News Photo by Reagan Voetberg Alpena County Library Board of Trustees President Dustin Budd, Secretary Traci Collins, and Treasurer Julie Byrnes are pictured at Wednesday’s meeting.

ALPENA — At their regular meeting Wednesday the Alpena County Library Board of Trustees voted to approve updates to their reconsideration procedure.

The reconsideration procedure and form allow patrons of the library to express their concerns about library materials and petition for action to be taken, like moving the material to a different section.

Library Board of Trustees President Dustin Budd previously told the News that the trustees are in the process of reviewing two of their policies each month. There are a total of about 24 policies, meaning policies will be reviewed every two years.

The trustees discussed a few final changes to the reconsideration procedure before voting.

The first change made was to the line, “The Library acknowledges both the constitutional rights of adults and the responsibility to protect minors.”

Members of the community had raised concerns that the line does not recognize the constitutional rights of children as well. The line was changed to “…the constitutional rights of adults and children.”

Another addition was made to clarify what the board’s role is should a petitioner appeal the decision made by the library director on the material.

Trustee Jennifer Graham expressed concern that the role of the board was not clearly laid out in the policy.

“If the appeal comes to us, what is the expectation of us?” she said. “Are we reviewing what (the library director) has done and saying she followed procedure, so it stands, or is that then, the board reads the book and does all the things after the director…it leaves the door wide open for another library board to say, ‘Look, it’s in our policy. We’re going to read the books and we’re going to make the decision.'”

Trustee Julie Byrnes said that would depend on what the requester is complaining about.

“Are they appealing for not following the policy or are they appealing the decision that (the library director) made on the book?” Byrnes said.

Trustee Traci Collins said that if the board and director agree on the policy for reconsideration of materials then the outcome of the board’s book review would be the same as the director’s.

“The only thing we should be reviewing is did (the library director) follow the policies that we’ve already established,” she said.

Byrnes said that its two separate things whether policy is followed or whether the petitioner disagrees with the library director’s interpretation.

She said that the board might disagree with the library director’s interpretation of whether a library material is harmful to minors.

“But the second part then, is really the opinion part which is where the board comes in to decide, you know, what does that law say?”

The trustees agreed to add the following paragraph to the reconsideration procedure:

“If the patron is not satisfied with the library director’s response and would like to appeal the decision they must complete and submit to the library a reconsideration appeal form. The board’s responsibility is to ensure policy was adhered to and to clarify and difference of opinion between the director and requester.”

All five trustees voted unanimously to make the updates to the reconsideration policy.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@thealpenanews.com.