NYPL’s 42 Street Children’s Center.
New York Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Council Member Peter F. Vallone Jr. of Queens have asked the New York state legislature to pass a law barring sex offenders from children’s reading rooms in libraries.
In addition to proposing a City Council resolution, de Blasio and Valone sent a letter to Sheldon Silver, speaker of the Assembly, and Dean G. Skelos, majority leader of the Senate.
The two are targeting children’s rooms specifically because complete bans on sex offenders in libraries have been held unconstitutional, as LJ reported. “We suspect a law along these lines recently passed in the State Senate will face similar legal challenges,” the two said, referring to S3744-2011, which passed the Senate but died in the Assembly.
However another bill that focuses only on children’s areas of libraries already exists: called S7823-2011 and sponsored by Senator John L. Sampson, it was referred to the Senate rules committee on July 11.
Read the full story on Library Journal.