Iron River Library board addresses concerns about library’s future

Jill Stefansen may not live in Iron River, but she regularly uses the Iron River Public Library.

The Brule resident said she is one of the many patrons of the library who don’t live in town but consider it a “wonderful place” that “connects people to information and connects people to people.”

She attended the Iron River Library Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday to voice their support or concerns about the library after a petition titled “Keep the Library Open” started circulating around the Bay Area in May.

The petition, launched by the Supporters of the Iron River Library, claims some community members are saying they want the library to close or withdraw from the Northern Waters Library Service.

The NWLS is a joint agency of Ashland, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas, Iron, Sawyer, Vilas and Washburn counties serving 29 public libraries. It receives state funding through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and provides technology-related services to communities without a public library and rotating book collections to public libraries.

Around the same time the petition started circulating, library board member John Castro spoke as a citizen during the May 9th Iron River Town board meeting about the library board and “what a mess it is,” according to the meeting minutes.

He proposed two solutions, “a ballot type vote on which books to be exposed,

or resignation of Library director — dissolve Library Board which will save the Towns people money,” the minutes said.

To clarify what he meant, Castro during Wednesday’s meeting explained, “What I said is if the board wanted to clear this up, we needed to ask for the resignation of the library director; not getting that, the town board should eliminate the position of library director.”

“Northern Waters is calling all the shots anyway. Let her work for them and save the money. After they do that, we get to be dissolved because there’s no reason for this board to exist if Northern Waters is taking care of everything,” he said. “I never mentioned getting rid of Northern Waters.”

Doing so would be detrimental to the library, said Beth Good and Lori Melberg, who are part of the group that started the petition.

“The relationship with Northern Waters gives the library a lot of services covered by Northern Waters, not as a part of the library’s budget, that would be next to impossible to replace — things like the electronic materials we’re able to check out from the library … and the tech support for the computers,” Melberg said. “These are things that are paid for by the state through Northern Waters that this library takes advantage of that would cost something over a million dollars to replace.”

So, if the town or library board were to decide to sever its relationship with Northern Waters, Melberg said “our concern is that effectively we’re closing the library,” or the library would go back to a time she remembers from elementary school when there was much less technology.

The discussion about exploiting books in the library and whether to keep the library open started last pride month when the book “Lets Talk About it” was on display. The book and others in the library prompted the anonymous group “The Concerned Citizens of Iron River” to send a letter to community members saying many books “encourage exploration of changing your gender to small children” including kids as young as toddlers.” After reviewing the book, the library board voted to put the book in the adult nonfiction section.

Library Advocate Rachelle Swanson feels this is the right decision. Although there are books in the library she doesn’t want her kids to necessarily read, she said “I also have the understanding that I don’t get to decide what everybody else in the community has a right to read.”

“It’s a matter of working it out with your kids and having good conversations; using the library like any wise person,” she said.

As a parent, fellow library activist Rachel Zwicky said she understands there’s passion towards the issue and that fear can be a powerful tool, but stressed

“that’s not an excuse to discriminate against a whole group of people.”

“It’s not an excuse to take away a whole institution and a staple of our community. I wish people could find a more productive way to talk these out rather than attack the library,” Zwicky said.

Library board members touched on the matter earlier this month by updating the library’s material selection policy. Under its new policy, the library cannot restrict the freedom of patrons to borrow library materials in the possibility that it may come into the possession of a minor. The library may supervise and guide children in the use of the library, along with parents and guardians. The library will accommodate individual parent requests to restrict specific titles or materials to one’s child. Library materials will not be marked or identified to show approval or disapproval of their contents.

The library board next meets on July 17.

“Let it be known that no one on the town board or library board ever, ever said ‘close this library.’ We’re doing what we can to keep it open,” said library board president Cassie Fleming.