S-1338 - 05/22/2012 - LIBRARY - Ordinances Supporting DocumentsAGENDA ITEM
Regular Board of Trustees Meeting
of
May 22, 2012
SUBJECT: Collection Management Policy
ITEM 6.F.4)
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FROM: Sue Madorin, Library Director, and the Library Commission
BUDGET SOURCE/BUDGET IMPACT: None
RECOMMENDED MOTION: I move for passage of Ordinance S -1338, "An Ordinance
Adopting a Revised Collection Management Policy for the Village of Oak Brook Public
Library ".
BackLyround/Histo
The revised Collection Management Policy was approved by the Library Commission and
recommended for approval by the Village Board at the Library Commission meeting held on
May 15, 2012.
State law and Illinois Library System membership standards require that public library collection
management policies be reviewed every two years. Reviewing and, when necessary, revising the
Collection Management Policy is a valuable exercise in determining that the library is cognizant
of library users' needs and manages library collections professionally.
The Illinois State Library recommends that policies be examined for what actually needs to be in
policy as opposed to procedure.
Recommendation:
The Oak Brook Public Library Commission and Library Director recommend this ordinance be
adopted.
U) M;
ORDINANCE 2012- LY -EX -S -1338
AN ORDINANCE ADOPTING A REVISED
COLLECTION MANAGEMENT POLICY
FOR THE VILLAGE OF OAK BROOK PUBLIC LIBRARY
WHEREAS, the Library Director has prepared and recommended the attached revised Collection
Management Policy for the Village of Oak Brook Public Library (the "Library"); and
WHEREAS, the Village of Oak Brook Library Commission has reviewed this Collection
Management Policy and recommended that the Village Board approve the Collection Management Policy
for the Library; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE PRESIDENT AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF
THE VILLAGE OF OAK BROOK, DU PAGE AND COOK COUNTIES, ILLINOIS as follows:
Section 1: That the Collection Management Policy, a copy of which is attached hereto and
incorporated herein as Exhibit A, is hereby approved and adopted in its entirety superseding all prior
editions of the Village of Oak Brook Public Library Collection Management Policy.
Section 2: That all ordinances or parts thereof in conflict with the provisions of this ordinance be
and the same are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict.
Section 3: That the Village Clerk is hereby authorized and directed to publish this ordinance in
pamphlet form in the manner provided by law.
Section 4: That this ordinance shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage,
approval and publication as required by law.
APPROVED THIS 22nd day of May, 2012.
PASSED THIS 22nd day of May, 2012.
Ayes:
Gopal G. Lalmalani
Village President
ATTEST:
Charlotte K. Pruss
Village Clerk
Ordinance 2012- LY -EX -S -1338
Library Collection Mngmt.
Page 2 of 8
OAK BROOK PUBLIC LIBRARY
COLLECTION MANAGEMENT POLICY
I. Statement of Purpose
This Collection Management Policy provides guidance to the Library Director and department heads at
Oak Brook Public Library and informs the public about the principles upon which selection and retention of
collection materials are based. This policy states goals and indicates boundaries that assist librarians in
selecting and withdrawing materials.
II. Criteria for Selection
The Oak Brook Public Library seeks to select, organize, preserve and provide materials which satisfy the
informational, educational, recreational, social, cultural and personal needs of its community. As more
materials are published or produced annually than can be economically or practically added to the library's
collections, collection managers must be selective and strive toward excellence in collection management.
Favorable reviews from reputable sources are used by selectors to support the purchase of materials for
addition to the library collections. Additionally, the following factors will be taken into account when
selecting materials:
• Expressed or anticipated needs within the community,
• Individual merit of the work, based on the following criteria:
1. The authority and reputation of the author /performer /producer of the work;
2. The scope of the work, its purpose and intended audience, timeliness, accuracy,
coverage and date of publication;
3. The work's significance relative to other works on the subject and to other materials in
the collection;
4. The quality and suitability of the format for library use;
5. Popular demand; and
& Price
Attempts shall be made to acquire materials listed in standard bibliographies and indexes.
• Needs and interests of civic groups, business and cultural organizations and cooperative programs in
the community are considered in the selection of materials.
• Materials which represent various religious, political and social points of view shall also be considered.
