New Hampshire SB 208: requiring local school boards and public libraries to adopt curation policies.

Bill Text

SB 208-FN - AS INTRODUCED

2025 SESSION

 25-0988

 02/09

SENATE BILL 208-FN

AN ACT requiring local school boards and public libraries to adopt curation policies.

SPONSORS: Sen. Altschiller, Dist 24; Sen. Fenton, Dist 10; Sen. Long, Dist 20; Sen. Perkins Kwoka, Dist 21; Sen. Rosenwald, Dist 13; Sen. Watters, Dist 4; Rep. Selig, Straf. 10; Rep. Wallner, Merr. 19; Rep. Balboni, Rock. 38; Rep. M. Murray, Hills. 37

COMMITTEE: Education

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ANALYSIS

 This bill requires school districts and library board of trustees to adopt policies governing material curation and removal, and indemnifies staff for complying with such policies.

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Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.

 Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]

 Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.

 25-0988

 02/09

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Twenty Five

AN ACT requiring local school boards and public libraries to adopt curation policies.

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

 1 Short Title. This act shall be known as the Granite State Literacy Act.

 2 Legislative Findings. School libraries and public libraries, as centers for voluntary inquiry, play a unique role in promoting intellectual freedom, providing equitable access to learning resources, and promoting democracy by providing service to all. This act would ensure that everyone has the freedom to read without censorship by preventing age-appropriate books from being banned in schools and libraries solely because of disagreement with their ideas. 

 3 New Subdivision; Granite State Literacy Act. Amend RSA 189 by inserting after section 78 the following new subdivision:

Granite State Literacy Act

 189:79 School Library Curation Policies.

 No later than July 1, 2026, each local school board shall adopt a policy on curation of school library materials in the local school system. To assist school boards in developing such policy, the department of education shall develop a model policy. The department shall develop the model policy in collaboration with the New Hampshire School Boards Association, the School Library Section of the New Hampshire Library Association, the early childhood, family, and community health section of the department of health and human services, and any other relevant agencies. The model policy may be updated as the department deems necessary in collaboration with the organizations identified pursuant to this section. Such policy adopted by school boards shall, at a minimum:

 I. Recognize that school libraries serve as centers for voluntary inquiry and the dissemination of information and ideas, and that school librarians and library media specialists are professionally trained to curate and develop school library collections that provide students with access to the widest array of library material available to the library;

 II. Recognize that library material should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people, and require that all students be provided access to library materials that offer diverse points of view in the collection as a whole. Such diverse points of view shall include any material representing, or authored, illustrated, or produced by, any members of a protected class under RSA 354-A:27;

 III. Promote the free expression and free access to ideas by students by prohibiting the censorship of library material. "Censorship" as used in this subdivision shall mean to block, suppress, or remove material based on disagreement with a viewpoint, idea, or concept, or based on discrimination against a protected class as defined in RSA 354-A:27, or solely because an individual finds certain content offensive, but does not mean limiting or restricting access to any material deemed developmentally inappropriate for certain age groups;

 IV. Require student access to age-, grade-, and development-appropriate library material, including material that is relevant to the research, independent reading interests, and educational needs of students;

 V. Acknowledge that school librarians and school library media specialists are professionally trained to curate and develop library collections that provide residents with the widest array of material available to the library, and provides students with the widest array of age- and grade-appropriate library material available to schools; and

 VI. Establish a procedure for school librarians and school library media specialists to review library material within a library on an ongoing basis, which shall include, but not be limited to: the library material's relevance; the condition of the library mater