MATERIALS SELECTION POLICY FOR DOVER PUBLIC LIBRARY

OBJECTIVES

The library accepts as its basic objectives the provision and servicing of both print and non-print materials which aid Dover residents of all ages in the pursuit of education, information, or research, and in the creative use of leisure time.

RESPONSIBILITY

Responsibility for the selection of materials lies with the Library Director. The director may delegate selection duties to other staff members, but retains ultimate responsibility for materials selection.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION

The Dover Public Library endorses the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights and Freedom to Read statements. (see attached)

Under no circumstances can the Dover Public Library satisfy the needs and desires of one group at the expense of another. The library does not act as an agent for or against a particular issue but maintains its position as a free channel of communication. The disapproval of an item by an individual or group should not be the means of denying access to that item to other individuals in the community.

All acquisitions, whether purchased or donated, are considered in terms of the following criteria:

Public Demand
Suitability for Collection
Accuracy (non-fiction materials)
Relevance to Community Needs
Critical Evaluation, Based on Reviews
Reputation or Significance of Author
Originality (especially works of fiction)
Artistic Presentation and Experimentation (fiction)
Statement of Challenging or Original Point of View

It is not necessary that all criteria be present in order to select materials. The presence of any one criterion may lead to selection of the item. For example, a book in great public demand, by a noted author, will be selected even if critical acceptance of the work is lacking.

Because the Dover Public Library functions in a rapidly changing society, it must keep flexible attitudes toward changes in communicative materials, in relation to both new forms and new styles of expression.

User input in the selection process is emphasized. This is true both for the initial acquisition of the title and for the purchase of additional titles. It is the policy of the Dover Public Library to purchase or rent sufficient copies of a title in current demand to spare users unnecessary delay in the availability of the title.

Books and other materials will be classified according to the best current cataloging theories. Placement of a book in the library will depend on content, reading level, recommendations of the publishers and the original cataloger, and intent of the original selector of the book.

Responsibility for the reading of minors (under age of 18) rests with their parents and legal guardians. Selection of adult materials will not be limited by the possibility that they may inadvertently come into the possession of minors.

GIFTS

The Dover Public Library accepts gift items but reserves the right to evaluate and dispose of them in accordance with criteria applied to purchased materials.

WEEDING

All books and other library materials in the collections of the Dover Public Library will be periodically reviewed to determine their continued suitability for the library. Materials which are outdated, unused or in poor physical condition will be withdrawn from the collection. Materials, which are withdrawn, may be given to other libraries in the area or turned over to the Friends of Dover Public Library for sale to the general public.

PROCEDURES FOR HANDLING COMPLAINTS CONCERING LIBRARY MATERIALS

All complaints received by any staff of the Dover Public Library by letter, telephone, or in person, shall be referred to the Library Director. Upon receipt of the complaint, the Library Director may seek to resolve the problem in person or by telephone call to the complainant. If the complainant is dissatisfied after discussion with the Library Director, the patron should complete a copy of “Request for Reconsideration of Library Materials.” This form should be returned to the Library Director.

The Library Director will consider the “Request for Reconsideration”. The Library Director will forward a copy of the patron’s form to the publisher of the materials if the patron so desires. The Library Director will meet with the patron and will make the final decision on the matter.

APPENDIX

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.

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 issues. 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 abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
A persons right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
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
Amended:	February 2, 1961, June 27 1967 and January 23, 1980 by the ALA Council.

B. FREEDOM TO READ STATEMENT

The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove books from sale, to censor textbooks, to label “controversial” books, 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 avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as citizens devoted to the use of books and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating them, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.

We are deeply concerned about these attempts at suppression. Most such attempts rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary citizen, by exercising his critical judgment, will accept the good and reject the bad. The censors, public and private, assume that they should determine what is good and what is bad for their fellow citizens.

We trust Americans to recognize propaganda, and to reject obscenity. We do not believe they need the help of censors to assist them in this task. 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 expressions.

We are aware, of course, that books are not alone in being subjected to efforts at suppression. We are aware that these efforts are related to a larger pattern of pressures being brought against education, the press, films, radio and television. 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.

Such pressure toward conformity is perhaps natural to a time of uneasy change and pervading fear. Especially when so many of our apprehensions are directed against an ideology, the expression of a dissident idea becomes a thing feared in itself, and we tend to move against it as against a hostile deed, with suppression.

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 orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and leaves it the less able to deal with stress.

Now as always in our history, books are among our greatest instruments of freedom. They are almost the only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially command only a small audience. They are the natural medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the original contributions to social growth. They are essential to the extended discussion which 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 towards 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 men will stand firm on these constitutional guarantees for essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities that accompany these rights.

We therefore affirm these propositions:

It is in the general interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those which are unorthodox or unpopular with the majority.

Creative thought is by definition new, and what is new is different. The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until his idea is refined and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain themselves in power by the ruthless suppression of any concept which 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 also why we believe it.
Publishers and librarians do not need to endorse every idea or presentation contained in the books they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral or aesthetic views as the sole standard for determining what books 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 man can read should be confined to what another thinks proper.
It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to determine the acceptability of a book solely on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author.

A book should be judged as a book. No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the political views or private lives of its creator. No society of free men can flourish which draws up lists of writers to whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.
The present laws dealing with obscenity should be vigorously enforced. Beyond that, there is no place in our society for extralegal 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 literature is shocking. But is not much of life itself shocking? We cut off literature at the source if we prevent serious artists 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 to 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 taste differs, and taste cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be devised which will suit the demands of one group without limiting the freedom of others. We deplore the catering to the immature, the retarded or the maladjusted taste. But those concerned with freedom have the responsibility of seeing to it that each individual book or publication, whatever its contents, price or method of distribution, is dealt with in accordance with due process of law.
It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept with any book the prejudgment of a label characterizing the book or author as subversive or dangerous.

The idea of labeling presupposes the existence of individuals or groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is good or bad for the citizen. It presupposes that each individual must be directed in making up his mind about the ideas he examines. But Americans do not need others to do their thinking for them.
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.

It is inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process that the political, moral, or the aesthetic concepts of an individual or group will occasionally collide with those of another individual or group. In a free society each individual is free to determine for himself what he wishes 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 or 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.
It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality of thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, bookmen 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 expended on the trivial; it is frustrated when the reader cannot obtain matter fit for his purpose. What is needed is not only the absence of restraint, but also the positive provision of opportunity for the people to read the best that has been thought and said. Books are the major channels by which the intellectual inheritance is handed down, and the principal means of its testing and growth. The defense of their freedom and integrity, and then enlargement of their service to society, requires of all bookmen the utmost of their faculties, and deserves of all citizens 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 books. We do so because we believe that they are good, 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.

Adopted June 25, 1953, by the ALA Council.
Endorsed by:
	American Library Association Council	June 25, 1953
	American Book Publishers Council, Board of Directors	June 18, 1953
Subsequently Endorsed by:
	American booksellers Association, Board of Directors
	Book Manufacturers’ Institute, Board of Directors
	National Education Association. Commission for the Defense of Democracy through Education.