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FRONT ROYAL — Time is running out for Samuels Public Library.
Faced with a choice between giving Warren County political leaders the power to block LGBTQ+ books from reaching young readers or running out of operating funds at the end of September, the library board Thursday night rejected county control.
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The decision leaves the library and the county board of supervisors locked in a stalemate that could cause the library to close its doors in October even though it is in the midst of a banner year, with visitors up 15 percent and the number of donors up 25 percent from 2022.
Library and county officials plan to meet next week for their first full, face-to-face negotiations after months of acrimony. “I saw a couple of areas for negotiation without sacrificing what makes this library as great as it is,” Samuels interim director Eileen Grady said Thursday evening after library trustees met in closed session with two county supervisors.
Public libraries are the latest front in culture war battle over books
Warren County supervisors, under pressure from a group of conservative activists who want to remove LGBTQ+ materials from children’s sections of the library, withheld three-quarters of Samuels’s operating funds from the budget that went into effect July 1. Library leaders tightened parental controls, but the activists’ attacks broadened, until the county proposed a fundamental change in the way the library operates.
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If the library cedes greater control to the county over which books stay and go, the budget woes would go away. But the Samuels board of trustees voted 11-1 Thursday to stand their ground, defending their book selection policies as protecting the interests of vulnerable minority groups in the community and fairly representing everyone.
“We don’t want to get sued and we don’t want to discriminate,” library trustees president Melody Hotek said earlier in an interview with The Post. “So we’re holding the line.”
The standoff in Front Royal is the first example in Virginia of attacks on books threatening the operation of a public library. Most fights over literature have taken place in school libraries, part of a national movement by conservative activists seeking to ban or restrict access to books they find objectionable. A few other Virginia counties have wrestled with objections to LGBTQ+ or sexually explicit content in public libraries, but none has yet resulted in a battle for funding.
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Samuels has been in the crosshairs since early this year. A group that shares ties to a local Catholic church and a conservative Catholic college has formed a “Clean Up Samuels Library” website and held events in which attendees filled out forms to request that books be removed from the library. Through those efforts, fewer than 60 people filed about 700 forms seeking the removal of 141 books — swamping the library’s 20 staffers, who have spent months working through just the first seven requests. Library officials said it had been years since any such requests were filed.
The overwhelming majority of the book “reconsideration” requests, which were obtained by library supporters and made available to The Post, cite LGBTQ-related issues as reasons for demanding that the books be removed. In most cases, the requesters said they had read only summaries or descriptions of the books, not the full works.
The requests processed so far have been denied, though some books were relocated to a recently established “New Adult” section of the library where only patrons over age 16 can check them out without parental consent. The library also instituted two new types of cards that restrict what younger children can check out unless their parents give permission.
Those changes, adopted in July, were not enough to head off the intense opposition of the Clean Up Samuels group. In August, library director Michelle Ross resigned, with library officials telling the Northern Virginia Daily that her health had been affected by the constant attacks. Clean Up Samuels, which does not identify members on its site, celebrated Ross’s departure in a press release, claiming credit for driving her out.
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The group also posted an information packet on its website that includes the heading “But who would defend porn for kids?” and answers the question by listing “employees, volunteers, board members, and the former director at Samuels” along with the names of four people associated with the Save Samuels library support group.
At public meetings over the summer, the group’s complaints evolved. The anti-LGBTQ+ objections turned into a crusade against “pornography” and then into an effort to exert county control over the library. When the county board of supervisors met Sept. 5, the new line of attack was on display.
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The meeting was so packed that dozens of people were unable to get in. Clean Up Samuels members had gotten first to the speaker sign-up sheet, and while large numbers were there on both sides of the issue, library opponents dominated the 60-minute public hearing — with 16 speakers vs. four library defenders.
This time the anti-library crowd was focused on the library’s status as a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, which it has maintained for more than 50 years. In a sentiment that was repeated by speaker after speaker, resident Juliana Lancaster invoked the American Revolution in demanding that the library be made “fully public.”
