| Meinders Community Library Board Policy | 501 | ||
| Policy: Selection Policy | Originally Adopted | Next Review | |
| Current Version Adopted | November 1, 2017 | 6/2014 | March 2020 |
Purpose: To develop and grow the Library collection based on need, publishing age, topic and patron interest.
This selection policy refers to the decisions that must be made either to add a given book to the collections or to retain one already in the collection. It does not refer to reader guidance.
Section 1: Basis for Policy
Basic to the policy of the Library Bill of Rights as adopted by the American Library Association, which states among other things:
“As a responsibility of library service, books, and other reading matter selected should be chose to values of interest, information and enlightenment of all people of the community. In no case should any book be excluded because of the race or the nationality of the political or religious views of the writer. There should be the fullest practicable provision of material presenting all points of view concerning the problems and issues of our times—international, national, and local; and books or other reading matter of sound factual authority should not be proscribed or removed from the library shelves because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. Censorship of books, urged or practiced by volunteer arbiters of moral or political opinion or by organizations that would establish a coercive concept of Americanism, must be enlightenment through the printed word.”
Section 2: Criteria for material selection:
The primary objective of book selection will be to collect materials of contemporary significance and permanent value. In order to realize this goal, this library:
- Will acquire books on any subject if these books do not tend to duplicate each other. Also, the best available and most outstanding materials in any certain field will be purchased.
- Will seriously consider for purchase the suggestions from the library patrons.
- Will not consider any personal bias of a board member, director, and/or staff in purchasing materials.
- Will select materials of varying complexity because of the wide range of ages, educational levels, and reading abilities of the patrons.
- Recognizes that the responsibility for the reading of children rests with their parents and legal guardians. Selection will not be inhibited by the possibility that books may inadvertently come into possession of children.
- Will accept gifts of books and other items reserving the rights that the same principles of selection and discarding applied to purchased materials will also apply to gifts.