Are people who want books banned or reclassified library “users” whose identities are protected by Colorado law?

The Colorado Court of Appeals said yes in an opinion issued last month, but now the editor of the Crested Butte News wants the state Supreme Court to review and reverse that ruling.

In a certiorari petition filed Monday, Mark Reaman argues that the appellate judges incorrectly interpreted the words “user” and “service” in the library-user privacy statute, which prohibits public libraries from disclosing records or information that identify a person “as having requested or obtained specific materials or service or as otherwise having used the library.”

The Court of Appeals failed to consider the legislative history of the law and its purpose, which is “to safeguard the privacy of patrons accessing books and other materials at libraries — not to shield the identities of persons seeking to have books removed from library shelves,” says the petition, drafted by Rachael Johnson, a Colorado-based attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The legal dispute over the library-user privacy law began with a Crested Butte resident’s submission of a form in 2021 asking the Gunnison County library to remove or reclassify Gender Queer: A Memoir. The resident, Rebecca White, described the book as “pornographic,” according to the Crested Butte News, and later unsuccessfully sought criminal charges against library district executive director Andrew Brookhart for allegedly violating the library law. But the library district board did not move the book from the young-adult section following a well-attended public meeting.