FTRCCC Statement
In response to 01.06.2026 CC Library Board Meeting
FTRCCC Statement
At Tuesday’s The Columbia County Library System's board meeting, members of the public were told, explicitly and implicitly, that concerns about censorship are misplaced or based on misunderstandings. That framing ignores a well-documented history and amounts to institutional gaslighting.
It is important to remember that every librarian who raised professional objections to the county’s prior censorship efforts has since left the Columbia County library system. As County Manager Scott Johnson stated in a staff meeting last spring, employees were expected to “get on board” or leave.
The current library board is not independent of county administration. It is chaired by a sitting county commissioner, includes the county’s Community Services Director as vice chair, and includes two relatively new appointees selected after the guidelines controversy began.
The record is also clear on what happened in September 2024. Immediately after the county-adopted guidelines were passed, the former regional director was directed by county leadership and the then-library advisory board to move more than 40 books out of the YA Room. Those removals relied on an unprofessional ideological website and disproportionately targeted LGBTQ+ and other marginalized voices. When the Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library later adopted those same guidelines, the director resigned in protest.
Since that time, FTRCCC and others have repeatedly asked for those books to be restored. Those requests have gone unanswered.
Given this history, which the current director is fully aware of, it is deeply troubling to now hear the claim that the September 2024 removals were solely the former director’s decision, made independently and “in good faith.” That narrative contradicts the documented sequence of events and deflects responsibility away from county leadership and governance structures that imposed those actions.
Suggesting that the only remedy is for the public to file individual Reconsideration requests for each of the 40+ displaced books is not a serious solution. At the current pace, that process would take years, especially while new challenges continue to be encouraged. The harm has already occurred, and it was systemic, not the result of isolated complaints.
This is not merely a policy disagreement. It is the institutional normalization of censorship carried out under government direction and then laundered through misleading narratives about process and intent. When library leadership accepts and defends that framework, it abandons professional ethics and asks the public to accept a version of events that contradicts the documented record.