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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Iowa libraries turn to advocacy as legislative scrutiny rises
Libraries across the state are turning to individual and collective action to advocate for continued materials access.
Feb. 15, 2026 5:30 am
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CEDAR RAPIDS — When Dara Schmidt entered her library science program in 2005, she thought she knew what to expect of the field.
Schmidt, now the director of the Cedar Rapids Public Library, went in ready to learn about how information is processed, preserved and distributed, and she graduated with the goal of using that knowledge to serve her community.
What she didn’t expect is also having to learn how to defend her profession from regular attacks at the state and federal level.
“If you had told me 20 years ago … that it would be a significant part of my job to have to argue for the very existence of a public library in 2026, I would have thought you were crazy,” Schmidt said. “I thought we did this already, but here we are.”
Iowa libraries have become something of a legislative lighting rod in recent years with a slew of proposals coming out each session that could affect library operations across the state, if not the country.
The change has pushed many librarians to merge their traditional role as educators and public servants with that of advocates working to protect continued community access to information and imagination.
Legislative proposals, rhetoric on the rise
Iowa Library Association President Brittany Jacobs said legislative scrutiny around library operations seemed to really pick up steam within the last three or four years. The focus started on school libraries, she said, before extending to the field more broadly.
The proposals were one thing, she said, but what stuck out most was the hostility and “vitriol” that seemed to accompany them.
“It used to be a given that libraries are good,” said Jacobs, who also serves as director of the Burlington Public Library. “So to see the legislature turn around and introduce bills that call us out and demonize libraries was shocking to say the least.”
For example, several state-level proposals have revolved around the kinds of library materials accessible to children and teens.
That includes the 2023 passage of Senate File 496, a state law that requires school libraries to contain only “age-appropriate” materials without any descriptions or visual depictions of sex acts or other harmful material.
The law drew swift legal challenges over its relatively broad nature, supersession of local control and alleged failure to consider the age of the reader and holistic literary value, and large portions of it remain blocked by a court injunction.
Still, state lawmakers have forged ahead this year with attempts to enact similar restrictions in public libraries through proposals such House File 2309, which passed through a subcommittee late last week.
Proponents of both bills say they revolve around the protection of children and teens and the strengthening of parental control over what kinds of content children are allowed and able to readily consume.
But some Iowa libraries say the bill presents a “solution looking for a problem” and that it implies librarians are actively pushing sexually explicit books or other kinds of harmful content onto young readers — which has bled over into how some people view the field more broadly.
Schmidt recalled attending a committee hearing at the statehouse last year, for example, where another attendee called her a “pedophile” for questioning the logistics of a proposed law around materials access for children.
“They had no evidence for that, and it’s absolutely not true. But there’s this jargon around the profession now,” Schmidt said. “We just want to help people, but in certain circles ‘librarian’ is a bad word right now.”
Proposals spark individual, collective action
Jacobs said that shift in public discourse has pushed many libraries to identify ways to tell their own stories in an effort to present an accurate depiction of library operations and advocate for continued materials access.
Some libraries have taken a direct approach to doing so through individual or collective action at the local level, although Jacobs noted not all libraries have the capacity or staffing to do so.
In those instances, libraries can lean on groups such as the Iowa Library Association or the American Library Association who frequently visit the state Capitol during legislative sessions to speak on bills related to library operations.
“I think we have more librarians and library champions engaged in the legislative process now than we have in a very long time, if ever,” Jacobs said. “That’s the silver lining of all this.”
Joa LaVille, a youth services manager at the Marshalltown Public Library, recently took the direct approach toward that work in writing to state legislators in opposition to House Study Bill 636.
The bill, which has since moved through a house subcommittee, would bar Iowa’s public and charter schools from entering into certain agreements or partnerships with public libraries — ostensibly to prevent students from accessing books at public libraries that would not be allowed in school libraries.
In her statement, LaVille stated the bill would be detrimental to the various library-school partnerships that have served Marshalltown students for decades.
“These partnerships maximize taxpayer investments by giving all children and their families the opportunity to utilize resources for information, improve literacy, and have a positive impact on reading achievement," she wrote. “This is an important way to level the playing field for all.”
Those partnerships range anywhere from the library’s distribution of storytime kits to area preschools all the way up to a library-led book club for high school students.
The Marshalltown Public Library also partners with the local school district to offer its EMERGE program through which all sixth-graders from the nearby Lenihan Intermediate School, with parental permission, can participate in monthly field trips to the library.
LaVille said those and other partnerships are not always broadly known or recognized, but they serve an important role in the community.
“Libraries get taken for granted sometimes, and it’s maybe kind of a ‘You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ sort of thing,” she said. “Librarians are not very good at bragging about what we do … but maybe we should be.”
Community engagement is key
Some Iowa libraries are also pushing for more community engagement to complement staff members’ advocacy efforts.
The Cedar Rapids Public Library, for example, has designed an “advocacy toolkit” that it makes available to residents interested in learning more about the intersection of library operations and the lawmaking process.
The annual toolkit includes the basics about how a bill becomes a law, lists contact information for local legislators and outlines tips on how to have a conversation with someone you disagree with.
The library also keeps a running list on its website of active proposals that could affect the library, where they’re at in the legislative process and how to provide feedback to lawmakers.
Download: Advocacy Toolkit 2026.pdf
Cedar Rapids Public Library Community Relations Manager Amber McNamara said the kit is meant to be educational, but not prescriptive. It doesn’t tell users how to feel about a certain proposal or provide canned feedback.
Users could just as easily use the kit to argue in favor of a certain bill as they could to argue in opposition.
“Libraries are good at taking information around a subject that can be overly complicated or hard to understand and working to synthesize it in a way that community members can take it in and do something about it,” McNamara said. “So this seemed like a natural thing for the library to provide.”
Cedar Rapids library staff presented the toolkit at an American Library Association conference last year, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive with libraries across the country reaching out to learn about how similar measures could be implemented.
The library’s board of trustees also has its own advocacy committee. Volunteer trustee Elsabeth Hepworth currently chairs that group and said the goal is to educate residents on the basics of advocacy and the operations of libraries and local/state government more broadly.
The committee has collaborated on the advocacy toolkit over the years, as well as more broadly discussed how to highlight the library’s existing community partnership and impact.
“The crux of what a library represents is a resource hub,” Hepworth said. “So the intent behind our advocacy efforts has really been about how to funnel that into a constructive, thought-provoking way that equips people they need with the tools to advocate effectively.”
Comments: grace.nieland@thegazette.com
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