may eventually refuse to carry some books if they lead to too many complaints, or that a stigma could be attached to borrowing restricted books, similar to movies behind beaded curtains in old video stores.
Feser said the new restrictions treat libraries as adversaries, after years of co-operative work with the province.
“It’s an abrupt change and it has nothing to do with anything the libraries did,” Feser said.
Calgary Public Library CEO Sarah Meilleur said she cannot speculate on how the new restrictions could affect their work, but that her team intends to update the public when they know more.
The province’s decision follows a similar order to school libraries. Action4Canada was an interest group that celebrated the decision, and its founder, Tanya Gaw, expressed support last week for Bill 28’s new restrictions.
“Action4Canada believes it is of the highest priority to protect children’s innocence. They should not be exposed to pornographic and sexually explicit materials within schools, school libraries or publicly-funded libraries. Period,” said Gaw via email.
Bill 28 also gives an expanded scope for inspectors to investigate any matter related to a library’s management, administration or operation. But Sheppard said it’s still unclear how the inspection process will work.
“It is an area of considerable angst for many library managers, because they don’t know what will trigger an inspection,” said Sheppard.
“They don’t know if they will even know that there is a complaint lodged until an inspector shows up. They also don’t know what kind of action they’re going to be forced to take.”
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Alarie said the inspections are no different from what already applies to municipalities, adding that the province expects them to occur rarely, with the intent to “fix problems, not to punish.”
Kelsey Chic, library manager for the Carmangay and District Municipal Library, argued the inspection process risks taking too much authority away from local decision-making, after staff have typically curated collections tailored to their individual communities.
“It’s local people at a local level making decisions for the local people. I don’t need someone in Edmonton telling me what people in Carmangay need,” said Chic.
Carmangay is a village of just under 300 people, roughly 122 kilometres southeast of Calgary.
Throughout the summer, Chic has posted videos to social media informing her community about her criticisms of Bill 28, and how the library’s operations could change. She said she wanted library users to know the issue wasn’t as black and white as some may believe.
“They’re like, ‘Well yeah, we don’t want kids reading porn.’ No one does,” Chic said. “We don’t have porn in libraries, I promise you. Hustler is not next to our HGTV magazine.”
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James Turk, director at the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, said that according to his organization’s data, there have been just 85 challenges to books for children and young adults in Alberta libraries in the last decade, showing little basis to introduce new restrictions.
Libraries should bring a constitutional challenge forward against the restrictions, Turk said, arguing it limits freedom of expression rights for young library users.
Whether Alberta’s libraries push back or not, Turk said librarians across Canada are watching closely to see how the restrictions in Alberta unfold.
“If this is successful in Alberta, libraries in the rest of the country are quite fearful there’s going to be a major push, as there was in Alberta, to get legislation of this sort,” said Turk.
