The Blackfoot Public Library plans to issue new library cards to all of its patrons and create a tiered system. Anyone 17 and younger can have a restricted card — meaning they can only access materials in the children’s section. A parent could also choose to get their child an unrestricted card.

“We feel that the extra effort is worth having a parent decide what is best for their child instead of the government deciding what is best,” Harral told the Statesman.

Harral said the board is also updating several policies that this law impacts, but it will further complicate the library’s work. She said the library’s 10-member board has in the past listened to any concerns patrons had with materials and took action accordingly. Accommodations were already being made at a local level for parents who wanted restrictions on their children’s library cards.

If a lawsuit is successful, the law allows patrons to sue for $250 in damages at minimum, plus additional damages or relief. For small libraries, a $250 damage claim is a significant amount, Harral said, enough money to run one or two of Blackfoot’s library programs.

Craner, from the Portneuf library, said she’s confident nothing in the library’s collection would qualify as harmful to children. She said “with confidence” that everything in the library’s collection passes the Miller test, referring to an approach from the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether something is “obscene.”

Craner said she fears legislators who passed the new law accomplished the opposite of what they intended, and stripped parents of some of their autonomy.

“Inadvertently in their quest to keep children safe, what this bill is doing is it’s taking away that parental right,” Craner said. “It’s now saying, ‘You don’t know what’s best for your child to read. Your neighbor does, or the person that lives in the next city over does that wrote in a complaint.’”

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