Last Monday, Holly Phillips moved forward with her resignation as library director of the Thomas County Public Library after the regular library board meeting. 

Phillips said that the decision was not an easy one, but said that, alongside her feelings regarding the actions of the Thomas County Board of Commissioners, she would not be able to lead a library that goes in the direction that she believes the library board is heading. 

“It definitely was not an easy decision, because I love the library and we have the most amazing staff, but what it really boiled down to were the actions of our county commissions plus our board is at the point where they just really want this to go away as well and I’m afraid they are starting to lean toward some decisions that I, as a librarian and personally, just can’t lead a library system that goes in that direction,” she said. 

Phillips said that certain decisions that she is concerned about include age restricting parts of the library, labeling books that certain groups in the community are angry about, and requiring parental consent for said books to be checked out. A consent that, Phillips added, goes “beyond the parental consent that is already required for any minor to have a library card.”

“Those are the things that go against the tenets of my profession,” she said.

During public comment at the regular board meeting, Mark NeSmith, chairman of the Thomas County Board of Commissioners, stood up and spoke to the library board. 

“I’m not here today to address the issue of all the books. I’m here to clarify some things to the board that have come to the attention of the County Commission,” he said. “I had no intentions of coming today and speaking to you until our clerk of the Thomas County Board of Commissioners gave all the commissioners a copy of Ms. Phillips’ resignation and also a copy of the minutes of your last workshop meeting and there were some things said in Ms. Philips’ resignation letter that I wanted to clarify from the County Commission.”

Quotes from the resignation letter, which had been rescinded by Phillips at the time, and the minutes were read aloud to the board and the public by NeSmith.

In reference to her resignation, “Ms. Phillips thinks that ‘however it is the action of the Thomas County Board of Commissioners, that is the line in the sand for me,’” he said. “‘Ousting an effective and diplomatic, passionate library board chair to appoint someone that is pushing a harmful agenda of censorship is something that I cannot tolerate. The Thomas County Board of Commissioners actively working against me and the mission of the library will make my job untenable and will harm the long term health of the library. If this is the way our county management operates, then I am in the wrong place as I refuse to be a part of it, of that kind of system.’”

NeSmith further read the minutes of the last work session, focusing on Phillips’ introduction of the newly appointed board member Carla Defnall and her reasonings for resigning. 

“Before I make a comment on that, one of the same comments was made in your work session minutes and I’m reading directly from your minutes, ‘director statement, after Holly Phillips has introduced the new appointee, Ms. Defnall, from the county commissioners, Ms. Phillips states, ‘Phillips reiterated that her decision was not because of the book challenge, but because of her belief that the County Commission denied Erin Rehberg to serve a second term and instead appointed a person who was pushing an agenda of censorship, undermining her and the library,’” NeSmith said. 

Phillips comments in her resignation, in regard to the County Commissioners’ decision to appoint Carla Defnall and not reappoint previous Board Chair Erin Rehberg, were, according to NeSmith, wrong. 

“That’s a very strong statement to make to a new board seat,” he said. “I would remind you that the Thomas County Board of Commissioners is not working against the library, we have, under our ordinance, that power to seat people on this board and those people sit for a term and at the end of that term, they’re up for consideration of another term. Getting a seat on this board is not a permanent term, each time that it comes up, it will be reviewed, but to make a statement in your board meeting, that the Thomas County Board of Commissioners is actually working against the mission of the library, I think is wrong.” 

Alluding to another appointment coming from the city soon, NeSmith said that he hoped the library would be more welcoming to the new additions. 

Phillips said that NeSmith’s actions had hurt her and that her initial resignation had come after the County Commissioners’ decision to appoint Carla Defnall, which she had spoken about at the reference work session meeting. 

“That was personally hurtful to me, he stood up and read sections of a resignation letter that I had written a few weeks before and that resignation letter came after they appointed Carla Defnall and I just hated the way that was done,” she said. “After that happened, you know, my board, for two days, really begged me to reconsider and we had a work session the following morning and the reason I had to address my resignation letter at the work session because, you know, it was the first time we had really spoke afterward, officially.”

The work session had, according to Phillips, given her hope for the future of the library’s direction, however. 

“At that work session, though, I felt things were different, things were moving in a good direction as far as the board actually expressing their opinions and their thoughts and their fears and us, you know, asking hard questions and us talking in a really honest way about how difficult and nuanced this whole thing is,” she said. “I just, I felt like the board was going to be more responsive, so I did rescind my resignation, but for some of my staff, most of my staff did not even know that that had happened, so when Mark NeSmith got up and started speaking about it and quoting from my letter, some of my staff were in the room and they were really taken aback and had no idea what was going on.”

Phillips also spoke on NeSmith’s encouragement for the library board to step away from the American Library Association’s influence. 

“The second thing that was very disturbing about his speech is that he went on to talk about the American Library Association and the directions that the ALA is heading and encouraging the board not to let the ALA influence us and I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell people that the ALA, it’s a national organization, but they have nothing to do with the running of any library,” she said. “That’s just simply not true and to continue this rhetoric that just isn’t true, it’s infuriating.”

During the executive session at the regular meeting on Monday, however, Phillips said she had felt the winds change once again after conversation was struck up regarding the matters of the book challenges and restrictions. 

“The conversation went right back to the board going, ‘oh gosh, maybe we should get a committee to review future purchases and, you know, we need to change some policies and do age restrictions and do all of these things,’ and that’s just where I go, I’ve said repeatedly I won’t do that,” she said. 

She emphasized that the process to formally challenge books is one that she takes seriously and said that the public needs to see that they are making careful and professional decisions on each one. 

“We have a process and we are working through the process,” Phillips said. “There’s been 31 forms and of them: 11 weren’t owned by us, so they weren’t eligible for review, 8 of them were already in the adult section, which was what the patron was asking us to do, so it required no action, and of the 14 eligible ones, you know, we, the library committee agreed with the patron on 3 of them and moved them, so if people would look and realize that we really were going through the process, we’re examining every book and making our professional decisions.”

Speaking with Chairman Adrian Burns and Vice Chairman Lisa Williams soon after the meeting, Phillips told them that she would be moving forward with her previously rescinded resignation.

“I told them that I was done and that I would wrap up the week,” she said. “I have let the board and the staff know that I will help in anyway I’m allowed, as far as helping the transition, helping the new interim director. I did not go into that meeting expecting how I would come out of that meeting.”