Alameda Free Library
Collection Development Policy
adopted by the Alameda Free Library Board 10.31.2016
Purpose
The purpose of this Collection Development Policy is to define the scope of the Alameda Free Library’s (the Library) collection. It functions as a blueprint to guide the Library’s decision-making in the selection, acquisition, and maintenance of the Library’s collection.
Collection Scope
The Library’s collection is distributed among the Main Library and two neighborhood branches, West End and Bay Farm Island. Our collection includes fiction and non-fiction materials and resources for all ages, supporting a community of readers and lifelong learners. The Library’s collection is designed to support the cultural, informational, educational, and recreational interests of the residents of the City of Alameda and is based on awareness of community interests and concerns, national and international issues and events, publishing trends, new insights, societal trends, and the professional judgment of selectors regarding the material’s value to the Library’s collection. It reflects the interests of the general public and supports the demographics and diversity of the community of which it is a part.
Intellectual Freedom
The Library does not serve as censor of the reading of any member of the community. Individuals apply their personal interests and values to the materials they choose for themselves. The values of one may not be imposed on another. The Library does not stand in loco parentis (in the place of parents). Parents and guardians have the responsibility to guide and direct the reading, listening, and viewing choices of their own minor children.
The Library’s selection of materials for the collection does not constitute an endorsement of the content. Library materials are not marked or identified to show approval or disapproval of the contents, nor are materials sequestered except for the purpose of protecting them from damage or theft.
The Library will uphold the freedom to read as expressed in the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, Freedom to Read, and Freedom to View statements.
Responsibility for Selection
The responsibility for the selection of Library materials rests ultimately with the Library Director. The Library Director delegates the tasks of selection and maintenance to the Adult and Children’s Services Supervisors and other professional library staff. All staff members and the general public are encouraged to recommend materials for consideration.
Selection Criteria
Collection Development librarians, using available collection tools and knowledge of community trends, select and evaluate materials and resources for the collection. Gifts, purchases, and e-resources are selected for the collection using the same criteria.
The following general criteria are incorporated to evaluate and select materials for the collection:
· Popular demand
· Currency of material
· Present and potential relevance to community needs
· Relevance to current trends and events
· Accuracy and depth of content
· Reputation and authority of author, artist, producer or publisher
· Publicity, critiques, and reviews
· Material’s contribution to a diversity of viewpoints
· Provides unique contribution to a field of study
· Format options
· Physical design suitable for library use
· Publication date, price, availability, and materials budget
· Relationship to existing material in collection
Deselection and Collection Maintenance
Maintenance of the collection through continuous evaluation by library staff is critical to ensuring its continued usefulness and relevancy. Materials are regularly removed to maintain a current, accurate, and appealing collection and to facilitate its ease of use. Decisions are influenced by patterns of use, the capacity of each location, and the holdings of other libraries that may specialize in a given subject matter. An item may be deselected for several reasons including:
· Damage or poor condition
· Number of copies in the collection
· Relevance to the needs and interests of the community
· Current demand and frequency of use
· Accuracy and timeliness
· Local interest
· Availability elsewhere including other libraries and online
Not all criteria are applied to each de-selection decision. Deselected items may be given to a third party book recycler, Friends of the Alameda Free Library to sell, or may be recycled at the discretion of the Library.
As materials become worn, damaged, or lost, replacement will be based on whether or not:
· Item is still available
· There is ongoing demand or need
· Another item or format might better serve the same purpose
· Updated, newer, or revised materials would better replace a given item
· Item has historical value
· Another library system could better provide item or comparable item
Patron Requests for Purchase
Alameda Free Library welcomes suggestions from the community for possible purchases of materials. All suggestions are given serious consideration and are subject to the same criteria as all other materials purchased for the Library.
Local Authors and Self-Publishing
Authors who live within the boundaries of the City of Alameda may donate one copy of their book to be added to the Alameda Collection located at the Main Library.
The Alameda Free Library does not purchase unsolicited materials or act in lieu of professional review sources. The Library accepts donated copies of self-published books, but does not guarantee inclusion in the collection. Items donated to the Library become the property of the Library and may not be returned to the donating party. The library cannot acknowledge receipt of the item or of the final selection decision. Acceptance of an item does not guarantee the purchase of additional items. If the item is not accepted, the donated copy will be repurposed according to our gift policy.
