Jodi Fick stands in the children’s section of Siouxland Libraries’ downtown Sioux Falls location. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)
Her career is ending amid legislative attacks on her profession, but Jodi Fick still thinks “the sky’s the limit” for libraries.
Fick has been working in libraries since 1983 and has led Siouxland Libraries’ 13 branch locations in Sioux Falls and the surrounding area since 2017. She’s retiring on June 20.
South Dakota lawmakers nearly passed a bill earlier this year that would have subjected librarians to criminal prosecution for disseminating obscene books to children. The failed proposal was replaced with a requirement that school and public libraries allow appeals of their obscenity determinations.
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State law says material is obscene if it “appeals to the prurient interest,” is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sado-masochistic abuse or sexual conduct, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Fick expressed faith that libraries will survive the scrutiny. “The pressures on libraries ebb and flow, depending on what’s going on in society,” she said, adding that the public’s right to access a broad variety of information usually prevails.
Fick grew up in Mobridge. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Augustana University in Sioux Falls and a master’s in library science from Emporia State University in Kansas. Her library career began with a work-study position at Augustana’s Mikkelsen Library.
After completing her education, she joined the Minnehaha County Rural Public Library as assistant director in 1990, a role she held until a 1995 merger. That year, the Sioux Falls city library system merged with the county library system to form what is now Siouxland Libraries.
When Siouxland Libraries was created, Fick transitioned into the new system as a senior librarian. In 2007, she was promoted to assistant director, and in 2017, she was appointed as the director.
The area served by Siouxland Libraries grew in population from 124,915 in 1995 to 250,551 in 2024. The annual circulation — the number of times materials are checked out — rose from 1.1 million to 2.1 million over that period.
The following conversation with Fick has been edited for length and clarity.
How has the function of a library in a community changed since you started?
How our libraries function has evolved somewhat. Before the internet, we had huge reference collections. Just ranges and ranges of books that provided valuable information, but it wasn’t like something you’d take home and read. It was, you come, we help you find the information you need, and you go on. Well, once we had the internet, that information became readily available. Of course, you still want to ensure the source can be trusted, and that’s another skill we still provide – knowing how to know if the source is reliable. Is it vetted? Has it been edited? Libraries also have searchable databases of reliable information.
What is the future of libraries?
The sky’s the limit. When I started, we barely had computers. I was hired originally to automate the library, and we were still using the old card catalog system. The ability for you to even know what books existed was next to nothing, which was a very different library from today. You would come to the library, browse the collection, and go home with things.
Now, you can sit at home on your phone, browse, and you can even check it out through your local library app and start consuming the information.
I think that books and knowledge will continue to be the core of what libraries are, because we are the gatherers of that knowledge, and make it available to our community to consume.
But I also see that we hold an important part in being that “third place.”
So, you have places you’re at where you can simply be: home, work or that “third place,” where you’re not required to buy a meal or pay for something. This is a spot where you can come to, and you can gather with others, you can use meeting room space, or you can just be, that is outside of your home and your workplace, because the community has created these branches that are a spot for you to come to. So, we’re that “third place.”
There’s a sociologist who calls libraries “palaces for the people.” And I like that image. Libraries are living, breathing things.
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I think over the years, what I have seen is that librarians are staying in tune with the community, trying to understand what the needs are, and then adapting our services to what that community needs at that time. Of course, within our range. At one time, we were the spot to get your IRS tax warrants. Other times, we are helping people find jobs.
I think as long as libraries are reflective of what their community needs, they will continue to be successful. But that also means that what a public library is in South Dakota is, well, there are hundreds of different variations. The answer depends on what the community needs and is.
What did you make of the recent legislative proposal that would have criminalized librarians who check out obscene materials to minors?
What was interesting was that, as a library, we don’t collect obscene materials. Why was this deemed necessary at all? I don’t know. I wasn’t asked about it. But we don’t collect materials that fit the legal definition of obscenity.
Let’s say we did have obscene materials – which, of course, we don’t – that law would have said that if my job required me to check out this material upon request, and I did it, I would no longer have the protection of “I was just doing my job.”
Now, the risk to us is slim, but I honestly don’t understand where it was coming from.
My concern, as the director of the public library, is that it created a picture that library staff are here trying to cause harm to our children in our community, which is so far from what librarians are doing.
How do you approach the balance between community standards and the library’s role in providing access to a wide range of information, particularly when facing pressures to restrict certain content?
We lean back on the policies that have been set by the library boards.
Since our inception, we’ve had policies that tell us what we are supposed to collect. So, everything that we do is based on policies that have been developed over the years, not just as practices, but how we provide collections for our communities. Specifically, we have a collection development policy. It defines who selects, who’s responsible for it, what are the criteria we use when we’re selecting, and both for adding and removing materials, or if we find that there’s things in our collections that aren’t appropriate for our collection. So that’s all laid out.
For Siouxland Libraries, the policies are all set by the Siouxland Libraries Board of Trustees. And they are basing a lot of it on freedom of speech rights. So, the First Amendment rights for people to have access to a wide variety of thoughts.
When we’re selecting, we also do a lot of analysis of what people are using. And we pay attention to the high-use items, low-use items, and also what people are asking us questions about and try to build a collection that’s based on that.
And there are just certain subjects that are also going to be more sensitive. One in particular is human reproduction, especially when you get into children’s non-fiction. We recognize that can be a very sensitive topic for people. But we have families who come to us wanting resources that can help them when they’re trying to have those conversations with their children. And different families have different expectations for what types of information is appropriate, because parents know their own children best.
I’m a parent. I have two children. They’re now adults, but I very much remember when it came time to “have the talk,” and make sure that they understood their bodies, and what was going on.
What I did not want was children living their lives with a lack of knowledge, or misinformed, or ashamed. Most of our families who come in, they want to be able to present information to their children accurately. How that information is presented will vary. Some want details, others want the birds and the bees analogies. So, we have materials that present a variety of viewpoints.
Do you think it’s important that libraries provide access to books that include sexual content that some find offensive? Why?
Look, there will be books that have difficult scenes. Is this obscenity or not obscenity? Well, the term has a pretty narrow legal definition.
But why are these books important? Often, you’ll see this in teen books or “coming-of-age” books.
A coming-of-age book has a teen dealing with a specific issue, and they grow through the experience, and there’s a resolution. The books are designed to help teens navigate something. Now, why are they navigating things that they’re not going through? Because those things are happening within their communities. It might not be to them specifically, but how much more important is it that they’ve thought about a situation before they’re in the middle of it – they see someone resolve through it? The person in the book may or may not have done what you’d want them to do, but they’re learning from that experience.
Teens grow into adults. They go through difficult things, and those types of books help them learn about the environment around them. You learn how to deal with situations without actually experiencing that situation. You have a chance to consider things in your head before you’re put into situations that you’re not prepared to handle.
The pressures on libraries ebb and flow, depending on what’s going on in society. I have files of other times when there have been similar things. In the late ’90s, it was movies. Our library has movies that are G-rated to R-rated. A child might take that home and watch it.
Well, we have been very much supported by our community and by the parents in our community saying, “What a child checks out is to be regulated by the parent.” A child can’t get a library card without a parent’s permission. A parent has full access to what their child is checking out. We very much encourage coming with your child to the library. We support parents’ rights to be the parent.
What are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of how many people continue to use the library.
People are coming, and they’re coming in more and more. The compliments that we receive, the numbers of people who say, “I love the library, I don’t know what my life would be like without access to this.”
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