In 2022, the Chicago Public Library declared all of its 81 branches as sanctuary libraries in a response to the book banning happening across the US.

As of November, Kentucky has its first sanctuary library dedicated to protecting endangered books.

Mark Adler of the Paris Bourbon County Public Library says while some may see the move as political, for them, it's all about protecting the freedom of expression.

For us, it really started with some book challenges that we were having, and I was quite shocked about that.

Again, I'd been here 21 years and in that time I had received a total of three challenges, and I would say all of them were very tame.

But back in April of 2023, we started to see something very different.

A small group of people came in and over the course of several months, challenged 102 individual titles here at the library.

Basically, any book that has an LGBT character, any book that even breathes some indication that homosexuality exists, they weren't removed from the library.

They came to our public meetings and certainly as as they have the right to, they provided public comment.

But it became very clear that the trajectory was just one of.

We're going to continue to ask you to remove these books and we're going to make it as difficult for you as possible.

By October, it was becoming clear that the situation was just untenable.

I mean, we were at a stalemate.

The board unanimously approved us becoming a sanctuary library.

And what that means is we enshrined knowledge and we believe that people should have access to information regardless of what that information is.

And only individuals can make that determination for themselves or parents can make that determination for their children.

But nobody can decide for somebody else, for somebody else's children.

I would like to see every library become a sanctuary, and I don't view this as a partizan thing.

So when you saw one, I say this I'm not trying to be political, but you know, in Kentucky we are now a sanctuary, Second Amendment sanctuary.

And, you know, the Second Amendment has been enshrined.

So why wouldn't we enshrine the First Amendment as well?

But again, for me, this is nonpartisan.

You know, we a couple of years ago, we had a provider of one of our digital services contact us, and they indicated that there was a small group of librarians who happened to be very liberal, who had demanded that items be removed from that digital collection.

All of the items were Holocaust denial books, and they were very, very incensed that those books were there.

You know, I thought at the time that that's really not what libraries do.

It's it's not up to us to censor materials.

You know, if somebody wants to come in and read a book on Holocaust denial, they have the right to do that.

I may disagree with them, which is my right.

But in libraries, we just provide information.

It doesn't end, you know, it's not left wing.

It's not right wing.

It's just information.

And to me, that's that's neither a liberal or conservative thought.

That's just human.

And that's that's really the most American thing I think that we can do.

It really, really epitomizes what it means to be to be an American, an American and an American institution.

Next year, the library will turn 120 years old, and it is currently pursuing a sister library relationship with another book, Sanctuary in Hoboken, New Jersey.