Friends and neighbors,

Today, the Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library System (GCHRLS) Board of Trustees voted to ratify, and begin implementing the age-appropriate, based on sexually-explicit content shelving guidelines for materials in the Columbia County library!

You are the heroes of this campaign. We, and the Columbia County Library Board of Trustees succeeded. The Columbia County Library System will begin implementing the new Guidelines for Determining Book Placement policy now!

If you live in Burke County or Lincoln County you may want to ask your library board member(s) why they voted NO. The two Burke County Board members and the one Lincoln County board members voted to deny the Columbia County Library System the right to implement their own shelving policy. Keep in mind that the GCHRLS did not, and was not planning to, adopt this shelving policy across the Region so why try to deny Columbia County the right to do so in its own library system? Who knows, they didn't explain. The Burke and Lincoln County representatives should have abstained. The Warren County representative did not attend the meeting.

Finally, as a reminder, this policy simply uses community standards, as you expressed by signing this petition, and will screen all materials for obscene content as defined in Georgia law (Title 16, Chapter 12, Section 16-12-80). and relocate the materials to their age-appropriate shelving locations.

 I am extremely grateful for your support for our community and our beautiful libraries!