On Aug. 1, N.H. Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed H.B. 273 into law, mandating New Hampshire libraries provide parents access to their children’s public library records upon request. The bill creates an exception to the state’s confidentiality requirements, which historically have kept borrowing records at public libraries private.
State representative and English professor Ellen Rockmore, D-Hanover, said she was “not really sure” about the motivations behind the bill. She noted that all of the eight sponsors of the bill in the state house were Republicans.
“It strikes me as being a product of the culture war, but I’m really not sure what they were trying to accomplish,” Rockmore said.
Rockmore added that Democrats in the state House found the bill “unnecessarily intrusive,” and raised concerns about the administrative burdens it creates.
“This bill is going to be onerous for teachers and librarians,” Rockmore said. “I’m very worried that many of the bills passed by the Republican legislature will make life so unpleasant for teachers and librarians in the state that good people aren’t going to want those jobs.”
The bill comes amid national debates on transparency and privacy at public libraries and school library systems.
On Sept. 1, a law in Texas went into effect mandating that public school libraries give parents access to a catalog detailing all available materials in their children’s school library system, and providing a mechanism for parents to protest the inclusion of “harmful” items in the catalog. Meanwhile, in October of last year, California governor Gavin Newsom signed into law the “Freedom to Read Act,” forbidding public libraries from removing “access to library materials.”
Dartmouth Turning Point USA — a conservative student organization — president Vittorio Bloyer ’28 said he supports the bill. He expressed concern over books in circulation that parents may “not want their children reading,” in particular pointing to the book “Gender Queer,” which is a graphic memoir about adolescence and sexuality.
He described the book as “obscene” and noted that “Gender Queer” has been found in some New Hampshire public school libraries.
“I don’t see how there could be a counter position to this,” Bloyer said. “The only way I see it is if in a way the library system [and] the school system [have] something to hide.”
Bloyer also said that parents, not the government, are “in charge” of their children. He compared children’s library records to their search histories and medical records, which are accessible to parents.
Dartmouth Democrats political director Beatrice Reichman ’27 said that H.B. 273 is a “lousy Republican attempt to limit children’s right to an education and to freedom of information.” She added that the bill demonstrates the importance of local politics.
“This is an example of local and state elections playing a huge role in ... in our lives,” Reichman said.
Reichman said the bill was a part of a “larger shift” in New Hampshire, and that the state’s Republican Party has “changed so much” since the “rise of Trumpism.”
Rockmore agreed, noting what she saw as a new “mainstream Trumpist ideology” within the state’s Republican Party. She added that she believes most New Hampshire residents have a “live and let live attitude,” and that H.B. 273 did not “strike [her] as libertarian.”
H.B. 273 “doesn’t protect the freedom of children to read what they want to read,” Rockmore said. “It’s really right in line with a Republican culture war against trans kids.”