• Requests for purchase may be made at Reference desks. A request does not constitute an order to
buy an item but alerts the selector for that area of the user's interest. The selector will seek reviews
and make a purchasing decision based on the Oak Brook Public Library's criteria for selection set
forth in this policy. Anonymous requests for purchases will not be considered. A library user's
requests and borrowing record will be kept confidential in accordance with the Library Records
Confidentiality Act (75 ILCS 70).
• Selection consideration will be given to the work as a whole. No work shall be excluded because of
specific passages or pieces taken out of context.
III. Selection Responsibility
Ultimate responsibility for the selection of library materials and management of the Oak Brook Public
Library collections rests with the Library Director. The Library Director operates the Library under the
direction of the Village Manager and by the authority and within the policies adopted by the Village of Oak
Brook Board of Trustees as recommended by the Library Commission.
Collection management responsibility is shared in its execution by professional staff as assigned by the
Library Director. The Library Director is accountable to the Village Manager, the Village Board of Trustees
and the public for actual selections made by the staff, and therefore, has the right to reject or recommend
any materials contrary to the recommendations of the staff.
Ordinance 2012- LY -EX -S -1338
Library Collection Mngmt.
Page 3 of 8
IV. Collection Parameters
A. Formats The Oak Brook Public Library (OBPL) has materials in the following formats:
books; serials; CDs; DVDs; eBooks as well as other electronic resources.
B. New Formats New formats are added to OBPL's collection when they are affordable,
accessible and deemed valuable by the profession.
C. Evaluation, Maintenance and Weeding The OBPL collection is organized according
to the Dewey Decimal Classification system. Collection evaluation is based on: the material's usefulness
to the community; frequency of use; availability of current materials and physical constraints.
Librarians are responsible for weeding the areas of the collection for which they select. Removal of
materials through the weeding process is essential to establish and maintain the quality of the collection.
Materials are withdrawn when they are out-of-date, no longer of interest, duplicated, worn or mutilated.
D. Disposal of Library Collection Materials The Library Director or his /her designees
determines whether an item may be sold, donated or recycled by its condition and content.
V. Intellectual. Freedom and Request for Reconsideration of Library Material
The Oak Brook Public Library endorses the American Library Association's Freedom to Read statement
and Freedom to View statement (attached as Appendices A and B).
Individuals who have complaints regarding materials in the collection, may complete the
"Request for Reconsideration of Library Materials" form (Appendix C). The Library Director and Library
Commissioners will discuss the reconsideration request at the next regularly scheduled Commission
meeting. The requester will be invited to this meeting to present his /her objections. No challenged item will
be removed from the collection before the Library Commission takes action on the request. The Village
Manager and the Village Board of Trustees will be informed of any "Request for Reconsideration" and may
participate in the Commission discussion. An anonymous "Request for Reconsideration" will cause no
action. The Library Commission will determine the disposition of the challenged material by a majority vote
of members present.
VI. Review of Collection Management Policy
This policy will be reviewed and /or revised biennially in consultation with the Library Commission. This
policy and all subsequent revisions are subject to approval by the Village of Oak Brook Board of Trustees.
Ordinance 2012- LY -EX -S -1338
Library Collection Mngmt.
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American Library Association
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 mustjealously 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
Ordinance 2012- LY -EX -S -1338
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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 itse If 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.
Ordinance 2012- LY -EX -S -1338
Library Collection Mngmt.
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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
Appendix B
American Library Association
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:
Ordinance 2012- LY -EX -S -1338
Library Collection Mngmt.
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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 content.
4. To provide a diversity of viewpoints without the constraint of labeling or prejudging film, video, and
other audiovisual materials on the basis or 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.
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Appendix C
REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATION OF LIBRARY MATERIAL
Type of Material: _Book _Periodical —Audio-book _Music CD _DVD _Other
Title
Request initiated
Address
Name
Street Address Village State Telephone
To what in the work do you object? (Please be specific. Cite pages /sections.)
2. Did you read /listen to /view the entire work ?.
If no, which parts ?.
3. Are there good features about this material? What are they?
4.
What do you believe is the theme of this work ?.
5. What do you feel might be the result of reading /listening /viewing this work?
6. For what age group would you recommend this material?
7. Are you aware of judgments of this work by literary critics ?.
8. What would you like your library to do about this
9. Is there a specific title of equal literary or artistic quality you recommend that would convey as
valuable a picture and perspective of the subject treated?
Signature of Requestor
Date