Who Chooses the Books?

On May 8, 2026, Joann Brinton asked about having vendors rate books using the Texas approach she described. Jennie Earl said that would require a legislative request. Meeting captions identify the speakers.

On May 18, 2026, members said a broad library review could not be ready by June or August. Green accepted Earl’s revised motion asking staff for a timeline. It still covered funding, purchases, vendors, librarian qualifications and distributor influence. The committee approved it unanimously.

On June 5, 2026, the committee voted 4–1 to request $60,000 for the review plan, with Reale opposed. Green asked Board leaders to send the timeline to July’s Law and Licensing meeting, seek discretionary funding and bring it to the full Board in August.

On July 14, 2026, the Law and Licensing committee unanimously recommended the 2026 Timeline Policy and $60,000 in discretionary funds to the full Board, with Longacre absent. Staff described it as monitoring by staff and local school systems, rather than an audit.

The public meeting packet for August 6, 2026 includes the survey. The RatedBooks example appears on packet page 1244.

On August 6, 2026, the State Board adopted the review plan on second and final reading and set aside $60,000. It rejected an amendment to change "include" to "consider" for Green’s addendum, then voted to include it. Before the final vote, the Board allowed timeline changes and included a memo calling the survey a starting point for staff refinement.

The recording and the draft minutes give different final vote tallies.

The timeline describes a comparison of five RatedBooks-listed districts: Queen Creek, Arizona; Fulton County, Georgia; Alpine, Utah; Phoenixville, Pennsylvania; and West Ada, Idaho. The original files are not linked, so this page withholds the results.

On August 20, 2026, board chair Tom Hanley reviewed the July collections report. He said there were 24 young adult fiction purchases and "seven out of the 24" contain graphic violence. He named rating references including "rated books" and "screen it first."

A speaker who appears to be the library director said the monthly purchase list can include donations and publisher-assigned YA labels. The speaker said earlier lists had flagged titles in the 20s and 30s. A second speaker said the count had fallen to one or two.

A public commenter from Post Falls said that as of June 18 the Community Library Network lists 142 books in its mature content collection, yet there are "no books physically available in the mature content collection room" at the Post Falls Library. At the August 13 budget hearing, commenters questioned a 20% salary increase for the director and a 54.5% rise in medical and dental insurance costs. The figures are the commenters'.