State law targets library book bans, but not here

“We made some edits, but we had most of it in place already,” Austin said.

According to the American Library Association, 18 books were challenged in California’s public schools and libraries in 2014, which increased to 98 by 2024. That number is still much lower compared to states like Virginia, Texas, Florida and Kentucky, which all had at least four times the number of challenges — in some cases more than 20 times. Cases arising in California have also tended to draw ire from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who also signed into law Assembly Bill 1078 in 2023, which targeted book banning practices in schools.

Over the couple years, a Temecula school board tried to ban supplemental material referencing the assassinated San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. Even Fresno County Supervisor Steve Brandau tried to challenge the availability of books with LGBTQ characters as part of a Pride celebration book display.

But Austin and Assistant Library Director Adam Elsholz said they haven’t seen similar controversies at the South City location. Over his 11-year tenure, Elsholz said they received one complaint over a sex education book, which they ended up moving to a different section of the library.

“I know there have been protests for the drag queen story time, but we did a drag queen story time in 2024, and there were no protests or angry emails or letters,” Elsholz said.

In San Mateo, Library Director James Moore said he’s received a few removal requests in his eight years at the city, though none of them have ever resulted in a removal.

“We try our best to have a balanced point of view. We try our best to have liberal, conservative and everything in between, and the questions and challenges don't just come from the right. It comes from the left as well,” he said. “I've never had a patron walk away still mad, after explaining that we have to have things that they may not personally agree with but we’re going to do it in a way that's respectful to people.”

While they haven’t faced serious pressure to remove a book, the library was one of many that former actor Kirk Cameron reached out about hosting an event for his new Christian children’s book. The issue was covered on conservative-leaning outlets about the liberal majority cities refusing to host such an event, though Moore said that wasn’t quite accurate.

“We choose authors to come read here based on the level of interest the community shows,” Moore said. “And in this case, we were not getting any feedback from the community saying, ‘this is a children's author we really want.’ If the community had said that, we would’ve been open to it.”

Overall, library circulation in both South City and San Mateo has seen a healthy recovery since the pandemic, although the latter’s Hillsdale and Marina branches haven’t seen as much circulation as previous years. Elsholz said, unsurprisingly, the switch to digital media has spiked since the pandemic. Between 2019 and 2020, the library saw 38,000 digital items in circulation compared to about 100,000 last year.

The city also opened its doors to a brand-new library and recreation center at the end of 2023, which they said has helped boost the number of visitors, including students, as the building is situated closer to two high schools. In San Mateo, check-outs for ebooks and other digital media have gone up by 80%, and work-from-home trends are also bringing in more professionals during the day than pre-COVID.

“We are still one of the last places you will encounter every demographic in society, from seniors to kids, the very affluent to people who are in some cases struggling,” Moore said.

alyse@smdailyjournal.com

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