Campbell County Public Library staff explains juvenile card restrictions
GILLETTE — Parents in Campbell County who sign up their children for a library card have the option of putting specific restrictions on that card to limit what their kids can check out.
Elizabeth Albin, circulation services manager at the Campbell County Public Library, presented to the Campbell County Public Library board last week about the different options people have when they’re signing their kids up for a library card.
At the board’s September meeting, the topic of juvenile library cards at the Laramie County Public Library came up, said library director John Jackson. The Laramie County Public Library has three tiers of library cards for children, each one with a varying level of freedom in checking out materials.
Albin said this system is specific to Laramie County, which has more juvenile patrons than Campbell County has overall patrons. The library is a three-floor building, with the ability to check out on any floor.
The system that Campbell County has in place works fine as it is, Albin said. A kid’s library card doesn’t come with any preset restrictions on what can be checked out.
“Right now, if a child has a library card, they can check out anything?” asked board member Sage Bear.
“If their parent doesn’t put any preferences on it,” Albin replied.
If parents do choose to sign up their child for a library card, it doesn’t automatically come with restrictions. A child’s library card can check out materials from throughout the library, not just the children’s section. But parents can make it so that their child can’t check out books from a particular collection, such as teen nonfiction, adult science fiction or the entire adult collection.
There are limits to the parameters parents can set, Albin said. They can’t put a restriction on a particular subject matter, such as magic, because it’s subjective. Albin said her family didn’t read the Harry Potter series, but the Chronicles of Narnia was allowed. Both series have magic, but it should be up to the parents, not the librarian, to decide which one is appropriate for their children, Albin said.
Now, parents also can restrict their kids from checking out specific titles.
Library board chair Chuck Butler said the way things are done right now leaves it up to the parents and he didn’t see any reason to change it.
“If the parents are involved and engaged enough, they’re going to ask for their own parameters,” Butler said.
This could get complicated for families with lots of kids, and Albin said many parents choose to have one card for the whole family instead of getting into the specifics for each child’s library card profile. The checkout limit for library cards in Campbell County is higher than many other libraries.
“A couple decades ago we raised that level really high for parents who choose to have one card per family,” Albin said.
People can check out up to 35 books at a time, Albin said, and if a patron feels that this isn’t enough, the library can increase it even more.
Jackson said it did the board good to hear about how the juvenile library cards work in Campbell County.
“I think that cleared up any misconceptions that the board may have had,” Jackson said.
“It eased a lot of my fears to hear about all the different preferences,” said board member Chelsie Collier.
She said she knows of homeschool parents who won’t let their children get their own library cards until they turn 18, and that if these parents knew about this aspect, they might change their minds.
Albin said neither she nor the rest of the circulation staff have heard anyone ask for anything different when it comes to these library cards than what it is now.
“We pride ourselves on being reactive to people requesting different things,” she said. “Since 2010, I’ve never heard a parent request this at the circulation desk.”
This story was published on November 5, 2024.