Two pieces of state legislation recently introduced in Iowa challenge the state’s obscenity code related to libraries and schools and threaten libraries with civil action related to allegedly obscene materials. House File 274 would repeal a section of the Iowa Code that addresses obscenity exemptions for public libraries and educational institutions, while Senate File 347 aims to control the selection and purchase of books and materials with alleged sexual content and proposes steep fines for sharing such work with minors.
HF 274, which was introduced February 10, proposes eliminating section 728.7 of the Iowa Code’s chapter 728, on obscenity. Currently, the section states that nothing in chapter 728 “prohibits the use of appropriate material for educational purposes in any accredited school, any public library, or in any educational program in which a minor is participating.” Further, the chapter does not prohibit “the attendance of minors at an exhibition or display of art works or the use of any materials in any public library.”
On February 17, a three-member education subcommittee of the Iowa house of representatives voted 2–1 to advance HF 274, and on February 18, the house education committee promptly voted 14–8 in favor of moving the bill to the full house for consideration. Concurrently, six Republican state senators cosponsored SF 347, which was quickly referred to a committee on local government. The Iowa state senate described SF 347 as a bill that would prohibit certain materials in public libraries in counties and cities, while also "authorizing civil actions, and providing civil penalties.”
SF 347 “aims to prohibit the selection and purchase of materials containing descriptions or visual depictions of sex acts in public libraries,” per its language, and “mandates that librarians must not knowingly provide obscene material or hard-core pornography to minors.” The bill, if passed, would enable parents or guardians of minors to file complaints and initiate civil actions against any librarian they believe has supplied material that are sexual in nature.
The bill also gives the attorney general and county attorneys the power to use civil action for “establishing a framework for accountability in public libraries regarding the protection of minors from inappropriate materials.” The penalty for a violation would be “at least $5,000,” with damages set at “a minimum of $10,000 for violations related to obscene material and $20,000 for hard-core pornography.”
Sam Helmick, community and access coordinator at the Iowa City Public Library and president-elect of the American Library Association, called HF 274 and SF 347 “pernicious.” Despite community protests in support of trusted institutions, “we’ve seen a dozen library-averse bills in Iowa,” Helmick said, “and these two are a parfait of awful.” SF 347 in particular, Helmick said, “takes away local control, dismantles minors’ rights, insinuates that library workers are peddling pornography, and circumvents a library’s board of trustees.”
“Library workers have two jobs” in today’s America, Helmick said: serving their communities and, uncompensated, monitoring legislation around the clock. “We’re watching to see when [a bill] will be posted, so we can alert our library committees who have been profoundly worried.” Helmick urged concerned members of the public to comment as soon as possible, noting that the Iowa house and senate are hurrying controversial legislation to the floor and “not honoring the 24-hour rule for committee meeting”—meaning constituents have little time to make their case against the bills.
Helmick, a past president of the Iowa Library Association and former member of the ALA executive board and Intellectual Freedom Round Table, said that the threat of legal action could have a chilling effect on librarians, pose a financial risk in the event of a penalty, and undermine the public library mission to serve everyone in a community. They added that the young readers visiting libraries independently “usually come with a Chromebook or device giving them access to the World Wide Web”—implying that readers of any age still have access to allegedly obscene materials regardless of whether they are removed from library shelves. HF 274 and SF 347 name obscenity as their target, Helmick said, but “this isn’t about books or materials so much as it is about dismantling publicly funded institutions.”
The two pieces of legislation are just the latest in Iowa to target books in public and school libraries. The state has been taken to court in recent years by publishers and other book business organizations over legislation including SF 496, a law now in effect which, among other provisions, bans books and materials with depictions of sex from school libraries. In its most recent report on school book bans, released in September, free expression nonprofit PEN America counted more than 10,000 cases of book censorship nationwide in public schools during the 2023-2024 school year, nearly 8,000 of which were recorded in Florida and Iowa alone
