Collection Development Policy and Form

I. INTRODUCTION 

The Grand County Library Board establishes the following “Collection Development Policy” in order to best serve the residents of Grand County.  Within the restrictions of budget, the Library will provide free materials and services for education, information, research and recreation. 

II. COMMUNITY

The Grand County Public Library is supported by, and recognizes as its primary clientele, the residents of Grand County.  In order to effectively meet the needs and interests of its patrons, the Library cooperates with the school media centers of Grand County and the Utah State Library. 

III. RESPONSIBILITY FOR SELECTION

The final authority for the determination of policy to guide the selection and acquisition of library materials is vested in the Library Board.  The Grand County Public Library operates under Utah Code Annotated Title 9-7-501 to 9-7-511.

IV.     CRITERIA FOR SELECTION

A. The Grand County Library subscribes to the “Library Bill of Rights” and the “Freedom to Read Statement” which state the following basic policies governing services of libraries:

1. “Books and other materials selected should be chosen for values of interest, information and enlightenment of all people of the community.  In no case should library materials be excluded because of race or nationality, or the social, political or religious views of the authors.”
2. “Libraries should provide books and other materials presenting all points of view concerning the problems and issues of our times.  No library materials should be proscribed or removed from libraries because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
3. “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.”

See addendum A and B for the complete text of the “Library Bill of Rights” and the “Freedom to Read Statement”.

B. Minors:  The library does not stand in loco parentis. Parents and guardians, not the library, have the responsibility to guide and direct the reading, listening, viewing, and internet browsing choices of their minor children.

C. Selection Criterion:  Specific selection criteria include the following:

1. The extent to which the item supplements, expands on, or supports the existing collection, rather than duplicates it. Does it contribute to the depth and diversity of the collection as a whole?
2. Timeliness or enduring relevance of work.
3. Cost relative to the value an item contributes to the collection.
4. Reputation and qualifications of the author, publisher, or producer with preference generally given to titles vetted in the editing and publishing industry.
5. Availability of materials elsewhere in the immediate area.
6. Relevance to interests and needs of the community.
7. Current or historical significance of the creator(s) and subject.
8. Local significance of the creator(s) and subject.
9. Relevance to the existing collection's strengths and weaknesses.
10. Suitability of format to library use and circulation.

D. Aid in Selection:

1. Recognized reviewing media.
2. Publishers’ catalogs.
3. Regular inspection and evaluation of new materials.
4. Suggestions from patrons.
5. State Library personnel.

E. The Library does not seek to buy or duplicate:

1. Research or special collections which are readily available to the public; for example, law collections (available at the Utah State Law Library), genealogy reference materials (available at the Utah Genealogical Society Library), or government documents (available at issuing agency or online).
2. Textbook needs of students in the local school.
3. Professional materials written only for specialists.
4. Highly specialized reference materials.

V. POLICIES BY FORMAT OF MATERIALS

A. Books/ eBooks

1. Fiction:  The Library attempts to include notable, classic and popular novels and short stories.  The reputations of authors, series and publishers are considered.  The value and impact of material that contains controversial passages is examined as a whole because the significance of an entire work often transcends isolated words, phrases or incidents.  Selection is based primarily on the reading interests of the community.
2. Non-Fiction:  The Library aims to have an authoritative, up-to-date, circulated non-fiction collection for the general reader in the various fields of knowledge.  Within each subject area, priority is given to those books which will serve most readers, as well as to collection development which aims to serve the underserved.
3. Children’s Books: Children’s books are selected to meet the informational and recreational needs of young people.  Special consideration is given to originality, imagination, graphic design, and suitability of vocabulary, context, and format to the age of the reader.
4. Reference:  Reference sources are characterized by their ability to provide information and to summarize, condense, or give a comprehensive overview of a topic.  They remain in the library to be readily available to all community members. Selection criteria of particular importance for reference sources are: accuracy, arrangement, ease-of-use, uniqueness of information, authority, documentation, and indexing.

B. Audio Books/ e-Audio Books: The Library will purchase notable, classic and popular audio books.  Selection will be based on the interests of the community.  Authoritative and up-to-date audio books in non-fiction will also be purchased.  As with non-fiction books, priority will be given to those titles that will serve most readers.

C. Visual Media:  The emphasis of the Library’s visual media collection is on instructional, educational, and informational topics not commonly available for the general public. Visual media may also represent important historical, multicultural, and/or artistic aspects of film making including classic Hollywood films, award-winning films, foreign language films, animated films, and films by independent and local film makers.  The collection will also include a limited selection of popular feature films.

D. Other:  The Library will subscribe to at least one local and two metropolitan newspapers. The Library will subscribe to periodicals that serve a broad range of interests. The purchase of paperback books will be limited to special collections or titles not available in hardcover.  Pamphlets and maps will be collected and filed as patron need arises, pending review and assessment by library staff.

VI.       GIFTS

Gifts are welcomed.  Upon receipt, all such material becomes the property of the Library.  Gifts not added to the collection are treated the same as other materials withdrawn from the Library collection.

VII. MAINTENANCE OF THE COLLECTION

A. As materials become worn, dated, damaged or lost, replacement will be determined by the appropriate staff member who will determine whether or not:

1. The item is repairable.
2. The item is still available and can be replaced.
3. Another item or format might better serve the same purpose.
4. There remains sufficient need to replace that item.
5. Updated, newer or revised materials better replace a given item.
6. The item has historical value or is deemed of an enduring nature.
7. Another networking agency could better provide the same or comparable item.
8. Great care shall be taken to retain or replace items that have enduring value to the community.

B. The CREW (Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding) Method - as outlined in CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries available at https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ld/pubs/crew/index.html - will be used as a guide for withdrawing materials.

C. Materials withdrawn from the Library collection will be disposed of by public sale, disposal, trade, or donation as appropriate.

D. Binding:  Children’s books are purchased with library binding whenever available.  Other books vary according to anticipated use.

E. Computer catalog:  The records on the computer catalog will be updated continually.

F. Retention: Periodical retention periods will be based on anticipated use and available shelf space.

G. Duplicate materials: Duplicate materials will not be purchased unless in very high demand.

VIII.    PATRON COMPLAINTS AND CHALLENGED MATERIALS

Patrons wishing to submit “A citizen’s request for Reconsideration of Library Materials” may get the form from library staff.  After completion it is then returned to the Library Director or an assigned designee who will take it to the Library Board.  The Board will review the complaint at the next regularly scheduled meeting.  The Board Chair, or representative, will notify the patron of the findings and action of the Board.  Upon request, a patron requesting reconsideration of library materials will be given an opportunity to meet with the Library Board.

IX. COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW

The collection development policy shall be reviewed periodically by the Library Board and the Library Director.

Revised by the Grand County Public Library Board of Directors on November 11, 2007; February 18, 2009; April 21, 2010; August 24, 2011; February 14, 2013; February 13, 2014; January 8, 2015; February 11, 2016; May 30, 2018; September 12, 2019; and May 13, 2021.

Addendum A : The Freedom to Read Statement

Retrieved from: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/freedomreadstatement

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

Addendum B : The Library Bill of Rights

Retrieved from: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill

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.

Adopted June 18, 1948, by the ALA Council; amended February 2, 1961; amended June 28, 1967; amended January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 24, 1996.