February 25, 2015

Library Director John Vehre

Greenville Public Library
520 Sycamore St
Greenville, OH 45331
Dear Director Vehre, President Feltman, and the Greenville Library Board of Trustees,
As organizations committed to the freedom to read and the preservation of First Amendment law and
principles in public institutions, we are gratified to learn that the Greenville Public Library has adopted a
Collection Development Policy following the removal of Rush Limbaughs Rush Revere and the Brave
Pilgrims from circulation. As you work to implement these policies, we write to offer you additional
guidance on making curatorial decisions with transparency, and in accordance with principles of
intellectual freedom. We hope our suggestions will help the library reaffirm its responsibility to let patrons
explore, inquire, and probe freely.
We are pleased to know that your policies for selecting juvenile fiction emphasize consideration of popularity
of author or series, bestsellers, or patron request. In hindsight, these were all relevant factors in the case of
Rush Reveres two donations, both of which were rejected, even though the childrens specialist consulted
critical assessments from Kirkus Reviews and Booklist and must have been well aware of the books popularity.
The book is highly popular with audiences nationwide in 2013, Limbaugh won Author of the Year from the
Childrens Choice Book Awards, while the book was also ranked at #4 on the Childrens Hardcover Frontlist of
Publishers Weekly. When a book tops a notable bestseller list, the library that covertly removes the book from
circulation risks appearing as if it has the right to tell its patrons whats good for them. As such, we trust that
such factors as popularity, bestseller status, and patron request will be taken into account with greater urgency
moving forward.

Even more importantly, we urge you to clarify the language in the policy regarding accepting gifts and
donations, which is vague and open to interpretation. One of the four criteria for accepting gifts and
donations emphasizes whether the library needs to add a book to its collection. Who determines a
librarys need for certain materials? Aside from obvious space constraints or carrying duplicate titles, on
what grounds are these assessments made? How can patrons be sure that books are not rejected because
library employees disagree with the content in those books? Patrons would be best served if the library
amended this language to clarify how, and by whom, need is assessed when dealing with donations.
As it stands, such abstract language may run counter to the policys own clause on Intellectual Freedom
and Censorship, which emphasizes the librarys commitment to providing patrons with access to
information from many perspectives. For instance, how would such a policy apply to donations of Rush
Revere and the Brave Pilgrims? Under the policys current wording, the library may very well be able to
justify rejecting a book for the same reasons it rejected Rush Revere. When the librarys childrens
specialist rejected the book, she cited reviews that mentioned the historical inaccuracies and/or racist
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views in the book.

Rejecting a piece of historical fiction for its racist views indicates an impermissible, viewpoint-based
decision which not only runs counter to your Intellectual Freedom policy clause but is also likely to violate
First Amendment principles, which require that no book should be excluded from the shelves of a public
library simply because its ideas may be offensive or disagreeable. Our courts have struck down the
attempt of any special interest group to suppress library materials on the basis of their content,
observing that such a system actually facilitates an infinite number of content- and viewpoint-based
speech restrictions. Sund v. City ofWichita Falls, Texas, 121 F. Supp. 2d 530, 549 (N.D. Tex. 2000).
Public libraries should strive to serve their communities by offering varied best-selling materials, ranging
from murder mysteries and westerns to science fiction and erotica. While some patrons may prefer to
keep children from reading books with racist characters, others may appreciate the opportunity to
discuss this countrys difficult history of race relations, even if those topics are expressed in terms that
someone, somewhere, may consider crude.
In your own words, the very purpose of your Collection Development Policy is to inform the public of the
criteria used to select library materials. In accordance with this fundamental goal, we hope that library
employees will make curatorial decisions with transparency and openness for the sake of its patrons, and
clarify its policies on assessing need for donated reading materials. This would reinforce the librarys
mission of serving its community by providing reading choices of all kinds, without interfering with the
right of patrons to make their own choices, or passing judgment on authors, books, or readers.

Svetlana Mintcheva, Director of Programs

National Coalition Against Censorship

Chris Finan, President

American Booksellers for Free Expression

Judy Platt, Director

Free Expression Advocacy
Association of American Publishers

Charles Brownstein, Executive Director

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Cc:
John Vehre, Library Director
David Feltman, Greenville Library Board President
Suzanne Brown
William Frazer
Jean McLear
Pat Haines
Eunice Stenbrecher
Alex Warner