N.H. left the American Library Assocation. What does it mean for book bans and other battles in the Granite State?

Last summer, then-state librarian Michael York received a bill for membership that he decided not to pay, in part, he said, due to the controversy surrounding a former ALA president.

“I did this because it just seemed to be politically the best thing for the state library at this point,” said York, who identifies as an independent but ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic nominee for state Senate last fall.

Arlene Quaratiello, a former Republican state representative from Atkinson, said she launched her campaign to get the state to quit the ALA back in Feburary 2024. When she learned that the library was no longer part of the association, she was surprised, but pleased.

“They met our demand, so that made me feel kind of good,” she said.

Quaratiello’s escalated her campaign with a meeting in February 2024 with York; Sarah L. Stewart, commissioner of the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which oversees the state library; and state Representative Mike Drago, a Republican representing Raymond.

At the end of that meeting, Quaratiello said, she gave Stewart a letter signed by 100 state representatives, whom she said all opposed the ALA’s agenda. The letter, which was published online in December 2024 without the names of the people who signed it, called the ALA a “political organization” and accused the nonprofit of promoting “notoriously inappropriate” books like “Gender Queer.”

“The ALA gives out numerous other awards each year that disproportionately honor and publicize books on racial and sexual themes,” the letter read. It also took issue with the ALA’s Publishing catalog because “the vast majority of the books included were on topics such as EDISJ (‘equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice’), ‘cultural humility,’ and so-called ‘book banning.‘”

Though she said 100 lawmakers signed the letter, on Friday Quaratiello shared just 15 of the names with the Globe, saying that she had promised the signatories that she would share their names only with Stewart, and just some of the lawmakers agreed to make their names public. Through a spokesperson, Stewart confirmed both the meeting and the letter, but said that she never received a list of the 100 people who signed on.

Asked what role Quaratiello’s letter played in the state’s decision to leave the ALA, Stewart told the Globe: “All constituent feedback — from every level — is part of our decision-making process.”

A spokesperson for the ALA said that the organization has always been nonpartisan, and that it’s membership is confidential. But Republican anger about the ALA surged in 2023 over a single since-deleted tweet its then-president, Emily Drabinski, had posted more than a year earlier, when she was first elected.

“I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary,” Drabinski wrote, NBC reported in August 2023.

That sparked a push by conservative Republican lawmakers in Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Wyoming to urge their states’ libraries to defund the ALA.

By September 2023, state libraries in Montana, Missouri, and Texas had cut ties with the organization. Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida soon followed; Florida even changed its rules to disallow grant activities linked to the organization.

When asked about New Hampshire’s rationale for leaving the ALA, Stewart said through a spokesperson that there were concerns about ALA leadership at the time.

“Leadership has since changed, and we will be reevaluating membership,” she said.

“The beliefs of any one member of the association do not define the association,” Raymond Garcia, an ALA spokesperson said, in a statement, when asked about New Hampshire’s departure. “In these times, with a federal executive order taking aim at Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), we urge the library world to come together to protect our libraries.”

In a March executive order, President Trump called for the dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services “to the maximum extent of the law.” The independent federal agency supports libraries and museums around the country, including New Hampshire. In 2024, $1.5 million of the New Hampshire library’s $3.4 million budget came from the IMLS. State officials said it’s unclear whether that money, which was used to fund its interlibrary loan program, will be cut.

New Hampshire last paid its annual $2,000 dues to ALA in June 2023, Stewart said, but when the bill came due in 2024, York, 78, simply decided not to pay after 108 years of membership.

“I made no statement about it whatsoever,” he said.

York said there were business considerations: An ALA membership comes with a discount on books purchased from the organization. York had recently made a significant purchase and said he wouldn’t make use of the discount.

But while he said he didn’t want to take a stand either against or for the ALA, he acknowledged that had Drabinski not posted her tweet, he would have kept the membership. He was worried that controversy over being in the ALA could have derailed a library storage facility project he had been working on.

“I didn’t need the noise that would be caused by taking this stand,” he said.

York retired from the post he’d held for decades in December 2024, and it’s remained vacant ever since. Former Governor Chris Sununu withdrew his nominee, Mindy S. Atwood, currently the administrator of library operations at the state library, under pressure from conservative activists who disapproved of her opposition to book bans. Atwood did not respond to a request for comment.

Governor Kelly A. Ayotte did not respond to questions about her plans to fill the state library position amid a state government hiring freeze she instituted, her stance on ALA membership, or whether she would consider rejoining the organization.

In the meantime, some Democrats and library trustees are criticizing the state’s departure from the ALA.

“I feel strongly that the American Library Association is an important resource for the profession,” said Representative David Paige, a North Conway Democrat, who is an ALA member and was previously division president of the American Library Association, where he worked on a national campaign to address book banning.

Ethan Underhill, a library trustee in Portsmouth, said he was troubled about the state’s quiet exit from the ALA. He said the biggest impact is on smaller libraries in rural parts of the state that rely on state coordination to secure grants, fund programs, and access training for their staff. Sununu’s withdrawing Atwood’s nomination didn’t help, either, he said.

“Without a state librarian and without ALA support, those libraries are losing key resources that help them operate efficiently,” he said. “When state leaders withdrew from the ALA and blocked a qualified librarian from leading the system, they made it harder for small towns to keep their libraries running.”

A previous version of this story included the incorrect name of the former ALA president. It has been corrected.

Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.