Summary — HB 902: Free to Learn — Library Bill of Rights Act (North Carolina, 2025)
Status: Introduced Apr 10, 2025; Passed First Reading (Apr 14, 2025). Referred to Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House. Primary sponsors: Representatives von Haefen, Morey, Dew, Greenfield (and others).
Purpose
- Establish a statutory “Library Bill of Rights” to protect residents’ access to information, intellectual freedom, privacy, and nondiscriminatory participation in library services across North Carolina.
- Create uniform duties and privacy protections that apply to physical and digital library services statewide and to regional/interlocal library systems.
Key provisions
- New Chapter (Chapter 125A) added to General Statutes, “Free to Learn — Library Bill of Rights.”
- Scope and definitions: Applies to all libraries in the State (including online/digital resources). Defines library, library materials, programs, records, regional systems, interlocal agreements, etc.
- Right to access (§125A‑6): Individuals have a right to access library materials and ideas regardless of content or viewpoint. Government entities and public officials may not prohibit or restrict access based solely on content or viewpoint. Libraries may still develop collections under professional standards and may adopt reasonable, professionally consistent policies limiting minors’ access to age‑appropriate materials.
- Non‑discrimination / fair access (§125A‑7): Libraries must provide fair access to services, materials, and programs without discrimination (age, race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, socioeconomic status, or viewpoint).
- Intellectual freedom (§125A‑8): Protects patrons’ ability to pursue inquiry without surveillance, interference, or intimidation.
- Privacy and confidentiality (§125A‑9): Library records identifying a person’s use of materials or services are confidential. Records may only be disclosed for reasonable operational needs, with user consent, or pursuant to subpoena/court order. Libraries must not maintain systems that unnecessarily track personally identifiable reading/browsing habits.
- Online privacy protections (§125A‑11): Libraries shall collect only minimal personally identifiable information necessary for service. Retention limits and safeguards include anonymizing usage data for statistics, deleting browser/search history and other online activity when no longer needed and in no case later than 60 days after collection unless retention is required by law, and securing personally identifiable information.
- Protection from retaliation (§125A‑10): Library employees, volunteers, board members, and contractors are protected from adverse actions for reporting violations or refusing to participate in violations. Aggrieved persons may bring civil actions and seek remedies including reinstatement, lost wages, attorneys’ fees, injunctions, and other relief.
- Interlocal and regional systems (§125A‑5): Libraries operating under interlocal/regional agreements share responsibility for compliance; regional systems must document implementation annually and the State Library will provide model language.
- Implementation / relationship to existing law: Rights supplement but do not supersede existing statutes governing libraries (Chapters 125, 153A, 160A).
Who is affected
- Public libraries, regional library systems, interlocal library agreements, library boards, staff, volunteers, contractors.
- Library patrons statewide (users of in‑person and digital services).
- State Library (administrative/oversight role) and local governments participating in interlocal arrangements.
Potential impacts
- Policy and operational changes: Libraries will likely need to update privacy policies, data retention practices, staff training, and interlocal agreements to comply with new statutory requirements.
- Administrative burden: State Library and regional systems may incur extra administrative duties (model language, annual documentation).
- Legal exposure and enforcement: The statute creates civil remedies for employees and possibly patrons; this may increase litigation risk for libraries that violate rights.
- Protection against local censorship: Limits on government officials’ ability to remove materials based solely on content or viewpoint could reduce political interference with collections and programming.
- Minors’ access: Allows libraries to adopt reasonable age‑appropriate policies but requires those policies be professionally grounded and not unduly restrictive.
Procedural / timeline notes
- Bill text (First Edition) is organized as a new statutory chapter; the House First Reading occurred Apr 14, 2025. Further committee referrals and hearings will determine amendment and advancement. The bill text provided includes an instruction that funds are to be appropriated for the purpose stated in the bill caption, but the provided text does not specify an appropriation amount.
For more detail
- Readers interested in full statutory language and subsequent amendments should consult the bill file and committee reports available from the North Carolina General Assembly web site.
