COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga () – The Freedom To Read Coalition of Columbia County gathered outside the Columbia County Library today to protest new guidelines implemented in September.
These guidelines would move books in the county’s public libraries based on content which has many Columbia County citizens frustrated.
The county plans to exit the Greater Clark’s Hill Library Region and establish its own independent county region within the state library system.
Officials with the county say this move is for the library to be more independent so they can address the citizens’ needs.
Many feel this change is an excuse to move and remove books from the libraries.
“Relocating a book from its designated spot acts as a form of censorship and essentially amounts to book banning. When you remove it from where it belongs, you’re making it more difficult to locate. In a way, you are concealing it, attempting to hide it in the library from the audience for whom it was intended,” stated Karin Parham, CEO of the Freedom to Read Coalition Columbia County.
Many say they feel the commissioners are censoring materials at libraries when it should be up to the parent or person to decide what they or their children will read.
“If we are a free country, free people read freely. We don’t need the government coming in and enforcing these weird guidelines to tell us what books are available. I think that every parent is more than capable of watching their own child in the library and deciding for themselves if a book is okay or not okay,” Parham said.
Parham says she loves seeing the community come together for any issue going on and fight for what they believe in.
“I just think it’s great to see our community engaged in ways that we’re passionate about and this is a way for people to be involved in their local community and in community government, we have a voice, and we have more of a voice here locally than we do on a national level,” said Parham.
The move will be effective on January 1st of 2026.