“America has always stood for freedom and democracy,” Lancaster said. “We, as the people of Front Royal, Virginia, want a say in how the library is run, who runs it and what books enter into it.”
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Mark Egger, a local resident who filed some of the first book challenges in February and has been active with Clean Up Samuels, said later in an interview with The Post that he was not aware of any coordinated effort to change tactics. But, he said, “since the library has now dug in their heels, maybe there’s a different solution that needs to happen.”
Samuels is one of 19 public libraries in Virginia that operates as a private nonprofit, according to Nan Carmack, director of library development and networking for the Library of Virginia. Samuels is one of the oldest, she said, originating in 1799 as the second subscription library founded in the state. Functioning as a nonprofit allows the county to save money because the library can raise private donations to help with expenses, Carmack said.
“We hold it up as model for being a really solid, well-used, beloved institution in the community,” she said. “They do a great job.”
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Warren County supervisors began attempting to gain control over the library in August, offering a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that called for seven trustees to be appointed by the county, including one by the school board. The library’s board fluctuates between nine and 15 members, appointed by the library, including one member from the board of supervisors. The county’s proposed MOA also required that the library use only county money to purchase books, giving the supervisors more control over selection.
The Samuels trustees rejected that proposal in late August, arguing in part that county control would run afoul of the library’s tax status as a 501(c)3. Supervisors submitted a modified agreement Sept. 8, reducing the number of county trustees to five and stripping the language that restricted the use of funds. The trustees rejected that one Thursday night.
Meanwhile, the effort to remove books continues. At a library meeting Monday night, trustees considered appeals filed against staff decisions to leave two contested books in child or juvenile collections: “Prince & Knight” by Daniel Haack, the story of two men who fight a dragon and then fall in love; and “Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms” by Crystal Frasier, a graphic novel about a lesbian girl and a transgender girl attempting to become cheerleaders.
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The trustees voted to keep the books, though the county supervisor on the board — county chairwoman Vicky Cook — abstained. Two trustees voted against the decisions. One of them, treasurer Pete Walker, said before the vote that while he did not believe the books were pornographic, “I do believe books that advocate for and glorify the LGBTQ doctrine are potentially harmful to young people and therefore are inappropriate in our youth collection.”
After the meeting, Cook said in a brief interview that she hoped the library’s funding situation could be resolved.
“All I really have to say is that we’re going to be working through this as a community … I welcome that the board of supervisors and the trustees sit down face to face and work this out for the sake of our community,” she said. Asked whether she saw any way forward in which the library continues as currently configured, Cook said she couldn’t comment.
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Hotek said in the interview that it’s possible the library could keep its doors open temporarily into October if there’s a chance the situation can be resolved. Samuels has more than $900,000 in reserve, but most of that is in an investment fund and would not be enough to support operations for long — particularly if staff has to be laid off and provided with severance pay, she said.
The uncertainty is especially frustrating, Hotek said, because the library has never been more popular. Some 20,000 patrons hold library cards in a county of 40,000 people, she said. This year’s summer reading challenge was back to pre-covid levels, with 725 children and teens logging almost 24,000 books read. Last Saturday, the library hosted “Samicon,” its version of a comics or video game convention, drawing more than 1,700 people. And since the controversy over LGBTQ+ books began, the number of people donating money to the library is up 25 percent.
In a speech to the trustees on Monday night, Hotek choked up when mentioning the library’s staff, which collectively, she said, “has 153 years of experience serving you, the citizens of Warren County. Often they know you by name. They have known you and your family for years. They know what you like to read. They have watched your kids grow up. They help you pick out a book for a movie. Use the printer. They are kind.”
Pausing to compose herself, Hotek continued: “They do not deserve the slander or innuendoes we have heard these last few months. Because of the threat to our funding, they are in fear of losing their jobs. They are in limbo. And that is a terrible place to be.”
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