BARTLETT PUBLIC LIBRARY DISTRICT
COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY

PURPOSE OF THE POLICY

The purpose of this policy is to provide the selection staff with a guide for the systematic development of the Library’s collection and to present the community with an official statement of the Library’s commitment to building a collection that meets the needs of the public it serves.

The policy presents the guidelines as they are currently being implemented. This policy will be reviewed every two years in accordance with 75 ILCS 5/4-7.2.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Materials are selected with the purpose of meeting the mission and goals of the Bartlett Public Library District. They are based on print and digital reviews in professional journals, popular magazines and newspapers, as well as lists of recommended titles and patron requests.

Purchased and donated materials are subject to the following standards. These are not necessarily in order of importance:

New formats will be considered for purchase based on popularity, space and cost.

Standing orders include some nonfiction items that are updated by the publisher on a regular basis. Standing orders will be reevaluated every two years.

RESPONSIBILITY OF COLLECTION

Overall responsibility for collection development rests with the Library Director who operates within the framework of policies determined by the Board of Library Trustees. Typically, the Library Director delegates or shares this responsibility with designated professional members of the staff. However, all members of the staff and citizens of the community are encouraged to and may recommend titles for consideration.

DESELECTION

Deselection (or removal of items from the collection) is an ongoing process based upon the condition of the materials, relevancy, popularity, currency and format. Older formats will be phased out as popularity wanes. Per Illinois House Bill 2789 and the American Library Association Library Bill of Rights, the library will not “proscribe or remove [materials] because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval” and prohibits the practice of banning books or other materials.

DONATION POLICY

(See Appendix A)

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

It is the policy of the Bartlett Public Library District (BPLD) to purchase books and other materials evaluating them on the criteria outlined above. Some members of the community may question the inclusion of a particular item in the Library’s collection. The Library provides public access to diverse points of view as guaranteed by the first amendment of the United States Constitution. The presence of an item in the Library’s collection does not imply the Library supports the ideas presented therein. The Library allows the individual to examine issues freely and make his or her own decisions.

The Bartlett Public Library therefore supports and incorporates as part of this policy the Library Bill of Rights adopted by the Council of the American Library Association, the Freedom to View Statement, adopted by the Educational Film Association Board of Directors, and the Freedom to Read Statement adopted by the Council of the American Library Association and endorsed by the American Book Publisher’s Council. (See Appendices B, C and D)

CONCERNS ABOUT LIBRARY RESOURCES

Refer to specific procedures regarding concerns about library resources. (Appendices E & F)

PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY

This is a public document and copies are available at the Information desks and in the administration office.

COLLECTION CONTENT

The BPLD collection provides a balance of materials appropriate for the developmental, intellectual, and recreational needs of all. Materials reflect a wide range of reading and interest levels and are provided in a variety of formats. It is the responsibility of the caregiver to determine what their children read, view or borrow from the Library. Databases are chosen using the same types of criteria.

LIBRARY OF THINGS COLLECTION

The Library of Things is a special collection of objects that go beyond traditional library materials such as home improvement tools, crafting tools, technology gadgets, and more. The purpose of a Library of Things is to help patrons meet a need, expand learning, or try something new, without the barriers of cost and storage.

The borrower is responsible for the item and will be billed for reasonable replacement costs associated with damage or loss of items. Please see the Loan Periods, Renewals, and Fines Policy for more information regarding fees.

By checking out a Library of Things item, borrowers agree to follow all Library policies and all state and federal laws governing the use of that item. Borrowers also agree that the Bartlett Public Library District is not responsible for any injury, loss, or damage that may occur as a result of use of Library of Things items.

New items will be considered for purchase based on community interest, popularity, space and cost. All criteria presented in this Collection Development Policy applies to the Library of Things collection.

 

APPENDIX A
DONATION POLICY

 

APPENDIX B
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 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

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.

Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical ideas. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to ideas.

A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridges because of origin, age, background, or views.

Libraries which make exhibit space 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.

 

APPENDIX 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.

 

APPENDIX D
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 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.

 

APPENDIX E
STATEMENT OF CONCERN ABOUT LIBRARY RESOURCES FORM

 

 

Collection Development Policy
Updated 10/21/24