QUEEN CREEK, AZ (AZFamily) — A new program at the Queen Creek Library will now allow parents to limit their kids’ access to certain books. “We want to make sure there is a parental control in that place so that parents can know what their kids are looking at,’ said Maricopa County Supervisor Mark Stewart.
The program was just launched at the beginning of May, after Stewart says the town of Queen Creek came to the board with concerns about sexually explicit books in their library. “There are some books that have explicit sexual depictions in them, and we’ve had a number of parents express frustration with that,” Stewart said.
The program will allow parents to fill out a form at the library and list a number of books that they may not want their children to check out.
Some parents have voiced their approval of the program and said that they think this is a good option instead of removing these books from the libraries. “Yeah, I think that would be safe to know my child can go to the library and they’re not going to be checking out books that I think are inappropriate,” said parent Heidi Jones.
But others said they feel like this program is an overstep. “When you start imposing these restrictions and you make the libraries responsible for enforcing them, then you’re contributing to this cultural of limiting access to information, limiting education, limiting development,” said parent Brodie Hubbard.
Right now, the Queen Creek Library is the only library branch under the Maricopa County Library District that has this program. But Stewart said the program may expand to others. “By no means is this a censorship initiative. It’s just a commonsense initiative so that kids have a rating system,” Stewart said.
This is a pilot program, so county supervisors and the library district are taking feedback from parents about this program. Parents can’t list categories that they want to restrict access to. They must have specific titles of books at the library. For more information, click/tap here.
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