Fairhope Public Library leaders say they stood their ground in the aftermath of losing state funding from the Alabama Public Library Service (APLS), and a reversal at the county level will now bring courier service back to the Eastern Shore campus.

The Fairhope library board met on Monday, Feb. 2, their first meeting since state funding was taken away for the year — around $43,000— based on its current placement of certain books new state policy deemed “sexually explicit” following months of debate.

The library reviewed several titles that were kept in its teen section after receiving complaints from individuals over sexually explicit content. As part of its review process, two board members were tasked with reading each book and determining whether the work, taken as a whole, should be considered sexually explicit.

Despite the loss of state funding and scrutiny from state officials, the local board stood by its decision to keep the books in its teen section.

“I think they’ve targeted us,” board member Anne Johnson said. “I was not real comfortable with moving any of the books. I do think it’s a form of censorship to make books less accessible to their primary audience.”

Board member Andy Parvin expressed fear that even if they were to relocate the challenged material to adult sections, APLS would only ask them to move more

“Obviously, the light is on us,” Parvin said. “We are a small part of the city, and we don’t want to be known and for Fairhope to be known as that ‘rebel’ library. The city requires (state) funding and having relationships on the state level. We have to be sensitive to that, but at the same time, if we want to move the books, they will move the goalpost.”

The board also noted that books that were deemed explicit in Fairhope, such as “The Handmaid’s Tale,” remain within the teen sections of other libraries within the state without those libraries facing similar consequences.

“It’s our feeling that if we’re being asked to move these books, every library in the state should move the same books,” board president Randal Wright said. “Because many libraries in the state have these books in the teen section. So, if we’re being asked to move them, [APLS] should produce a list and have everybody in the state move the same books. They are not willing to do that.”

John Wahl, APLS chairman, has criticized the library’s evaluation of its materials. During the state board’s executive meeting last month, Wahl, who is running for lieutenant governor and serves as the state GOP chairman, said the books Fairhope's board decided to keep in their teen section contain “shockingly explicit sexual material."

He read excerpts from the books while pressing Wright and library director Rob Gourlay to explain their evaluation process. Wahl has said state funding can be restored once the books deemed explicit have been moved.

Several residents were in attendance, with many expressing sympathy toward the library and praising them for not backing down, but a lingering question during Monday’s meeting was the Fairhope library’s loss of the county system's courier service as a result. The service provides resources and infrastructure to move books and other materials among Baldwin County's public libraries. Some urged the board to reconsider their decision in order to regain state funding and the county courier service.

“I’m against censorship, too, but I came to (speak about) the courier service,” said Valerie Cowles, a Fairhope resident. "It’s not coming back. I think that is an important thing for Fairhope, and I don’t understand how far you will take that.”

The next day, on Feb. 3, the Baldwin County Commission voted during their meeting to replace service agreements in the Baldwin County Library Cooperative model and authorized a new Memorandums of Understanding with participating municipal libraries, calling the old one “obsolete.” The move reversed a vote the commission made in late January to cease courier service to Fairhope.

As previously reported by GCM, under the previous language of the model, libraries had to be eligible for state funding in order to use the county courier service. Under the new agreement that was approved Tuesday, the state funding requirement has been altered, meaning the Fairhope Public Library will be eligible for the county's service despite not receiving state funding, allowing the courier service to again be operated county-wide.

Removing Fairhope from the courier service impacts more than Fairhope library card holders. For Fairhope residents, it means if a book someone wanted was not available in Fairhope, but it was at another city's library, the book would be couriered to Fairhope, and vice versa. Therefore, for example, if an Orange Beach library card holder wanted a book on available in Fairhope, they would have to drive to Fairhope to pick it up.

“This action ensures the continued operation of a countywide library courier system, helping residents across Baldwin County (including unincorporated areas) maintain access to library materials while requiring safeguards for minors,” the commission said in a statement released on social media following their meeting.

The Fairhope Public Library confirmed on social media that the courier service will be restored, saying that their courier service should come back sometime next week.

"I think we're all thrilled here," Rob Gourlay told GCM. "It's such a valuable service so we're very happy to be in a new agreement with the county."