The Gunnison County Library District has joined the Crested Butte News and the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition in asking the Colorado Court of Appeals to overturn a judge’s ruling that shields the identities of people who want library books banned or reclassified.

“It does not make practical or legal sense to define a person seeking to remove, move, or otherwise limit access to a book or public library resource as a ‘user’ of the public library, as the Requestors are actually attempting to hinder others’ ‘use’ of the resource,” says a brief filed for district executive director Andrew Brookhart by attorney Michael O’Loughlin.

“A person simply does not, and should not, have anonymity protections when they are trying to influence public policy and the decisions and resources that may be offered to the public at large by a tax funded entity, like a public library,” the brief adds.

Last May, Gunnison County District Court Judge J. Steven Patrick decided that the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) and the state’s library-user privacy law require the library district to disclose “Request for Reconsider Materials” forms but with requesters’ names and other identifying information redacted.

The ruling stemmed from CORA requests made by Crested Butte News editor Mark Reaman for all request-for-reconsideration forms received by the library district in early 2022. He asked for the records after Crested Butte resident Rebecca White submitted a form calling for the removal or reclassification of Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe. White described the book as “pornographic,” according to the Crested Butte News, and later unsuccessfully sought criminal charges against Brookhart for allegedly violating the library user privacy law.