Vermonters Protest Library Exemption for “Promoting” Explicit Images
In what may have been a first for the Vermont Department of Libraries, protesters picketed a state library board meeting February 17. The action took place in response to remarks made by Vermont State Librarian Sybil Brigham McShane several weeks earlier to the state’s House Judiciary Committee in opposition to a bill that would remove library exemptions for promoting “any photograph, film, or visual recording of sexual conduct by a child, or of a lewd exhibition of a child’s genitals or anus,” whether in print or online, provided the staffer had “knowledge of the character and content” of the material. H. 7 would also remove exemptions for museum and school personnel.
McShane told lawmakers January 28 that although libraries do not actively collect child pornography, some Vermont libraries have acquired two books by acclaimed photographer Sally Mann, Immediate Family and At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women, which contain “photographs of children, especially young girls, mostly nude and in sometimes alluring positions.”
Her stance outraged anti-pornography activists such as Barre Town resident Bill Day, who helped bill sponsor Rep. Tom Koch (R-Barre Town) write H. 7. “We’re here to protect the children who are abused, who are sexually molested,” Day said in the February 18 Barre-Montpelier Times Argus. He went on to speculate that a patron could be arrested for borrowing materials such as Mann’s books, “and that’s not fair.”
“I think we all recognize your concerns. I’m a grandmother also,” board Chairwoman Joan Rahe responded, assuring protesters that trustees would confer with the attorney general’s office and revisit the issue at its April 24 meeting. “I merely was trying to deal with the gray area,” McShane said after the protesters left. “I feel like I’m a voice in the wilderness.”
Posted February 20, 2004; revised February 27, 2004.
|
