Materials Selection Policy

Purpose

The Materials Selection Policy  provides a general guide to the selection and maintenance of material collections offered by the Library and emphasizes the Library’s commitment to the needs of the community it serves, intellectual freedom, and unrestricted access to information per American Library Association Guidelines and the Freedom to Read Statement

The mission of the Santa Clarita Public Library is to bring people, information, and ideas together to educate, inspire, and enrich the quality of life in our diverse community. In line with the Library’s mission, our collection is:

• Available from all library locations 7 days a week and online 24 hours a day
• Available in variety of formats including those for the vision impaired
• Diverse and inclusive
• Well organized and in good condition
• Current and relevant
• Responsive to new trends, issues, and interests
• Built by the dedicated work of professional staff
• Shaped by the input of our community and representative of its needs
• Guided by the Library’s Mission Statement as well as the Philosophy Statement of the City of Santa Clarita.
• Thought provoking
• Comprised of works of lasting value

Criteria for Selection of Materials

While much professional effort has gone into the selection of materials, the Santa Clarita Public Library recognizes that members of our community may find issue with one or more items. In line with our collection policy, we aim to be inclusive and provide a diverse collection of materials to meet the varied needs of those in our community. The Library, by selecting individual materials, does not promote, support or endorse any particular viewpoint, but rather aims to support the Freedom to Read statement of the American Library Association (attached).

The following general criteria are used to evaluate the appropriateness of materials added to the library collection:

• Accuracy of information
• Merit, awards, or critical acclaim
• Existence of authoritative, published reviews
• Timeliness or permanent value
• Popular interest or demand
• Extent to which the subject matter is already represented in the library collection
• Readability or literary style
• Social significance
• Reputation of the author or publisher
• Space limitations
• Cost
• Physical durability, attractiveness and other format characteristics

Local author materials will be accepted for review, to be added to the library collection, if they meet many criteria of the above criteria. Addition of local author materials will be dependent upon the approval of professional Library staff.

Responsibility for Collection Decisions

Responsibility for the selection of library materials rests with the City Librarian. The City Librarian will delegate selection responsibilities to Library staff as necessary.

Library users are welcomed and encouraged to suggest items for addition to the Library collection. A form to do so can be found on the Library website. If access to the website is not available, a request can be sent via email at libraryinfo@santa-clarita.com and Library staff can assist with the form at any branch location. After the request is made, Library staff will evaluate the request based on the general selection criteria outlined in this document. In order for users to receive notification that one or more of their requests was selected for the collection, valid email contact information must be provided. Library users may also check the online catalog or contact staff to see if a requested item was purchased.

Access to Library Materials

Materials held in branches of the Santa Clarita Public Library will be available to all members of the public, regardless of age or any other factor.

Statement of Concern or Requests to Review Library Materials

Because of the Library’s philosophy of intellectual freedom, there may be materials in the Library’s collection which could be of concern to individuals or groups. The acquisition of such materials does not imply approval or endorsement of their content or opinions, but enables the Library to support curriculum and provide diverse perspectives for the enrichment of the lives of our users.

The following process will be employed when concerns are submitted.

• A written statement of concern must be submitted to the City Librarian. It is recommended that this form be filled in completely.
• The City Librarian will convene a review committee composed of professional Library staff.
• The review committee will review the material and statement of concern. Each committee member will vote yes or no for continued inclusion in the collection. The City Librarian will prepare a written response summary.
• The concerned party will be notified of the results within 7 days of the review committee meeting.

Each time there is a concern or request to remove an item from the Library collection, the City Librarian or someone acting on their behalf will report this request to the American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom. The Office of Intellectual Freedom will then note the occurrence and document it despite the decision of the review committee.

Deselection and Refreshing of Library Materials

The Library utilizes a specific deselection and refreshment schedule in order to best remove outdated, worn, inaccurate and incomplete materials. The deselection schedule allows for Library staff to remove items that meet any of the below deselection criteria, evaluate the need for replacements and updating, and select materials needed to refresh the collection. The deselection schedule is meant to encourage deselection and refreshing on an ongoing basis. Library staff will also deselect as needed in other areas of the library. Whenever possible, deselected materials will be offered to local organizations and schools, resold or recycled. To be considered as an entity to receive deselected materials, please submit a request in writing to libraryinfo@santa-clarita.com.

Criteria for deselection of Library materials includes, but is not limited to,

• Usage or circulation
• Physical condition
• Duplication in library collection
• Edition or accuracy of information
• Completeness
• Space

Magazine and Newspaper Deselection

Magazines will be deselected when they are 12 months past delivery date for monthly magazines, and 6 months for weekly magazines, as space permits. Magazines are recycled or repurposed for library craft projects as appropriate.

Newspapers will be removed from the collection when they are 8 days past delivery date. Library staff will recycle newspaper materials. An archive of historical newspaper collections is available electronically in the Library buildings and via microfilm dating from 1919 to 2015, in the Old Town Newhall Library.

Donating Gift Materials

All donated/ gift materials, with the exception of those given to the Historical Archives Collection, will be received by the Friends of the Santa Clarita Public Library. The Friends of the Santa Clarita Public Library may at any time, suspend the collection of gift materials due to space, deny the acceptance of materials due to condition, or transfer donated/gift materials to another branch of the Library system.

Friends of Santa Clarita Public Library will accept the following items, in good condition:

• Books
• Children’s books
• Audiobooks
• DVDs
• CDs

Friends of Santa Clarita Public Library do not accept the following items:

• VHS videocassettes
• Audiobooks on cassette
• Music on cassette
• Magazines
• Encyclopedia Sets
• School textbooks, reference books, and medical and technology books with a publishing date prior to the year 2012.
• Large sets (Time-Life)

Bookstore volunteers sort and prepare material to be sold in the Friends of the Santa Clarita Public Library bookstores located at each Santa Clarita Public Library.  100% of bookstore proceeds go directly to the Friends of Santa Clarita Public Library who support the library with needed resources and sponsor library programs and special events.

The 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:

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