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NEWPORT BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY
It is the intent of the the Board of Library Trustees that the Newport Beach
Public Library provide a variety of print and nonprint materials to meet the
informational, educational and recreational needs of the entire community.
The Library seeks to provide breadth and depth within the collection, various
points of view, and differing formats. The Library endeavors to balance
materials of permanent value with those of current interest. Materials are
selected based on their content as a whole, not on selected excerpts. Race,
nationality, or political, social, moral, or religious views of an author will
not affect the selection of materials.
Selection is based on merit of the work; value of the work within the collection;
and the needs and interests of the community. Consideration is given to specific
types of material; to materials for specific age groups; to materials for special
interests of clientele; and to differing formats of materials. These selection
criteria will apply equally to materials purchased and to those accepted as
gifts.
The selection of materials is made by Library staff. Patrons making requests
that items be added to the permanent collection will be referred to the "Request
for Book Purchase Form." Suggestions from Library patrons are encouraged and
receive serious consideration.
Many items which are not in the collection are available to library patrons,
without charge, through established interlibrary loan practices. Concurrently,
the Library's participation in universal borrowing, established by the California
Library Services Act, Article 4, Section 18731, provides Newport Beach Public
Library patrons direct access to materials housed in other participating public
libraries in Orange County and throughout the State of California.
The Library believes that the use of Library materials is an individual and
private matter. All patrons are free to select or reject materials for
themselves; they may not restrict the freedom of others to read or inquire.
Parents have the primary responsibility to guide and direct the use of Library
materials by their own minor children.
In support of the above principles, the Library incorporates the Library Bill of
Rights and the "Freedom to Read" statement, as adopted by the American Library
Association Council on January 23, 1980 and January 28, 1972, respectively, as
Attachment I and Attachment II to the Collection Development Policy.
Attachments I & II - Collection Development Policy)
Adopted - October 22, 1990
Amended - October 28, 1991
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NEWPORT BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY - Page 2
Attachment I)
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.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their
responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
4. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with
resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to ideas.
5. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because
of origin, age, background, or views.
6. 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.
NEWPORT BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY - Page 3
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Attachment II)
The Freedom to Read
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 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 libarians 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 it. 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 expression.
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 an
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,
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NEWPORT BEACH PUBLIC LIBARY COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY - Page 4
Attachment II (Contd.)
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 of essential rights and
will exercise the responsibilities that accompany these rights.
We therefore, affirm these propositions:
It is in the public 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
a 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 whey we believe it.
Publishers, librarians, and booksellers 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
a 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 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 one thinks proper.
It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians
to determine the acceptability of a book 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 creators. 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.
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 expressions. •
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NEWPORT BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY - Page 5
Attachment II (Contd.)
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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
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 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.
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 thou &ht 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 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 their freedom
and integrity, and the enlargement of their service to
society, requires of all bookmen the utmost of their
faculties, and deserves of all citizens the fullest of their
issupport.
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NEWPORT BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT POLICY - Page 6
Attachment II (Contd.)
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 it
ours.
This statement was originally issued in May 1953 by the Westchester Conference
of the American Library Association and the American Book Publishers Council,
which in 1970 consolidated with the American Educational Puiblishers Institute
to become the Association of American Publishers. Adopted June 25, 1953, and
Revised January 28, 1972 by the ALA Council.