Petition for a Child-safe, Family-Friendly Library

Thursday, March 26, 2009

CITIZENS TO FILE PETITION FOR A CHILD-SAFE LIBRARY

WEST BEND, WI: Citizens in West Bend, and Washington County are signing petitions to request that the library board take a roll call vote to adopt policies to make the library child-safe and family-friendly. The petition includes 5 policies that the citizens want considered separately, and voted on separately for the public record.

“While much of this debate has focused on individual books, we want the library board to state on the record whether they believe that pornographic books should be in the youth sections of the library.” Ginny Maziarka said. “Filling out forms and arguing about whether or not a book meets some vague collection development and selection policy is pointless. We want to know if the library board will vote for or against targeting youth with pornography.”

The petition requests the board take a roll call vote on the following five issues:
1. Reclassification of Youth-Targeted Pornographic Books into the adult section of the library.
2. Visual identification of explicit material with a parental advisory.
3. Restrict Library-generated Online Sexual Content.
4. Balanced Literature on Controversial Issues including homosexuality.
5. Children's Internet Protection – require the libraries to implement technology protection to protect minors from internet porn on public computers in accordance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act.

Petitions are being signed at the public meeting tonight at Silverbrook Middle School, and can also be downloaded here

For more information call 1-866-910-2840 or visit http://wissup.blogspot.com.