Purpose of the Collection Development Plan
The Collection Development Plan is used to guide the staff in acquiring, maintaining, and weeding library materials. The plan also serves to inform patrons of the philosophy behind these practices. The primary goal of collection development is to provide the best possible materials collection within the limits of space and funding.
Collection Review
The Library Board supports the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and considers all materials selected under the Collection Development Plan to be protected.
The Library Board does recognize the right of patrons to question library materials. Patrons who wish to dispute a book or other material may speak with the Library Director. The patron will be given a copy of the Collection Development Plan. If, after reading the plan and/or discussing the matter with the Director, the patron is not satisfied, the patron may file a completed Request for Reconsideration form. A copy of the Request for Reconsideration form may be found at the end of this policy. These forms are also available at the circulation desk. The Director will review the title and write a letter of response to the patron. If there is further action requested by the patron, the Library Director will name a committee to examine the item in question. This committee will include the Director, a staff member, and a Library Board member. The committee will check reviews and determine whether the item conforms to the selection standards of this policy. The patron will be advised in writing of the committee’s decision within 30 days.
Evaluation Policy
The library collection is evaluated routinely. Materials are reviewed by staff members to locate collection weaknesses/strengths, missing items, and selections for weeding. Various methods are used to evaluate materials and may include one or more of the following: circulation reports, volume counts, patron requests, accuracy and currency of information, condition, and comparison to standard lists.
General Selection Criteria
The following are the criteria for materials selected for inclusion in the library’s collection, whether through purchase or gift:
No book or other material will be excluded because of the race, national origin, color, religious, or social views of the author or creator. Judgment for selection is made on the material as a whole and not on a particular passage, page or scene alone.
Gifts of Materials or Money for Memorial Purchases
The Library is grateful for unconditional gifts, and its collections have been enriched by contributions from individuals and groups. In accepting a gift, the library makes the following stipulations:
Principles of Access
SWCPL serves as a resource for the various opinions and beliefs of the community, including controversial or opposing positions. The Library strives to support a collection that represents these diverse points of view. The inclusion of any item in the Library’s collection does not constitute an endorsement of the item’s content by the Library or the Board of Trustees.
The SWCPL Board of Trustees recognizes that full and confidential access to information is essential for patrons to exercise their rights as citizens. The Board also believes that reading, listening, and viewing of materials are individual and private matters. While anyone is free to select or reject materials for themselves or their own minor children, the freedom of others cannot be restricted.
The Library does not stand in loco parentis. We strongly encourage all parents and guardians to establish guidelines for their own children’s use of library materials. Selection of adult collection materials will not be inhibited by the possibility that minors may see or utilize the materials.
The library collection will be organized and maintained to facilitate access. All materials are shelved on open shelves, freely accessible to the public. While materials may be organized to facilitate use, they will not be labeled, restricted, sequestered, or altered because of any controversy about the subject matter, the author, or the potential audience. Materials will only be restricted to protect valuable or fragile items from theft or damage.
The Board recognizes the principles of the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement, Freedom to View Statement, and the Library Bill of Rights and includes them as part of the SWCPL Collection Policy. A copy of all of these is kept at the circulation desk for patron examination.
Resource Sharing
The SWCPL participates in resource sharing with other libraries in order to meet patron requests and to complement the collection. The Library is a member of Evergreen Indiana and LSC–Libraries Serving Communities consortium. Resources are shared among these libraries according to organization bylaws and policies set by the member libraries.
Patrons using the online catalog can view the holdings of more than 100 libraries. Materials may be borrowed from these libraries if they are unavailable at SWCPL. These requested items may be obtained through Inter-Library Loan (ILL).
The Library receives ILL materials twice per week, and patrons are notified when materials arrive. Please note that most libraries do not lend valuable items, genealogy materials, new releases, or audio-visual materials.
Responsibility for Selection
The SWCPL Board of Trustees delegates to the Library Director the authority and responsibility for materials selection and management. The selection and management for all materials is ultimately shared among staff members who are qualified to assist in this process. Patrons are also an important part of materials selection, and may request items for purchase by filling out a Materials Request Form which is available at the circulation desk or may also be downloaded from our website at www.swcplib.com. An individual request from a patron is honored if the request conforms to the guidelines outlined in this policy.
Selection Tools
The following sources are among those used for review, evaluation and selection of material:
Weeding Policy
As a part of evaluation, items may be purged from the collection. Materials are selected for weeding after staff review of circulation reports, consideration of materials on similar topics and attention to currency of information.
Updated and Approved 5/12/2016
Revised and Approved by the Board of Trustees 8/8/2019
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:
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; revised January 28, 1972, January 16, 1991, July 12, 2000, June 30, 2004, by the ALA Council and the AAP Freedom to Read Committee
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
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:
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.
To protect the confidentiality of all individuals and institutions using film, video, and other audiovisual materials.
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.
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.
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
Revised and approved 5/12/2016
Revised and Approved by the Board of Trustees 8/8/2019
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.
I. 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.
II. 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.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries which 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.
VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’s privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information.
Adopted June 18, 1948.
Amended February 2, 1961, January 23, 1980, January 23, 1996, and January 29, 2019
by the ALA Council.