JONESBORO, AR — (BrooklandNews.com) — Sept. 7, 2026 — The Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library has enacted a series of new age-based restrictions on checkouts, self-checkout kiosks and its Friends of the Library bookstore, citing compliance with Arkansas Act 372, the library announced in a series of social media posts this week.
Under the new policies, anyone under 18 is barred from entering or purchasing anything from the library’s Friends of the Library bookstore. Minors are also prohibited from using self-checkout kiosks and must complete all checkouts at the circulation desk, where staff can verify a patron’s age. Adults are barred from using a minor’s library card to check out adult materials. The library is also enforcing tiered checkout limits based on age: children ages 0 to 12 may only check out items from the Children’s Collection, patrons ages 13 to 17 are limited to the Children’s and Teen collections, and only patrons 18 and older may access the library’s full collection. A separate policy restricts DVD checkouts to adults 18 and older, regardless of whose card is used.
Act 372 makes furnishing minors with harmful or obscene materials a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. A separate, unchallenged provision of the law makes it a Class D felony, carrying up to six years in prison, for school or public library employees to knowingly distribute obscene material to a minor or tell someone how to obtain it. The law also gives city and county governing bodies final say over whether challenged library material gets relocated to an area inaccessible to minors.
The law has had a long and contested path to taking effect. It was signed by the Arkansas governor on March 31, 2023, but a coalition of librarians, booksellers and library patrons sued, and the law was never enacted after a federal judge issued an injunction before it was set to take effect in August 2023. U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks wrote in December 2024 that the law’s lack of specificity for terms like “furnishing” and “harmful” would create burdens on public access to speech that violate the First Amendment.
That changed this summer. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Brooks’ ruling, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge one section of the law and had failed to prove the criminal-liability section was unconstitutionally vague. The three-judge panel’s ruling came down July 30, clearing the way for the law to take effect three years after it was first blocked.
The ruling has left some library administrators uneasy about how to interpret the law’s language. Fayetteville Public Library Executive Director David Johnson, whose library was among the original plaintiffs, said his biggest concern isn’t the law’s intent, but how vague its key terms are and who could be held responsible for violating it. Some libraries have already gone further than others in response — Independence County’s library had already banned minors from checking out certain books even before the appeals court’s ruling took effect statewide.
Supporters and critics of the law remain sharply divided on its purpose. Advocacy groups including Democracy Forward have argued the law is an unconstitutional attack on free speech that leaves librarians without clear guidance on what they’re legally required to do, while groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression have said it’s proper for libraries to weigh whether materials are age-appropriate, but argue Act 372 goes further than that standard by treating all minors — from first graders to high school seniors — the same way.
The Craighead County Jonesboro Public Library said its complete list of updated policies is available at libraryinjonesboro.org.