Self-Audit
Ask yourself the following questions about your existing policy:
- Is there guidance for staff on developing a balanced collection within the scope of the library’s mission and the community’s needs, rather than a collection of items driven by the interests and viewpoints of the staff person selecting items for acquisition?
- Does the policy provide guidelines for the use of professional reviews, requests from library users, and appearance of titles in the media when making selection decisions? Does the policy address issues of local importance or selection of items for any special collections?
- Does your policy provide guidance on the collection of self-published works, works by local authors, and works “authored” or created with the use of artificial intelligence (A.I.)? Does the policy prohibit adding bootleg copies, advance reader copies (ARCs), or other unlicensed materials to the library’s collection
- Does your policy reaffirm the library’s goals and mission statement, and the concept of intellectual freedom? Does it reference any ethical statements that your library board has subscribed to, such as ALA’s Freedom to Read Statement or Library Bill of Rights?
- Does the policy comply with Wisconsin Statute § 43.001, which recognizes “the importance of free access to knowledge, information and diversity of ideas by all residents of the state”?
- Is the policy easy to understand? Is it written in ‘plain language’?
Writing your collection development policy
Purpose Statement
Most collection development policies include a purpose statement to help the library board, staff, and general public better understand why the library has a policy to guide the selection of materials and maintenance of the library collection. A purpose statement could address the following topics:
- Collection Development: The library considers community interests and needs when selecting materials, but all purchases are made at the library’s discretion.
- Viewpoint disclaimer: Inclusion of an item in the library’s collection does not imply the endorsement of views by the library staff, library board, or municipality that supports the library.
- Collection Responsibility: The library director has ultimate responsibility for the selection and maintenance of the library’s collections.
- Intellectual freedom: The policy recognizes intellectual freedom as a constitutional right, outlines the library and board’s responsibility to uphold it, and acknowledges parental responsibility. Consider including references to the Library Bill of Rights, Freedom to Read/View Statements, and any locally adopted board resolutions.
Key points to address in your collection development policy:
- Criteria for the selection of materials, which may include specific criteria for various formats, genres, or intended audiences
- Criteria for the use of professional reviews, patron suggestions, local demand and interest, bestseller lists, and general media attention when selecting items for inclusion
- Types of materials generally not collected by the library, which may include examples such as textbooks, reference materials for professionals, consumables/workbooks, materials in obsolete formats, or materials that contain outdated information
- A statement identifying the handling of donated materials and the intention to evaluate donated materials with the same criteria as purchased materials
- Criteria for weeding library materials, which may include usage, relevance, accuracy, physical condition, duplication, space considerations, or format obsolescence
- Access to shared resources (such as Wisconsin’s Digital Library, BadgerLink, interlibrary loan, and digital services like Hoopla) that may not be selected by your library staff or be governed by your collection development policy
- The library’s policies and procedures for allowing community members to request the reconsideration of specific titles in the collection – Stay tuned for more on this in the October Policy of the Month Club bulletin!
Related Policies & Procedures
The following topics might be included in your collection development policy, or may be presented as separate policies depending on your library’s needs:
- Selection procedures for staff that include lists of review sources (including but not limited to…)
- Deselection or weeding policy and procedures, including the criteria or guidelines that library staff might use to evaluate materials for potential weeding, such as the CREW (continuous review, evaluation, and weeding) method or MUSTIE (misleading, ugly, superseded, trivial, irrelevant, elsewhere) heuristic
- Guidelines for local author collections and self-published works
- Guidelines for materials generated wholly or partially by artificial intelligence (A.I.), including tips on identifying A.I. generated materials
- Gifts and donations of library materials
- Materials processing and the use of labels
- Requests for Reconsideration – see next month’s discussion!
Sample Policies
We’ve collected some sample collection development policies for you to review as you work on writing or revising your policy. Visit the Public Library Policy Resources WISELearn Group for more discussion, and consider uploading your library’s policy to the WISELearn group as another example for the library community to learn from.
Additional Resources
Here are some additional resources on the topic of collection development and intellectual freedom:
What's Next?
In October, our Policy of the Month club will continue discussing collection development and intellectual freedom by focusing on Requests for Reconsideration of Library Resources. Visit the Public Library Policy WISELearn group to share your request for reconsideration form or procedure for discussion!
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