Board Member’s YA Labeling Effort Fails

-- Library Journal, 06/14/2005

An effort by a trustee of the Guilderland Public Library, NY, to have sexually-explicit YA books labeled with “PG” stickers failed 7-1, after the proposal drew scorn from the community. Initially, John Daly would have had staff screen every one of the 1,600 or so teen books acquired each year, according to the Times Union. Then, acknowledging complaints about the workload required, he proposed screening five percent of new books and letting those already acquired go unlabeled. Daly said he wasn’t against sexual content; he just wanted parents to know when YA fiction had, according to the proposal, "descriptions of sexual intercourse, oral sex, transgender masturbation or other physical contact with genitalia." Library director Barbara Nichols Randall opposed the policy, calling it “prejudicial labeling.”