Gifts and Donations
The Library accepts donations of materials in usable condition, including works by local authors, for consideration as additions to its collection. All donations are subject to the same selection criteria as purchased materials. The Library reserves the right to determine the conditions of display, housing, and access to the materials. Materials not added to the collection are not returned to the donor and may be given to the Friends of the Alameda Free Library for resale, with proceeds going to support the Library.
The Library welcomes monetary gifts for collection enrichment. Donors may request that these funds be directed to particular collections or subject areas. The Library reserves the right to make the final selection decisions.
Reconsideration of Materials
Persons seeking the reconsideration of an item in the collection will be offered the Request for Reconsideration of Materials form and asked to provide a written explanation of their objections, citing specifics from the material in question. These requests will be reviewed by the Library Director, members of the Collection Development team, and librarians specializing in the content area. In accordance with the guidelines for the selection of Library materials, the use of profanity, sexual incidents, and violence does not automatically disqualify materials from inclusion in the collection, and decisions are made on the basis of an item’s overall value, rather than on isolated parts.
The decision about reconsideration will be communicated by letter from the Library Director. The Library Board, upon request, hears appeals of the Library’s response. Appeals must be presented in writing to the Library Board at least ten (10) days in advance of the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board. Decisions on appeals are based on careful review of the objection, the material, and the material selection criteria. The final decision on appeals rests with the Library Board and will be taken up at publically held Board meetings.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment A: American Library Association Library Bill of Rights
Attachment B: American Library Association Freedom to Read Statement
Attachment C: American Library Association Freedom to View Principles
Attachment D: Request for Reconsideration of Materials Form
ATTACHMENT A
Library Bill of Rights
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
1. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background or views of those contributing to their creation.
2. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
3. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
4. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
5. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background or views.
6. Libraries that make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961;
June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996.
ATTACHMENT B
The Freedom to Read Statement
The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.
Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.
These efforts at suppression are related to a larger pattern of pressures being brought against education, the press, art and images, films, broadcast media, and the Internet. The problem is not only one of actual censorship. The shadow of fear cast by these pressures leads, we suspect, to an even larger voluntary curtailment of expression by those who seek to avoid controversy or unwelcome scrutiny by government officials.
Such pressure toward conformity is perhaps natural to a time of accelerated change. And yet suppression is never more dangerous than in such a time of social tension. Freedom has given the United States the elasticity to endure strain. Freedom keeps open the path of novel and creative solutions, and enables change to come by choice. Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and leaves it the less able to deal with controversy and difference.
Now as always in our history, reading is among our greatest freedoms. The freedom to read and write is almost the only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially command only a small audience. The written word is the natural medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the original contributions to social growth. It is essential to the extended discussion that serious thought requires, and to the accumulation of knowledge and ideas into organized collections.
We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. We believe that these pressures toward conformity present the danger of limiting the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend. We believe that every American community must jealously guard the freedom to publish and to circulate, in order to preserve its own freedom to read. We believe that publishers and librarians have a profound responsibility to give validity to that freedom to read by making it possible for the readers to choose freely from a variety of offerings.
The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. Those with faith in free people will stand firm on these constitutional guarantees of essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities that accompany these rights.
We therefore affirm these propositions:
1. It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular or considered dangerous by the majority.
Creative thought is by definition new, and what is new is different. The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until that idea is refined and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain themselves in power by the ruthless suppression of any concept that challenges the established orthodoxy. The power of a democratic system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by the freedom of its citizens to choose widely from among conflicting opinions offered freely to them. To stifle every nonconformist idea at birth would mark the end of the democratic process. Furthermore, only through the constant activity of weighing and selecting can the democratic mind attain the strength demanded by times like these. We need to know not only what we believe but why we believe it.
2. Publishers, librarians and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should be published or circulated.
Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by helping to make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of the mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their own thought. The people should have the freedom to read and consider a broader range of ideas than those that may be held by any single librarian or publisher or government or church. It is wrong that what one can read should be confined to what another thinks proper.
3. It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author.
No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the political views or private lives of its creators. No society of free people can flourish that draws up lists of writers to whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.
4. There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers to achieve artistic expression.
To some, much of modern expression is shocking. But is not much of life itself shocking? We cut off literature at the source if we prevent writers from dealing with the stuff of life. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to prepare the young to meet the diversity of experiences in life to which they will be exposed, as they have a responsibility to help them learn to think critically for themselves. These are affirmative responsibilities, not to be discharged simply by preventing them from reading works for
which they are not yet prepared. In these matters values differ, and values cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be devised that will suit the demands of one group without limiting the freedom of others.
5. It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept the prejudgment of a label characterizing any expression or its author as subversive or dangerous.
