Library trustees are powerful advocates for libraries. Through the coordination, hard work, and determination of trustees, new libraries have been built, budgets have been restored and increased, and new respect has been generated for the powerful role libraries play in communities and on campuses. As part of a trustee board, trustees serve on a volunteer basis, can be elected or appointed to a library board for a period of time, and are tasked with the duty of helping to direct the funds and policies of an institution. In general, the library board of trustees has a role in determining the mission of the library, setting the policy that governs the library, hiring and evaluating a library director, and overseeing the general management of the library.
[source: http://www.ilovelibraries.org/get-involved/become-library-trustee]
A library board is a group of citizens responsible for the governing of a public library. Board members are the vital link between the library and its community. Board members serve as library advocates and leaders in developing responsible and creative library service to all members of the public.
[source: https://nlc.nebraska.gov/trustees/boardmanual/chap1.aspx]
Library Boards are guided in their duties by the Library Mission as well as strategic plans and policies. These are in turn informed by the American Library Association Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read Statement, codes of ethics and more.
Library Boards that work well are virtually invisible, they exist to make sure that the Library is fulfilling its stated mission of serving the needs of the community.
Across the US there have been several Library Boards that have started turning on the Libraries that they ostensibly serve.
Mid-Continent Public Library Director Steven Potter resigned after the board led a campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs:
The Niles-Maine Library District Board has been divided and at odds over controversial proposals brought forward by the new trustees, including the hiring of a political ally as a library consultant at $100 per hour and a freeze on hiring, capital projects and material purchases.
The changes led to the resignation of the Library Director, who in her letter of resignation warned the board that they are protectors, not destroyers, and you cannot allow anyone on the board or off the board to destroy this precious institution.
More information on the Coalition to save the Niles Maine Library can be found here: https://www.nilescoalition.org/2021/07/03/more-info/
Ideological divisions were on display at a recent ImagineIF Libraries Board retreat, with a trustee pushing against libraries offering hotspots to patrons that have no internet access and wanting to remove ALA language from ImagineIF policy (that would be the Library Bill of Rights and more. The board member went on to state that: trustees are supposed to be apolitical, and therefore being aligned with an organization that takes “leftist” political stances is not in the library’s best interest.
The neutrality of libraries is a discussion that needs to be had, but when board members openly rail against what they perceive to be “leftist stances and services” and agitate for their removal they are not being neutral, and when they try and edit library policies to silence voices and end services to patrons and marginalized communities then they are actively trying to create a hostile environment within the library service they oversee, making it unwelcoming to those they perceive as opposing their political views.
As more and more activists on the right attempt to paint libraries as havens of inappropriate materials, crawling with staff holding “leftist” views, the situation will become more fraught. Library Boards should be balanced, the moment they have a reactionary majority that views their ideological views as superior to those of others then “neutrality” goes out the window and services to underserved communities are cut and staff get forced out.
Right wing groups are working off a playbook first developed to take over school boards to control what is being taught to children and they are now focusing on libraries. With turnout in local elections traditionally low, it is easy for a group to get enough people organized to sway the vote.
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