It’s been an exciting and productive year for the Intellectual Freedom Committee. Following is a link to a report of our accomplishments for 2007-2008.
Author Archive: trina
VLA and VSLA Succeed in Getting Library Confidentiality Bill Enacted
On Tuesday, May 13, Governor Douglas signed into law S. 220, “An Act Relating to the Confidentiality of Library Patron Records.” The new law will take effect July 1, 2008.
To see text of the bill, click: S. 220
To see how your representatives voted, click : House Journal, April 28 (Scroll more than half-way through the document; or search “library” using the “Find on page” feature of your browser.)
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Vermont House passes library patron confidentiality bill
Tuesday morning, April 29, the House voted to concur with the Senate-passed version of the library patron confidentiality bill (S. 220). Now it goes to the governor for his signature before becoming law. Please call or write your representatives and thank them for their support on this measure. Also, a big thanks to John Shullenberger for all his efforts on our behalf.
VT Senate passes library patron confidentiality bill
On Friday, Feb. 22, 2008, the Vermont Senate passed S. 220, “An act relating to the confidentiality of library patron records.” The bill as passed largely reflects the language proposed by Vermont Library Association and Vermont School Library Association, except that it grants parental access to records of public library patrons under the age of 16. We expect the House Judiciary to take up consideration of the companion House bill (H. 745) soon.  To track these bills, please visit the Vermont Legislative Bill Tracking System at http://www.leg.state.vt.us/database/status/status.cfm
Library confidentiality bill gets favorable committee vote–now it’s on to the Senate
On Friday, Feb. 15, the Vermont Senate Government Operations Committee voted in favor of S. 220, “An Act Relating to the Confidentiality of Library Patron Records.” The bill now goes to the full Senate on Tuesday, Feb. 19. VLA members are encouraged to call or send e-mail messages to their senators asking them to support the bill. S. 220 is quite similar to our proposed bill, except that the committee amended it to allow parental/guardian access to the records of children under 16–even for materials that are not overdue. FYI, here’s the VLA statement explaining the importance of confidentiality for minors: Statement on the importance of protecting the confidentiality of minors
VT Senate Government Operations Committee holds hearing on confidentiality bill
On January 17, librarians representing VLA and VSLA testified in support of S. 220, a bill to protect the confidentiality of library records. Posted here are links to testimony by Trina Magi, Susan Monmaney, and Karen Lane, a letter from a parent, and the marked-up bill showing changes requested by VLA and VSLA. For a Q&A sheet explaining the rationale behind the bill and a handout you can distribute to patrons, see the January 8 post titled “Library Confientiality Bill Introduced in VT Senate” in the Intellectual Freedom section of the VLA Web site. If you have questions or comments, please contact VLA Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair Trina Magi, 656-5723 or trina.magi@uvm.edu.
Library Confidentiality Bill Introduced in VT Senate
We are delighted to announce that Senator Claire Ayer of Addison County has introduced S. 220, “An Act Relating to the Confidentiality of Library Patron Records,” in response to VLA’s request for a stronger and clearer law protecting the confidentiality of our library patrons. Read more