The ideal of labeling presupposes the existence of individuals or groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is good or bad for others. It presupposes that individuals must be directed in making up their minds about the ideas they examine. But Americans do not need others to do their thinking for them.
6. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large; and by the government whenever it seeks to reduce or deny public access to public information.
It is inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process that the political, the moral or the aesthetic concepts of an individual or group will occasionally collide with those of another individual or group. In a free society individuals are free to determine for themselves what they wish to read, and each group is free to determine what it will recommend to its freely associated members. But no group has the right to take the law into its own hands, and to impose its own concept of politics or morality upon other members of a democratic society. Freedom is no freedom if it is accorded only to the accepted and the inoffensive. Further, democratic societies are more safe, free, and creative when the free flow of public information is not restricted by governmental prerogative or self-censorship.
7. It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, they can demonstrate that the answer to a "bad" book is a good one, the answer to a "bad" idea is a good one.
The freedom to read is of little consequence when the reader cannot obtain matter fit for that reader's purpose. What is needed is not only the absence of restraint, but the positive provision of opportunity for the people to read the best that has been thought and said. Books are the major channel by which the intellectual inheritance is handed down, and the principal means of its testing and growth. The defense of the freedom to read requires of all publishers and librarians the utmost of their faculties, and deserves of all Americans the fullest of their support.
We state these propositions neither lightly nor as easy generalizations. We here stake out a lofty claim for the value of the written word. We do so because we believe that it is possessed of enormous variety and usefulness, worthy of cherishing and keeping free. We realize that the application of these propositions may mean the dissemination of ideas and manners of expression that are repugnant to many persons. We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.
This statement was originally issued in May of 1953 by the Westchester Conference of the American Library Association and the American Book Publishers Council, which in 1970 consolidated with the American Educational Publishers Institute to become the Association of American Publishers.
Adopted June 25, 1953, by the ALA Council and the AAP Freedom to Read Committee; amended January 28, 1972; January 16, 1991; July 12, 2000; June 30, 2004.
A Joint Statement by:
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS
Subsequently endorsed by:
AMERICAN BOOKSELLERS FOUNDATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITY PRESSES, INC. THE CHILDREN'S BOOK COUNCIL
Freedom to Read Foundation National Association of College Stores National Coalition Against Censorship
National Council of Teachers of English
The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression
ATTACHMENT C
Freedom to View Statement
The FREEDOM TO VIEW, along with the freedom to speak, to hear, and to read, is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In a free society, there is no place for censorship of any medium of expression. Therefore these principles are affirmed:
1. To provide the broadest access to film, video, and other audiovisual materials because they are a means for the communication of ideas. Liberty of circulation is essential to insure the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.
2. To protect the confidentiality of all individuals and institutions using film, video, and other audiovisual materials.
3. To provide film, video, and other audiovisual materials which represent a diversity of views and expression. Selection of a work does not constitute or imply agreement with or approval of the content.
4. To provide a diversity of viewpoints without the constraint of labeling or prejudging film, video, or other audiovisual materials on the basis of the moral, religious, or political beliefs of the producer or filmmaker or on the basis of controversial content.
5. To contest vigorously, by all lawful means, every encroachment upon the public's freedom to view.
This statement was originally drafted by the Freedom to View Committee of the American Film and Video Association (formerly the Educational Film Library Association) and was adopted by the AFVA Board of Directors in February 1979. This statement was updated and approved by the AFVA Board of Directors in 1989.
Endorsed January 10, 1990, by the ALA Council
ATTACHMENT D
Request for Reconsideration of Materials Form
Name Phone_________
Address___________________________ City, State, Zip_____ _
Representing: Yourself ___ Organization (Name)
Type of material to be reconsidered:
Book Magazine DVD/Video Audio Other (Specify)
Title Author ___ ____________Date _____Call No.
To what in the book/material do you object? (Please be specific, give pages, etc.)
Did you read/view/listen to the entire book/material? Yes No (If not, what parts?)
Although you object to this book/material, does it have any merit?
For what age group would you recommend this book/material?
What action would you like the Library to take regarding this book/material?
Reevaluate the item for its appropriateness to the Library’s collection?
Other (Specify)
In its place, what book/material on the same subject would you recommend that would convey as valuable a perspective on the subject treated?
Your request will be carefully considered by the Selectors and Library Director of Alameda Free Library. If necessary, any decision may be appealed to the Alameda Free Library Board through the Library Director’s office.
Date Signature
