The Metropolis Public Library voted on Wednesday to terminate its director’s contract in a special meeting.
According to the Metropolis Planet, the decision to oust former director Rosemary Baxter from the southern Illinois library comes after a meeting earlier this month where citizens raised concerns about potential censorship at the public institution, as well as the diversity of content offered at the library.
The board voted on Feb. 20 to put their director on a personal improvement plan for “written disciplinary action for violations of library policy.” Those violations included failing to provide the board of directors with a list of books offered at the library for eight months; failing to seek grants for the library; and failing to “separate personal convictions” from the publicly funded position.
David Daughtery, the board’s vice president, said the board gave Baxter an opportunity to sign that plan.
“A process was written out for Mrs. Baxter, to follow with the oversight of the Board of Trustees. She was given the option to sign that, and she did not sign it,” Daughtery said.
The board voted 5-3 to terminate Baxter. Daughtery was one of the three votes against firing her.
Metropolis Public Library’s board meetings have drawn in crowds of around 50 or more people for several consecutive meetings. In January, the local newspaper reported some citizens voiced concerns against the library’s planned action to adopt the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, and whether adopting that policy would expose children in Massac County to content deemed inappropriate by some parents.
Illinois lawmakers passed a bill last year requiring libraries to adopt the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights or another written statement prohibiting the practice of banning books or other materials in order to be eligible for state grant funding.
The Metropolis library’s board subsequently adopted the ALA Library Bill of Rights during its Jan. 16 meeting after discussion from citizens and board members about whether the library’s collection and diversity of literature is representative of the southern Illinois community, according to the Metropolis Planet.
In that same meeting, the newspaper also reported that the then-library director made comments regarding available grant funding through the state.
“We don’t need state funding. There are grants we can get where we don’t have to barter with Satan in order to get the funding. If we don’t get any state funding, we’re going to be OK,” Baxter said at the January meeting per the Metropolis Planet.
Around 30 people protested outside of the Massac County library on Feb. 20 ahead of a board meeting. There, some citizens said they were concerned that some board members of the public institution wanted to push their personal religious ideology at the library, and potentially privatize it.
In an interview last week with WPSD-TV, Baxter denied that the library censors materials in its collection, and said that the staff would remove books that were not being read or checked out and put them up for sale at their used book store to help make room for new requests.
Daughtery said that the library offers a diverse collection.
“Whenever someone asks for something, it's normally given from this library,” he said.
Ashley Stewart is the campaign strategist for EveryLibrary, a nonpartisan organization supporting public and school libraries, and a former library director at the Caseyville Public Library in Illinois. Speaking to the Metropolis Public Library’s Board of Directors at its Feb. 20 meeting, she said public library boards have to be aware of legal requirements and laws at the federal, state and local levels when crafting policies – including ones geared toward anti-discrimination efforts.
She reviewed the southern Illinois library’s policies to see how they held up to legal standards.
“The policies are great. They follow up right in line with anything from state public accommodation laws, to federal laws, and civil law, anything like that,” Stewart said.
However, she said problems can arise if a staff member’s personal beliefs start bleeding into their role in a publicly-funded institution.
“It is absolutely okay for staff to have their own personal religious beliefs and faith beliefs. But it becomes concerning if maybe one is more dominant than another, and it's on display in the library,” Stewart said. “As public servants, what one person does in their personal time is completely their right. But then when you're on library time, and you're a public employee paid for with public dollars, you have to make sure that it's equal for everybody.”
For example, Stewart said if a public library has a copy of the Bible for members to borrow, it should also have representation of other religious texts on its shelves.
Daughtery believes it is important for the library to provide an open environment for its constituents.
“We don't want any community member to feel like they're not welcome. We don't want the community to feel that we don't have what their desires are in this library. If there's something that they can't find in here, we have easy access to make that available,” he said.
Metropolis Public Library’s Board of Trustees will meet again on Monday to discuss its next steps for hiring a new director.
