The Columbia County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution Tuesday evening to officially create the Columbia County Regional Library System and dissolve the Library Advisory Board.
The commissioners voted in May to leave the Greater Clarks Hill Regional Library (GCHRL) System and create its own single county system. With the resolution approval, the county will officially leave the GCHRL System on Dec. 31, 2025, and the Columbia County Regional Library System will go into effect Jan. 1, 2026. The dissolution of the library advisory board is effective immediately.
There was no discussion by commissioners on the resolution Tuesday night, but the item did go before the Community and Emergency Services Committee on June 24, where it was approved and moved to the consent agenda.
However, there were comments by three members of the public regarding the library and the library guidelines. Karin Parham, CEO of the Freedom to Read Coalition of Columbia County, spoke about the new Columbia County Regional Library System and the library advisory board.
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“At a committee meeting I spoke about the dissolution of the county advisory board,” Parham said. “At first, I thought it was just paperwork, switching to a new regional board to establish policies. But no appointments have been made to the new board, you have effectively created a shell of a board, so it doesn’t have to hold public meetings while creating policies for the new region behind closed doors.”
She went on to talk about different books in the library that have been moved to new sections under the guidelines.
“There are now no books in the section for kids under 8 that cover the basic topics of private parts or human reproduction,” Parham said. “Are parents supposed to wait until kids are over 8 to teach them that they have a penis or a vagina? It would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. When kids don’t know the correct names of their body parts, they can’t clearly report abuse. These guidelines don’t protect children. They put them at risk just to ease some adults discomfort with basic parenting conversations.”
Parham then spoke about the last GCHRL meeting where the regional board voted on revised guidelines on the advice of the regional library attorney. That voted failed with all the Columbia County representatives voting against the revised guidelines.
“You may present yourselves as fiscally conservative, but continually ignoring legal advice, that’s fiscally reckless,” Parham said.
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She then went on to ask commissioners to rescind the library guidelines.
“People make mistakes. There’s no shame in admitting that these guidelines were premature and rescinding them,” Parham said. “All they’ve done is create chaos, force out dedicated staff and further stoke divisions within our community. Please, put your egos aside and rescind them.”
Howard Johnson said he was happy with the decision to dissolve the library advisory board because there were no library experts on it. With this change, he said the county can start fresh and appoint experts who have knowledge in running libraries.
“Moving forward, as this board considers those they will appoint to the Columbia County Regional Library Board, I would like to remind you that I will be here at every meeting,” Johnson said. “I’ve seen your body language; I’ve seen the way you act. I know that many of you are irritated as these meetings are dragged on due to public comment. I will be here at every meeting to make the meeting last an additional five minutes and the one way you can get me out of your hair is to simply appoint experts. Appoint people who have knowledge in running libraries, who have a master’s in library science who know what they’re doing and can best serve our community. I don’t want to see unqualified people on this board, and I hope that you will consider that moving forward.”
Marlena Bergeron also spoke about the importance of librarians and all that they do at the library. She said she believed changes to the library should be announced to the public.
“Even though we’re getting our own region, it doesn’t mean we get a different set of policies and shelving rules that permit discretionary discrimination,” Bergeron said.
Bergeron also asked commissioners to rescind the guidelines. At the end of her comments, she played the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” on the violin.
